Scarlet Dawn (22 page)

“
Y
ou!”
Serena cried out as she rushed forward towards Kristine.

Kristine smirked and coiled her pale-green aura around Serena’s body as she threw her against the wall.

“You’ve always been so rash, Serena,” she smirked, stepping forward slowly. “I didn’t have to worry about whether or not all this would work out; I just had to trust that, if it didn’t, you’d be predictable enough to do
exactly
what you’ve done. That’s the problem with always letting your emotions lead you.”

“Shut up!” Serena glared, standing up and shaking debris off her as she stepped forward. “Don’t act like you know me! You’ve been a thorn in my side since you killed Devon, but you’ve
never
been able to figure out
why
you’re so obsessed with coming back! You want to play the ‘stupid emotional twat’ game? Try looking at yourself for a change!”

“Ah, yes. Poor Devon” Kristine glared, “The man you
claimed
to love so much until Zane came into the picture.”

“I did love Devon!” Serena growled and began to throw her aura out in jagged bursts, “I could
never
have been driven to kill him for
any
reason!
You
, you stupid jealous bitch, killed him because you were pissy that he hadn’t chosen you! You’re nothing but a spoiled little brat throwing a tantrum because her puppy liked somebody else more!”

Kristine growled, “Shut up! It was
your
new
psychotic
pet that finally destroyed Devon!” She glared, dodging and blocking the auric spikes and shook her head, “You are going to have to be better than
that
!”

Kristine lunged then and slammed her fist in Serena’s stomach, using her aura to propel the punch and grinned at Serena’s pained expression. Serena frowned, gasping as blood spilled from her lips and frowned.

She couldn’t lose!

Not now!

Not ever!

Not when everything was suddenly so clear.

“Zane can’t be blamed for taking Devon from this world,” Serena hissed, spitting a wad of blood in Kristine’s face. “It was
your
carelessness—your fucking jealousy making you every bit the stupid bitch you’ve allowed yourself to become—that did that.” Kristine glared and tried to open her mouth to speak, but her auric shields were fractured—weakened by her emotions—and Serena wormed her aura into her mind and locked her jaw in a psychic bind. “No, Kristine. You’ve wasted your voice enough for one lifetime,” Serena started towards her letting her aura section off into three tendrils—two forming miniature crossbows in each hand while the third whipped back-and-forth from her chest—and started to march towards her. “And even after
you
fucked up and killed the man you claimed to love, he came back to
me
! You’re a special breed of loser, Kristine; the kind that would
kill
the puppy for playing with the neighbor boy, and then throw a tantrum when the puppy’s ghost didn’t bark outside her window.” Serena scoffed, “He didn’t even care enough about you to
haunt
you!”

“SHUT UP!” Kristine glared, hurling her aura out at Serena only to have the whipping tendril deflect it.

Serena shook her head, “Wait, it gets better: because Zane—the one you
blame
for ‘taking Devon away’ despite
your
murdering him without
any
guarantee that he’d come back—only reacted to Devon’s fractured personality; a personality that’d still be whole if not for you. And when Devon’s mind was too far gone to make the right decisions, it got him the peace he should have been allowed in the first place.” She narrowed her eyes at her, “The difference between you and me isn’t that I’m a stupid bitch and you’re not, the difference is that
you’re
a stupid bitch who can’t own up to it and admit that sometimes the fault is just your own!”

She raised the two auric crossbows and took aim.

“And now, you boring, repugnant cocksucker, you have to die!”

Suddenly Devon was standing in front of her.

“D-Devon?” Serena whispered, “It… It can’t be…”

“It’s me, Serena…” He stepped forward and placed his hand on her cheek.

“No, Kristine,” Serena leveled one of the auric crossbows to Devon’s chest. “If you’d been listening, you’d know that I’ve made peace with the fact that Devon’s gone, and there’s nothing that—”

“Serena?” Zane stepped out from behind Kristine, “You have to stop
thi—”

Serena rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, you stupid bitch! You’re not even—Zane! Will you please come out and show Kristine what a stupid bitch she is?”

Zane’s aura spiked from the staircase where she’d left him and he poked his head out, “Huh? Do you need help or something?”

Kristine’s eyes widened.

Serena smirked, “No, that was enough. Thanks, babes.”

“Uh… Yea. No problem,” Zane nodded.

Serena turned back, shooting two “bolts” from each of the auric crossbows—two through the fake-Devon and into Kristine’s right shoulder and hip, one through the fake-Zane and into Kristine’s left thigh, and the last in Kristine’s chest—and walked through the Devon illusion as it faded. Slumped against the floor, Serena watched as Kristine struggled against the auric binds that pinned her against the wall.

“Probably should’ve mentioned that Zane’s back, and in his own body, no less.” Serena shrugged, “Thought that Axle trick was pretty clever, huh?” Serena’s auric crossbows faded from her hands, leaving only the purple tendril that extended from her chest, “Now, as I was saying: it’s time to die.”

“Y-you’re for-getting… my grea-greatest fault,” Kristine whimpered.

Serena sighed, “Well, since you’re probably going to bleed out soon you might as well tell me.”

Kristine chuckled against the pain, “If… I can’t win… I won’t let… anybody… win…”

Turning her aura inward one herself, Kristine’s
life-force snuffed itself and triggered an auric burst, consuming Serena in the blast.

“She still hasn’t woken up?” Zane growled, driving his fist repeatedly into the empty gurney neighboring Serena’s body. “You said her aura’s active; you said that she was going to pull out of it! It’s been
eight
goddam hours! Why hasn’t she woken up yet?”

Zoey bit her lip, “I… I can’t answer that, Zane. Nobody can. I’ve been feeding
twice
the standard energy doses into her and I’ve got her on a synthetic blood drip that’s
four times
the concentration of what we used to wake you up when you were in Axle’s body. Biologically, she
should
be bouncing around like a damn a hummingbird, but there has been
a lot
of stress and pain on her ever since you were taken,” she sighed. “I think that she’s exhausted, Zane; I think that her mind is taking a vacation to recuperate from all the sleepless, lonely nights and all the fear that she’d never get to see you again.” Putting the files aside and wrapping her arms around her friend, she used the contact with her left hand to drain some of his anxiety. “The most you can do right now is just be there for her.”

Zane sighed and nodded, looking back at Serena and smiling. “Well, at least we all made it out of there, right?”

Zoey chuckled, “You
know
she’s going to taunt me about being right when she wakes up, right?”

“Can’t really blame her,” Zane smirked, “She was right about
everything
!”

“Can you do me a favor and
not
feed her that gloating right for at least a day?”

“Only if you do me a favor,” Zane smirked.

Zoey groaned, “What?”

“I am
dying
to get a Slushie and a cheap, nasty gas station hot dog in my belly, and I’m sure Serena would love to have a Snickers and one of those magazines she’s always reading. Do you think you could drive me to the city and front me the cash to grab the goods?”

Zoey frowned, “Why can’t you drive and buy your own garbage?”

“Because then it wouldn’t be a favor,” Zane chuckled.

“I guess that makes sense… sort of,” Zoey nodded. “Alright, fine.”

Zane frowned and looked over. “Why are we keeping that
thing
in here?”

Zoey looked over at the
ykali body that was still being infused with the
Maledictus
curse and frowned, “Because that’s a corpse…?” She frowned, “And we’re in the medical center. Would you rather we kept it in the cafeteria?”

Zane frowned at the creature and shrugged, “I guess I just don’t like the idea that it could suddenly wake up.”

“Doubt it. It’s not that it’s not going to wake up
eventually
, but
that’s
been out without
any
sign of life—no pulse, no brain activity, and barely any measureable auric activity—for
days
, where Serena’s breathing and dreaming no differently than if she was just napping. Between the two of them, I’m willing to bet that Serena’s going to be the first to open her eyes.”

Zane frowned, glancing back at Serena. “You promise?”

“STOP THE CAR!” Zane cried, barely letting Zoey complete the stop before he was grabbing at the door handle and trying to get out of the car.

“What is it?” Zoey asked, looking in her mirrors, frantic to know if she’d done something wrong, “Did I hit something?”

Zane shook his head—his eyes wide and unblinking as he stepped from the car and stared down the sidewalk. Unable to bear the tension and suspense, Zoey threw the car into park and stepped out, as well. Stepping over to stare in the direction of Zane’s unseen obsession, Zoey frowned at the simple and common sight of people walking around the city streets.

“Zane…?” Zoey frowned, looking up at her friend, “You’re scaring me. What are you looking for?”

“I…” Zane shook his head and sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I thought I saw somebody I used to know. Sorry about that.”