the sacrifice

“Haven!” I hear Rain shout from far away. My head snaps up to scour the road behind the monsters, but something slams into my chest and knocks the wind out of me.

The sword. I’ve been hit and I’m-

Not hurting?

The floor slams into my back, knocking my breath into space. Gasping, I scramble to check my chest, but there’s nothing sticking into or out of it. I’m good as new.

When I look at the monster that had hit me, I don’t see a monster.

I see Rain.

He’s kneeling on the floor beside me. As I watch, he raises a desperate gaze to meet mine. “Are you okay?”

My only response is to stare at him open-mouthed, speechless.

Because his hands bunch his shirt in fists where the tip of a blade protrudes from his chest. Blood drips down his forearms, past his elbow, then turns the floor below him crimson. Rain’s face contorts in pain and his breathing comes ragged, wheezing as the monsters begin to circle us.

“Shit,” I swear. “Are you okay? I mean, thank you, but-”

From behind, a monster grabs the knife from Rain’s back and wrenches it out, before slamming it back in.

Rain screams. The sound plunges a hand into my chest and rips my heart straight out. My skin crawls with the way the air is thick with his agony. He’s on his fours, life draining like the colour from his face, rendering him pale and ghastly.

He collapses on the floor, his back wet with blood against my leg, and raises his hands.

Carried by his telekinesis, the monsters fly into the air and stay there, but the action is costing Rain, and heavily.

“Argh!” He groans in pain. His eyes slide to meet mine. “You...fire. Burn them.” He grits out his words.

I glance down at my hand. “I can’t, Rain. I don’t even know how.”

“Help me,” Rain gasps, “hurry.” But I can’t. I hate myself for it, but I can’t.

Rain looks so desperate as he looks at me…wait, is he looking at me? His gaze turns unfocused.

“Do it now!” He screams. I open my mouth to say I can’t and I’m sorry, so, so sorry, but I’m cut off.

From behind me, a blue streak flies through the air and hits the monsters. In a second, a humongous block of ice freezes all the monsters in place, and I’m left staring at them like I’m looking at a horrifying resin exhibit. When I turn back to trace the source of the ice block, I find a girl.

Angular cheekbones and high, arrogant nose, her hair falls just below her shoulders in bleached blond waves, frosted blue at its tips. Bracelets adorn both wrists of her outstretched arms. Without registering me, she raises a hand, and the ice block of monsters rises.

Then in one sweeping motion, she slams it down.

The ice drops. My ears ring with the crash like a glass plane had fallen from the sky, and my arms sting with a bazillion shards of ice as it shatters, littering the floor with freezing ice bits as the monsters disappear into black ash.

Beside me, Rain is still gasping on the floor. “Victoria,” he winces. “You took a while.”

With a scoff, the girl, or Victoria, strides forward. She has a steely gaze to her that I instantly dislike, and she’s pretty in an intimidating way.

She looks between us, sweat glistening over her forehead as she narrows her eyes. “Don’t worry, I brought company.” This close, her eyes are an icy blue. They glint as she stands over Rain. For a second, her face softens. “Are you okay?”

Maybe she’s Rain’s girlfriend?

Rain ignores the question and winces as he presses a hand to his side. “How much company?” As he asks the question, his eyes skip to me like he’s trying to calculate how much of a weakness I’m going to be.

Almost immediately, Victoria’s face hardens. Frost creeps up her arm from her fingertips, and a blue halo surrounds her hand. The cold penetrates the air a second later and I shiver.

“A lot.” She clenches her fist and the cold intensifies. Victoria jerks a head in my direction. “Might want to warn your little girl first.”

Okay, I am not anyone’s ‘little girl’.

Rain’s brows furrow as he takes me in. His eyes are clouded over, like he’s disorientated.

“Oh, yeah.” His voice is slurred. “Can you fight?”

I shake my head. Rain turns to Victoria. “Vi, protect her.”

Victoria glares at me and I return it. Which part of me tells her that I actually want to be dragged into this mess?

A commotion in my peripheral vision forces my eyes back onto the street, and I realise just how doomed the three of us are.

Hundreds of monsters shake the ground as they charge at us. When my eyes dart fearfully to Victoria, I see she’s pale.

Rain’s eyebrows are knitted even tighter as he thrusts out a hand. A score of monsters fly into the air and Victoria makes quick work of them, but as they exterminate the ones in the air, more pour under the block of ice.

“Rain? Rain, I need more!” Victoria yells at Rain. She creates a wall of ice that temporarily barricades the monsters from getting too close to us. But when I turn to Rain, he’s unconscious.

Oh, for god’s sake.