Chapter Nine

With my eyes solely locked on Dante, I don't pay attention to my surroundings as I rush across the street to the other side. I slide on my side on a low car, extending my leg to kick, but right before my foot came in contact with his upper part of his thigh I feel my calf getting grabbed, stopping me.

Without any warning, the newcomer, flings me backwards. My back comes crashes into another vehicle on the same side I came from. I let out a groan as the sudden impact momentarily knocks the air out of me.

"Millie!" I hear my name being called and I turn my head to the voice.

Hayes, after making my move, decided to attack Dante from a different angle, coming from behind instead from the side as I did. I see him heading towards me. He bends down and wraps his arm around my waist, pulling me up to my feet.

"I'm good." I say when the concern in his eyes. "I'm going to murder her ass." I promise as I look over at the red headed bitch who threw me across the street.

"I'll take of care Dante." He replies, letting me go, and the serious, hard expression is back.

We weren't expecting Dante to have a friend with him, but she'll regret coming to aid him. I crack my knuckles as I take steps towards the unknown woman. She doesn't seem scared in the less as smirks plays on her blood red lips, gesturing for me to attack first.

I knows she's a Morche and will most likely try to drain my blood if I give her that chance. The first time I ever saw a Morche I was terrified. I stood there paralyzed by my fears. Yet, in this moment, I don't feel fear. I'm pissed and she's the perfect opponent to take my frustration out.

She stands on the opposite side of the car as me, waiting for me to throw the first punch.

She tilts her head to the side. "Oh did I ruin your plan?" She says in a teasing voice before pouting. "I'm sorry, please forgive me, princess. What do you want me to do?"

I narrow my eyes. "Don't apologize. I want you to stay exactly where you are." I smirk. "Because you don't have choice."

While she was being an actress, I was moving water under the car, freezing her feet. She glances down at her feet and realizes what I have done and I take the opportunity to climb over the car and my fist connects with her the side of her face.

I continue to punch, making her head whip from side to side, nonstop. She growls as she catches one of my fists and bends it backwards, making me kneel to the ground.

"I can't wait to have your blood cover my face." She tells me, evilly as her eyes turns into a darker red and she breaks free from the frozen trap.

Her sharp teeth comes to my neck and I can feel her close to breaking skin. I use my free hand to punch her in her ribs and pull her hair, moving her away from my neck. Standing back to my normal height, I spin to my right, sending my elbow back.

She lets go of my arm and I grab her by her shoulders before using my knee to hit her in her stomach. She head bumps me, hard. I stumble back into the street as she sticks her foot out to trip me.

Once I'm on the ground, she climbs onto of me, pinning my arms down with her knees to keep me down, baring her teeth. I can't reach from the weapons in my boots or in my pockets.

She leans forward and her mouth latches to my neck and this time she does bite me and I scream out. She sits back as my blood drips from her lips.

"You taste delicious." She says, licking her bottom lip.

She moves to drink from me once more but before she can, she's being yanked off me and thrown to the side.

I see Hayes standing over me and I know he wants to ask if I'm okay but it isn't given the chance as Dante rushes to him. Hayes's attention is back on Dante and mines goes to the woman. She's barely getting to her feet and I do the same.

I can see the angriness in her eyes from where I stand and I hope she can see mine as well.

She bite me!

She runs at me and I grab my daggers before sprinting to her. I jab the little knife at her body and she dodges it.

"How pathetic are you?" She asks. "You can't even save yourself. Your precious little boyfriend has to."

I swing the dagger. "Shut up!" I growl. "I don't need him to save me."

"From where I stand, it's hard to tell."

"Then move."

"How can you save yourself, when you couldn't even save your sister?" She replies, hitting a nerve.

I stop attacking as I stare at her with fire in my eyes. If I was pissed before, I'm beyond angry now. She doesn't bring my sister up—not when she had a part in death. I feel a burning heat flow through my veins.

"Did I make you mad?" She says, teasingly. "Are you gonna—"

I don't let her finish as my hand quickly reaches out to grab her by her throat. I squeeze, cutting off her airway. She claws at my arm in attempt to let her go.

I tilt my head to the side. "C'mon now. How pathetic are you if you can't even safe yourself?" I mock her.

I bring her to her knees and she stares at me with her eyes bulging out their sockets. She's running out of air and I have no desires to release my hand from her throat, but I do when I feel an heat energy being shot out my hand.

I glance at my hand, confused.

What the hell was that?

My hand is red and looking at the woman's neck, I can see my fingerprints around her throat. Her neck is burned and she touches her skin. Glancing back at my hand, my eyebrows comes together.

"What the fuck do you do to my neck?" She ask, frustrated, getting to her feet. "You royal bitch!"

She moves quickly, teeth ready to be sink into my skin again. She stands in front of me in blink of an eye as one hand grips my hair. She turns my head to where the two small punctures are and lowers her mouth. When her lips touches my skin, she jumps back as if she got burned.

She takes a few steps back in confusion.

"What's the matter?" I ask, taunting her. "I thought you wanted my blood."

She growls at me. "I might not be able to touch you anymore, but he can." She nods towards Dante. "And I'll kill your precious boyfriend instead."

She doesn't say anything else as she runs towards them and I follow right behind.

"Dante!" She yells. "Switch!"

Dante doesn't question her as him steps around Hayes and makes his way to me. I stop in my track as the big bull comes racing to me. I freeze the ground below his feet to slow him down.

I watch as Hayes doesn't hesitate to take down the woman, whose name I still don't know. My eyes goes back to Dante and he's slipping and sliding. I run at him, jumping in the air to wrap my legs around his stomach. I use my elbow to hit him in his head a couple of good times before he grabs my leg and throws me down.

He picks me back up by my throat and slams me back down on the icy ground. My head impacts hard on the ice, making my vision go black.

I have trouble keeping my eyes fully open as his large hand is still wrap around my throat. I hear a sickening crack of a person's neck in the distance and Dante looking in that direction.

"Yuma!" He yells, revealing the woman's name.

I feel him remove his hand from my neck as I hear Hayes's low, cold voice.

"I told you, if you touched her, I would rip you limp from limp. I fucking meant that."

I slowly get to my feet as I see a side of Hayes I have never saw before. This is the darkest and scariest part of Hayes. The part, he probably never intended for me to ever see. Even I'm intimidated by him and he's my boyfriend, the love of my life.

I look past them and see Yuma lying on the street with her neck snapped and her eyes wide open. Dante takes one more blows before he realizes he has had enough. He turns into a shadow and heads to Yuma. He picks her up, whispers something before vanishes in the air.

Hayes walks over to me as he face softens. "Are you okay?" He asks, caressing my face

I nod. "I'll be fine. I can take a wicked headache." I study him, looking in his eyes and the dark Hayes I saw earlier is no where to be found. "What was that?"

He frowns. "What do you mean?"

"You know. The whole 'I'll rip you limp from limp' line."

He hangs his head. "I didn't think you saw that." He says almost ashamed. "I knew Dante was heartless but I wanted to believe he wouldn't harm you badly." He shrugs. "Yet, when I saw him slam you into the ground the second time, I lost control." He looks up. "I'm sorry."

I smile. "There's no need to be sorry."

We both harnessed this darkness inside us although Hayes has a better control on his. He only unleashes it when he's pushed beyond his limit while I drown in mines when I can't handle the pain and heartbreak anymore. He's stronger than I am physically, mentally and emotionally.

"Let's get out of here." He says. "They aren't coming back and we need to figure something else out."

I know we should've came up with a plan B just in case something unexpectedly, just like this, happened. We don't have any other choice but to check every warehouse now. We are running out of time. With everyday that goes by, the stronger Ramadi gets. In no time, his world can be built and I have to stop him before that time arrives.

"Carry me." I groan, taking my mind of our next step.

It isn't because I don't feel like walking. It's because I'm light headed and don't have the energy to do so.

"Whatever you say, princess." He says, grinning.

He carries me on his back as we walk down the street. When the fought broke out, the pedestrians ran in the opposite direction while others stayed in the building, watching from inside the safety of the walls.

But even knowing this information, the streets seems too quiet. Way too quiet. The brightness of my necklace catches my attention as I glance down at it. I knew there's Morches lurking around in the area but I didn't think there were some many of them in the bars.

It doesn't matter. We're leaving anyway. They'll catch the scent of my wound on neck any moment now and I'll rather but far away when they do. I don't need anymore obstacle to get in my way. I had too many to count.

I drop my necklace as I feel Hayes stop walking.

"What's the matter?" I ask him but he doesn't respond and he doesn't need to. Peering over his head, I see for myself.

The necklace glowing has nothing to do with the Morches in the bars; but the ones outside as they completely surround us. There's over twenty of them as they stand in front, behind and on the sides of us.

How did they know we were here while the others didn't?

The answers comes to me. It's Dante's escape plan. He called for backup and they came. Yuma is dead and Dante is badly beaten up. Of course he would need help fleeing from the city.

Hayes lowers to the ground and sets me down.

"Listen to me." He says, lowly. "I'm going to clear a path for you and you run." He looks at me with serious eyes. "And don't you think about coming back."

"I'm not." I reply. "Because I'm not leaving. I'm staying beside you."

"You can't fight. You have a concussion." He unnecessarily reminds me.

"Doesn't mean anything. I'm not abandoning you."

With so many of them, I know for a fact he'll run out of energy before he finishes them all. At least with me, we have a better chance at surviving. We could at most deal with the majority of them before escaping ourselves.

"Millie." He says in a stern voice. "Don't argue with me. Not this time."

I ran back in California when I thought Eli Smith was going to kill me and I ran when we got ambushed the night of the performance. I'm not running anymore. I'm tired of running.

"And go where, huh?" He said so himself, I have a concussion and I'm weak. I won't get very far without his help.

"Anywhere but here."

During our argument, the Morches moves closer. I glance at them out the corner of my eye.

"We don't have time to argue. Let me help you and we can finish this quickly." I say.

He shakes his head in disappointment. "When will you ever listen to me?" He asks as if he were father.

He doesn't give me a chance to respond back as he unlocks a car right beside up and pushes me inside, locking it. He makes it to where I can't unlock it and I bang on the window.

"Let me out, Hayes!" I yell but ignores me as he manifests a sword.

The Morches takes that as a signal to attack and they all move on Hayes. I jump when one lands on top of the car and tries to get inside. Why can't he trust me for once and allow me to help him?

Maybe because he loves you too much to be worried about your life. The voice suggests.

Shut up. I say. No one asked you.

I have next to little to no energy whatsoever to use the only power I can to help Hayes and that's my water ability.

"Hayes!" I shout. "Let me out, now!"

I can see him physically getting tired as he finishes off a Morche. I can see the rise and fall of chest and the Morches can as well. They're waiting until he has no more strength before they slaughter him. Right now, they're teasing him as they circle him pretending to attack. His eyes goes over to me and he throws the only weapon his has towards the top of the car at the Morche trying to get inside.

Something is off about this vehicle. A few minutes ago, a couple of Morches tried to get through the roof of the car and failed and Hayes didn't seemed too worried about it until now. He must've put a protective shield around the car because I know the Morches can easily shred through the mental in no time but it must be fading away if he's trying to protect the car.

Of course it is. The protective shield is connected to his energy source. He's getting tired and the shield is getting weaker. He continues to ignore my protests of letting me out as he takes down one more Morche.

But even with the ones he has killed, there's many more lying in wait. He's not going to last much longer and I know he's not pretending to be weak like he did back in Atlanta to break Jason.

This isn't an act.

He uses his hands to take out two more Morches but it seems as if they're growing by number every second. I see a Morche sneaking up behind him and I repeatedly bang on the window to warn him but when Hayes turns around, it's too late. The Morche plunges the sword into his side, breaking the protective shield. When he falls to his knees, breathing heavily, he glances at me.

There's no words exchanged but I know that look means I love you.

When the Morche twist the sword and Hayes cries out, I feel a single tear drop fall from my eye.

"Screw this." I say, wiping the lonely tear. "This isn't how our story is going to end."

I lean back and kick the window and the glass breaks. I climb out, cutting myself and the Morches face their attention at me, smelling the fresh wound.

"You're not going to kill him." I tell them. "Not while I'm here. You want me—not him."

The Morches exchange looks with one other before making internal decision. They remove the sword from Hayes' body and they all begin to move toward me which is exactly what I wanted.

I don't know what I have planned but I know everything is going to be okay. I don't have an ounce of fear in my body as they get closer to me. That burning heat, I felt earlier, has returned but it's way stronger.

The strange thing is, it almost feels similar to when I'm summoning water.

Without giving it a second thought, I unleash that burning heat from my body and a bright red and orange light escapes from inside me as I yell.

What did it do? I couldn't tell you because I was unconscious as soon as I saw the light.