When the Mercedes left the neighborhood and didn't show signs of returning, she took two steps back from the window. Tensing her thighs, she sank down into a fighter's stance, curling up her fists and angling her body slightly back on her hips. She breathed deep and focused and. . . Snapping out her right fist with all the strength in her shoulder, she punched the barrier hard enough so that if it had been the jaw of a male, she'd have cracked the fucker into pieces.
The spell stung her back, but all around the room, ripples appeared, her prison cell shimmering as if recalibrating itself after an injury. Before there could be a complete regathering, she pitched another punch--
The glass on the far side of the barrier shattered on impact.
At first, she was struck stupid. . . even as she felt the breeze on her face, and looked down at her now-bleeding knuckles for confirmation there was no other reason why the window had broken.
Holy. . . shit.
Quickly considering her potential exit strategies, she looked over her shoulder at the door John and the Brothers had left open.
The last thing she wanted to do was go out through the house, because she didn't know the layout and had no clue what she was going to run into along the way. But instinct told her she was probably too weak to dematerialize--so if she tried to bust out through the window, she didn't know if she'd be able to pull off a midair disappearance.
In which case she'd yard-sale in the road down below.
The open doorway was her best shot. She could use her own body as a fist, and with a running start, she'd have even more power behind her.
Turning around, she put her shoulder blades against the wall, sucked in a deep breath. . . and sprinted across the room, the balls of her feet driving her weight over the floor, her arms pumping.
She hit the barrier and the pain was incandescent, firing through every single cell in her body, lighting her up from the inside out. The agony blinded her at the same moment that the spell held her in place, trapping her inside its confines and rendering her as good as dead--
Except then there was a tearing as her momentum won out over her prison's invisible bars. . . and goddamn it if she didn't end up on the far side of that bedroom.
As her body broke free, she slammed into the corridor's wall, to the point where she expected to take a layer of paint off with her face and chest as she slid down onto the floor.
With her head spinning and her eyes filled with flashing lights, she kicked her own ass into gear. She was out, but was not free.
Glancing back, she watched the rippling of the spell as it recast itself. . . and wondered if her breaching it didn't send some kind of signal out to Lash.
Go. . . now. . . get out. . . run!
Dragging herself off the floor and down the hall, she hit the stairs on unreliable legs, careening around, stumbling. In the foyer below, the stink of lesser blood choked her to the point of gagging, and she moved away from it, although not because of her nose. All of the egress and ingress at the house happened in the back. If she had nothing but a sliver of time on her side, she needed to focus on finding another way out.
Up ahead, the front door was a massive, ornately carved thing, with glass into which iron bars were set. But all they had for locks were simple dead bolts.
Candy-from-a-baby time.
She walked up, put her hand on the Schlage mechanism, and focused what she had left of her energy on shifting the pins. One. . . two. . . three. . . and the fourth.
Throwing the door wide, she had one foot outstide when she heard the creak of someone coming into the kitchen.
Oh shit, Lash was back. He'd come back for her.
In a flash she was gone, panic giving her wings that her focused mind put to good use. Given the shape she was in, she knew she wasn't going to make it far and decided the best she could do was her basement place. At least there, she could be safe while she regrouped.
Xhex took form in the sheltered alcove that led down into her studio and sprang the copper locks with her mind. As she went through the door, the motion-sensing lights came on in the whitewashed corridor, and she lifted her arm to shield h
er eyes as she stumbled down the steps. Locking the door with her thoughts, she tripped forward, becoming dimly aware she had a limp.
The impact of the wall? The scramble down the stairs? Who the fuck knew or cared.
She made it into her bedroom and shut herself in. As the automatic lights came on, she looked at the bed. Clean white sheets. Pillows all arranged. Duvet spread flat.
She didn't make it to the mattress. As her knees gave out, she let herself go, her skeleton collapsing in on itself until she was nothing but a pile of sticks covered by skin.
It was not sleep that claimed her as she hit the floor. But that was okay.
Unconsciousness worked better anyway.