The standoff stretched into eternity. Zoey's mahna raged inside her like a caged beast, screaming to be released. Every fiber of her being demanded violence, demanded she cross the distance between them and reduce Poison to a smear on the warehouse floor. But those claws. Those damned claws, pressed against the throats of the people she loved most dearly.
"You know what the worst part is?" Poison asked, her voice conversational, almost friendly. "I used to respect you."
Zoey said nothing. Her eyes tracked every micro-movement of Poison's hands, searching for an opening, finding none.
"When we first met, I thought you were out of my league. You beat me to the point where I had trouble believing if I was in the real world or sent to a different one." Poison's smile turned bitter. "But you weren't a magjistar at all, were you? You were something else. Something that shouldn't exist. A human who could match daemons in strength, in speed, in raw killing power."
"Let. Them. Go."
"I'm talking." Poison's claws pressed slightly deeper, drawing fresh beads of blood. Alicia whimpered. Bruce tried to say something through his gag. Everett just stared at Zoey with desperate eyes.
"Do you remember Vio?" Poison continued. "Tall daemon, forked tongue, worked as a bartender? He saved my life that day. Dragged me away from you when I was too broken to even understand who I was anymore. I owed him everything." Her eyes hardened. "He's dead now. Killed by Victor a few months after our encounter. I often wonder if he'd still be alive if I'd been stronger. If I hadn't been so humiliated, so damaged by what you did to me."
"I don't remember him."
"Of course you don't. You don't remember any of us, do you? All the daemons you've killed, all the lives you've ended."
Zoey's jaw tightened. She wanted to argue, wanted to point out that daemons killed humans, that she was protecting people, that Poison had no right to play the victim. But none of that would help her family.
"After you defeated me, I couldn't evolve," Poison said. "Did you know that? I was on the cusp of becoming something greater, a Daemon King, a being that could stand alongside the most powerful magjistars in history. But your shadow blocked me. Every time I tried to advance, I felt you. Your face. Your fists. The certainty that you were out there, still inexplicably stronger, while I was trapped." She began to pace behind the captives, her claws never leaving their throats, maintaining that terrible three-point contact.
"So I adapted. If I couldn't grow stronger through traditional means, I would find another way. I studied humans. Learned their technology, their weaknesses, their greed. I built an organization that answered to me, humans and daemons working together, something that had never been done before." Poison's voice carried a note of genuine pride. "I became something new. Something the magjistar community has never faced."
"Congratulations," Zoey spat. "You're a crime boss. Want a trophy?"
"I want you to understand." Poison stopped pacing, fixing Zoey with those emerald eyes. "I want you to know that everything I've become, everything I've built... it all started because of you. You created me, Zoey Winters. Every crime my organization has committed, every life we've taken, every drop of blood we've spilled: that's your legacy."
"Fuck off you crazy bitch. I didn't do any of that shit. You did."
"Did I? Or did you make them for me when you didn't finish the job?" Poison tilted her head. "You could have killed me that day. Should have killed me. But you didn't. You held back for some reason. Let me get away like I wasn't worth finishing off." Her voice cracked slightly. "Do you have any idea how that felt? To be so beneath your notice that you couldn't even be bothered to end my misery?"
For the first time, Zoey saw something other than hatred in Poison's eyes. Something that looked almost like pain. It didn't change anything.
"I'm going to give you one more chance," Zoey said, her voice flat and cold. "Let my family go. Walk away. And maybe... maybe... I'll let you live long enough to run."
Poison laughed. It was a genuine laugh, surprised and delighted.
"There it is. That arrogance. That absolute certainty that you're the strongest thing in the room." She shook her head. "But you're not in control here, Zoey. For once in your life, you're completely helpless. And I want you to feel it. I want you to experience what I've felt for years: the knowledge that everything you care about can be taken from you, and there's nothing you can do to stop it."
"Zoey." Tink's voice was barely a whisper in her ear. "I sense something. Other daemons. Close."
Zoey's eyes flickered, but she didn't respond. Didn't want to alert Poison.
"So here's what's going to happen," Poison continued, unaware of Tink's warning. "I'm going to..." The window exploded inward.
Three shapes burst through the glass: daemons, small and fast, their bodies little more than blurs of motion. They came from three different angles simultaneously, converging on Poison with lethal precision. Poison's eyes went wide. Her attention split for just a fraction of a second as she registered the attack, her body instinctively twisting to defend herself. It was enough.
Zoey moved. All the mahna she'd been holding back, all the rage and terror and desperate love, she channeled it into a single technique. Overdraft pushed her body past its limits. She crossed the distance between them in less than a heartbeat, her fist already cocked back for the killing blow. Poison saw her coming. Tried to react. But she was already dealing with three attackers, already off-balance, already...
A body interposed itself between them. Zoey's fist, carrying enough force to punch through reinforced steel, drove straight through flesh and bone. She felt ribs shatter. Felt organs rupture. Felt her arm emerge from the other side of a human torso in an explosion of blood. Time stopped.
Ethan Rhodes hung suspended on her arm, his eyes wide with shock, a thin trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth. His hands clutched weakly at her wrist, as if trying to hold himself up.
"Wh..." Zoey's voice caught in her throat.
Behind Ethan, Poison stared at the scene with an expression of absolute disbelief. The three assassin daemons had been intercepted by Jinx's portals, deposited somewhere far away, no longer a threat. But Poison wasn't looking at them. She was looking at Ethan. At the hole in his chest. At the blood pouring down his body.
"You..." Poison's voice was barely audible. "You idiot. You stupid fucking idiot..."
Ethan smiled. It was a weak thing, more grimace than grin, but there was something genuine in it.
"Couldn't... let her... kill you..." he wheezed. "Not before... I got to..."
"Shut up." Poison's voice cracked. "Shut up, you stupid human. Why would you... I'm a daemon. I would have eaten you eventually. You were just food to me. Just..."
"Liar." Ethan coughed, spraying blood. "You never... ate me. Could have... any time. But you didn't."
Zoey pulled her arm free, and Ethan crumpled to the ground. She stood frozen, staring at her blood-soaked hand, trying to process what had just happened. She'd killed him. She'd killed another human. Not a daemon, not a monster, a human being who had thrown himself in front of her attack to save someone, a daemon...
"ETHAN!" Poison's scream was raw, inhuman. She dropped to her knees beside him, her claws retracting as she cradled his broken body. "No. No, no, no. You don't get to die. I didn't give you permission to die!"
"Sorry... boss." Ethan's voice was getting weaker. His eyes were glazing over. "Guess I'm... a pretty shitty slave, huh?"
"The worst. The absolute worst..." Tears were streaming down Poison's face, actual tears, something Zoey hadn't known daemons could produce. "Why? Why would you do this?"
"Because... I love you." The words came out as barely more than a breath. "Even though... you're not human. Even though... you're a monster. I love you." He laughed weakly, and blood bubbled on his lips. "My only regret... is that I never... got to sleep with you..."
"Ethan..."
"If we meet again... in another life..." His hand reached up, trembling, to touch her face. "I hope... it's with someone... like you..." His hand fell. His eyes went still. Ethan Rhodes was dead.
The silence that followed was absolute. Zoey stood frozen, her bloody arm hanging at her side. Poison knelt over Ethan's body, her shoulders shaking with sobs. The Winters family remained bound against the wall, too terrified to make a sound. Then Poison looked up. And the grief in her eyes transformed into something else entirely.
"You." Her voice was a whisper, but it carried the weight of an avalanche. "You killed him."
"He jumped in front of..."
"YOU KILLED HIM!" Poison moved with speed that shocked even Zoey. One moment she was kneeling beside Ethan's corpse. The next, she was behind Alicia, her claws extended, her face a mask of absolute hatred.
"You took him from me," Poison snarled. "The only human who ever... who ever..." She couldn't finish the sentence. But she didn't need to. Her claw swept across Alicia's throat.
Blood sprayed across the warehouse floor as Zoey's mother collapsed, her eyes wide with shock, her hands scrabbling uselessly at the wound that was emptying her life onto the concrete.
"MOM!" Zoey lunged forward, but Poison was already moving. Jinx appeared from somewhere, the small white fox opening a portal directly behind her master.
"This isn't over," Poison spat, gathering Ethan's body in her arms. "I'll destroy everything you love, Zoey Winters. Everything and everyone. And when you have nothing left, when you're as broken as I am, then I'll kill you." She stepped through the portal.
It closed behind her, leaving nothing but empty air. And Zoey's mother, bleeding out on the floor.
"MOM! MOM!" Zoey dropped to her knees beside Alicia, her hands pressing against the wound, trying desperately to stop the blood. But it was too much. Too fast. The slash had opened her throat from ear to ear, and the blood was pouring out faster than Zoey could contain it.
"Zoey..." Tink's voice was panicked. "She's been poisoned too. I can sense it. The wound..."
"I know! I know!" Zoey's mind raced. The Toad Ring. Victor had given it to her a year ago, for exactly this kind of medical emergency. It wouldn't heal the wound completely, but it would keep someone alive long enough to get them to a doctor.
She fumbled in her pocket, pulling out the small ring with its grape-sized toad decoration. With shaking hands, she pushed mahna into it. The toad animated immediately, growing from grape-sized to the size of a small dog. It looked at Alicia's bleeding form, let out a deep froggy laugh that made Zoey's skin crawl, and then hopped over to begin its work.
The sounds were horrific. Wet, sticky, slurping noises as the toad's tongue worked over Alicia's throat, spreading some kind of healing saliva across the wound. Zoey didn't look away, her stomach churning, even as she pulled out her phone and dialed Prometheus. He answered on the second ring.
"Zoey. I've been trying to reach you. The assassination attempt..."
"Failed. I know. My mom's dying." Zoey's voice cracked. "The daemon slashed her throat and poisoned her. The Toad Ring is keeping her alive but I need a doctor. Now."
A pause. When Prometheus spoke again, his voice was all business.
"There's an underground magji doctor. Dr. Yewon. I'll send you the coordinates. He owes me several favors; he'll treat her without asking questions."
"Send them."
"Zoey." Prometheus's voice softened slightly. "The rest of your family?"
"Alive. Scared. Not poisoned." She glanced at Bruce and Everett, still bound against the wall, staring at the scene with horror-struck eyes. "I need to get them out of here."
"Do it. And Zoey... I'm sorry. My assassins should have been faster. The probability of success was..."
"I don't care about probabilities right now." Zoey ended the call as the coordinates appeared on her screen.
The toad had finished its work, hopping back to the ring and shrinking down to its dormant size. Alicia's throat was still a mess, raw and red and wrong, but the bleeding had stopped. She was unconscious, barely breathing, but alive. For now. Zoey ripped her family's bonds quickly. Bruce immediately grabbed Everett, pulling his son into a tight embrace, his thin frame shaking with suppressed sobs. Neither of them said anything. What was there to say?
"We need to move," Zoey said. "There's a doctor who can help Mom. Can you walk?"
Bruce nodded numbly. Everett just stared at Zoey with eyes that had seen too much. She gathered her mother in her arms, carefully, so carefully, and headed for the door. That was when Tiffany arrived. The purple-haired girl stood in the ruined doorway, her chest heaving from exertion, her eyes taking in the scene. The blood. The bound family. The unconscious woman in Zoey's arms. The devastation on everyone's faces.
For once in her life, Tiffany didn't say anything. She just stepped aside and let them pass. And Zoey, carrying her mother's broken body through the ruins of her peaceful homecoming, began the longest walk of her life.