FIFTY-FOUR

Abbadon’s Sacrifice

“What are you waiting for?” Mimi screamed. “DO IT!”

She was helpless on the ground, and for a moment she wanted nothing more than her own death. She wished for it with all her might. She gazed up at the dim stars and tried to imagine the end of everything—freedom from the bond and all the hatred that had sprung from it. She wished for the end, but it did not come.

Jack had hesitated.

While he was debating, Mimi saw an opening and took it.

The pain in her chest gave her newfound strength. I’ll not per-ish in this desert. She had nothing left; why give up the one thing she still had—her life? Jack may be a fool for love, but she was not.

She struck back at Jack, beating his sword with her own, regardless of the pain in her wrist, as her vampire body worked to heal quickly. She sent his blade spiraling downward to the desert floor, the gleaming steel disappearing into a cloud of sand and crushed rock.

Mimi tasted victory, but she knew it was false. It had been too easy to disarm him. “What game are you playing?” she demanded. “FIGHT!”

“I need no weapon to fight you.” Jack was resolute. He could not kill his twin, but with his death, the bond would free Schuyler, and she would heal. He would sacrifice his life for hers. It was what he had planned all along. It was his solution to an impossible choice.

Mimi flung herself upon him in one final rage, pressing the blade’s edge to his throat as she powered him downward onto the sand.

She heard a perilous snap as he hit the jagged rock, and knew his back was broken when he hit the rough stone. Still she pushed until the blade began to cut at the skin on his throat.

A moment earlier, victory had been his, but he hadn’t taken it. He couldn’t kill her, and that was his weakness. But Mimi did not share in his humanity, and she bore down on him with all her anger and strength, channeling the black heart of her rage into the blade.

Every muscle in her body tightened, and sweat poured over her brow. Anger coursed through her face. “Die!” she cried, and heaved the sword upward for the death blow. But when it fell, it struck the ground next to him.

“GODDAMNIT!” she screamed as she flung the sword backward over her shoulder. She was as weak as he was. She could not kill her brother. Mimi collapsed onto the hard stone.

The battle was finished.