Chapter 78 Come With Me
Grace stared back at the huge man who was already stalking towards her, he was moving towards her unhurriedly. Grace didn't like the look he had in his eyes, he was looking almost interested in her and she was sure he didn't mean it in a good way.
She looked around quickly, scanning the area for a weapon, from the overturned tables to the debris lying around, there was nothing within reach that could serve her.
She started shuffling back, putting her hand up. "No no, I'm not a witch, you have the wrong—"
The words weren't even completely out of Grace's mouth before the man was already on her, he punched her directly on the nose, the pain was immediate, white and hot spreading from the center of her face. Her eyes watered before she could even process what happened.
The man grabbed her neck and slammed her to the floor, she heard the sound as much as she felt it. Grace felt the air get knocked out of her lungs as she lay on the ground in a haze trying to connect her bearings.
She blinked, trying to bring back her focus as she got on her knees trying to crawl away. The man watched her with mild amusement before he kicked her hands away and was on her once more. Grace was rolling around in futile desperate attempts to get away, the man just swatted her flailing hands away like an annoying fly and grabbed her hair causing her to immediately grab her own hair above his fist to relieve some of the pain.
"Yer a pretty little witch, ain't yer?"
He began dragging her. He was dragging her by her hair to God knows where and it hurt.
Grace continued to struggle, she considered chopping off her hair just to get away but she couldn't even find what to do it with. She dug her heels into the ground but that was only met with the man pulling harder on her hair.
"I was wonderin' how humans managed t'find a place guarded by magic... turns out yer the reason, eh?" The man continued, effortlessly pulling her along, his voice wasn't even strained meaning he wasn't even pulling her with an effort. Grace felt offended by that.
Grace had no idea where this man was pulling her to, she grabbed onto her hair more for fear of it ripping and taking her scalp with it.
"I'm not! It wasn’t me!"
"Aye, they all say that," he said still pulling on her hair and dragging her, "brought 'em right to us, din't ya."
Grace's mind caught on to that as her heels scraped uselessly against the ground, her nose throbbing along the beat of her pulse and her scalp burned.
‘Guarded by magic? What's he going on about humans finding them? A witch, he said?!’
Grace knew that it had to be Molly's mother, she must've done something else apart from just figuring out their location. She's only met the woman once and yet she has managed to create much trouble for her. Grace tried talking her way out of this one.
"Please please let me go, I didn't do anything, I promise I'm not the one you're looking for. Just let me go and we'll talk— ow!"
The man had roughly scraped her against a stone as he dragged her, the stone ran from her upper arm to her shoulder blade and Grace was sure she'd begun to bleed. "Ye think I'll be talkin' to a little witch? Ain't nothin' ye could say that'd make me believe ye."
“Not a word that comes out of a witch’s mouth that I’d take as truth. Ye could tell me the sun was up and I’d go check for myself.” The brute of a man said, with a mirthless laugh.
Grace could see them nearing a pile of bodies and she didn't want to know what would happen when they got to it thus, she increased her futile struggles—planting her heels in the ground and clawing at his hand, she went for the joints hoping she could somehow cause damage to them but the man just swatted her hands away and grabbed both writs, pulling her faster now.
"Grace!"
The voice made both her attacker and her stop, as much as the grip on her hair allowed her, she turned towards the owner of the voice and almost screamed in relief.
It was Maddox. He stood twenty feet away and he wasn't looking like what she remembered, he had a more wild look to him and he was staring at them both with expressionless eyes.
"Let her go Bran, she's a friend" he said to the man whose grip only tightened on her hair.
"A friend.” Bran said as if tasting the word. “Yer sayin' ye're friends with a witch?" He finished and spat, the glob of spit landing beside Grace and making her gag.
"I'm NOT a witch!" Grace continued her futile flailing as she screamed. “Let me go, you brute!”
"Shut it, witch! Not a speck o' truth ever comes from the lot o' ye! And I’ve lived long enough t’know it.”
"You don't understand Bran, trust me and let her go," Maddox said, taking slow steps towards them. “She’s not involved in what happened here, let her go and we can talk through it.”
"Trust ye?” He made a shift in gripping Grace’s hair and she made an involuntary sound of pain. “Bah! I don't take orders from little cubs." Bran said and raised his leg to stomp on Grace, without thinking Maddox moved and was on Bran in a second. Grace heard a sickening crunch and the next she knew, the hand in her hair released and Bran was on the ground beside her.
Dead.
His neck bent at an unnatural angle, his eyes were wide and his tongue lolled out.
Grace quickly scrambled away from the body, her breath coming out in uneven pants, she pressed her hands to her mouth and tried to regulate it but she couldn’t manage to do so.
Only after the body dropped did Maddox realize he had just killed a colleague.
"Fuck!" Grace's eyes snapped up towards him due to his sudden outburst, "Shit. Shit.” Maddox said and wildly looked around.
Grace watched him search around wildly, looking around the camp with rapid eyes, then suddenly go still, she followed his line of vision and saw a man stare back at her. He stood almost thirty feet away and judging from how he lowered half, he was almost hidden by the building, which meant he was running towards something but stopped as something far more interesting caught his eye.
The man's eyes took in the scene with a slow deliberateness that turned Grace’s stomach. He looked at Bran's body then slowly up at Maddox. The man stared at Maddox for a while, both their eyes connecting as an unknown context passed between them. The man’s expression changed slowly as an evil smile spread out across his features, the smile had nothing warm in it, and without a word, the man turned and ran. The speed he used made him quickly disappear from their line of sight.
"Fuck!" Maddox cursed again before turning to look at her with wide eyes, "Get up, we gotta go."
Grace slowly began to stand up, "What do you mean, why are you here, and why—" Grace was barely on her feet before Maddox walked to her, grabbed her by the wrist, and roughly pulled her up.
"Now." He said in her face, Grace's words died in her throat as she stared at the mad eyes that stared back at her and before she knew it they were running.
Once again, she was in the run but this time she didn't even understand why.