Chapter 46 Leo
It was supposed to be simple. Hit the storage unit, find her, and get her out. I thought I could walk straight into that room and save her. I thought I could control the moment and end the nightmare. I thought wrong.
I didn’t even register the smell of rust or sweat before I kicked in the door. The wood splintered under my boot, concrete shifted, and then her voice punched through the dark like a flare.
“Leo!”
Her scream clawed at me, sharp and ragged, and everything I was chasing solidified into that one sound. I saw her first, tied to the chair, unsteady and wide‑eyed with terror, and I would have sprinted to her if the thing blocking my path hadn’t turned so slowly to face me.
The gargoyle looked different up close, its wings folded like curved knives against its back, its eyes glowing with that cruel intelligence. Time didn’t slow. Time got heavy.
“You touched the wrong girl, you bastard,” I said, voice low and lethal, edged with something primal I barely recognized as mine anymore.
Then instinct took over.
I reached out with my hands and ripped metal railings from the walls. Twisted metal rebar, thick and jagged, came loose like it was less than thread. I didn’t think about the strain, about the weight. I just pulled and tore and forged coils of metal around the gargoyle’s limbs. I wrapped him tight, every turn of iron weaving a trap that felt like closure tightening around a knot.
He didn’t struggle at first. He just watched me, eyes gleaming.
Then the metal screamed.
It snapped like toothpicks under pressure. I felt it shudder before it broke, felt the vibration of raw force as he tore himself free. That thing didn’t break willingly. It struck with the force of gravity undone.
He stepped back, cracked free, and in his hand he held a metal pipe, slick in the half‑light.
He hurled it like a living projectile.
It hit me in the side, the impact white and immediate. Pain bloomed underneath ribs that I didn’t think could bruise any deeper. My head snapped back and I collided with the wall behind me. Concrete kissed my shoulder, and for a moment I tasted it — grit and panic.
I didn’t get to fall.
The crackling pain in my side was a fire I welcomed only because it meant I was still alive.
He stalked forward. Wings rippled against the shadows, like some ancient beast stretching after a long sleep.
I pushed myself to my feet anyway. Blood trailed at the corner of my mouth. My shoulder ached like hell and each breath brought a fresh stab that punched deep under my ribs.
“I was tasked with protecting her,” I said, voice thick, ragged from impact and emotion. “I’ll do it until the day I die.”
The gargoyle laughed. Low. Harsh. Sound made of sharp edges. “Some protection,” he sneered.
He moved then, a blur of bone and shadow and intent without hesitation. Our next clash was brutal and uneven. Metal met flesh. Fists met bone. Magic and grit mixed in the air between us. I wasn’t just fighting for survival in that moment. I was trying to erase every second that led to her being here, bound and betrayed.
I swung at him, closed my eyes with each strike, and every blow landed with a promise I couldn’t quite keep. He hit back with a ferocity that carved anger into my bones. Each time I raised a fist, each time I pushed forward, there was that weight underfoot: Kristen’s scream at the edge of my thoughts.
Pain became a rhythm. A harsh, grinding beat that tasted like metal on my tongue. Every strike I absorbed cost me more air. More strength. My limbs felt like they weighed twice what they should. My ribs screamed with a fire that didn’t want to be ignored.
But I couldn’t stop.
I landed hits of my own. Not because it was easy. Not because it helped. But because if I didn’t try, I’d be less than nothing.
He was relentless. And he didn’t care whether I bled or fell. He only cared whether I stayed down. That mattered more to him than any of the words he spat at me or any of the strikes he delivered with brutal precision.
Eventually the world went flat under my feet. Brutally, unbearably flat. I hit the ground hard, gasping, lungs burning, ribs lighting up with every heartbeat like fireballs strung across bone. I tried to push up and reality screamed back at me — sharp pain that threw stars behind my eyes, that made every inch of movement an act of defiance.
He crouched above me like some judge passing sentence.
Breath rasped. I tasted something acidic and wrong in my mouth. I could barely lift my head. My vision wavered, edges trembling where light blended with shadows, and yet there he was, looming over me.
Victory didn’t look like triumph on his face. It looked like entitlement.
He didn’t deliver another strike right away. First he spoke — his voice calm and slow, like he was explaining the weather.
“Does she know who she is?” he asked between breaths that did not sound labored at all.
That question hit me harder than any fist. It struck my chest like it was a weapon itself. I tried to speak, but all I could manage was a weak exhale.
“Does she know what she’s capable of?” he continued, tone eerily gentle, as if we were having a conversation rather than a brutal fight for both our lives.
Every word was timed with another rain of blows. Not wild, chaotic strikes. Precise hits that landed right where they hurt most. Each one pushed me deeper into a place I didn’t want to be.
“Does she know what really happened to her father?”
My head throbbed with every strike. I couldn’t respond. I tried to lift my eyes, but the world quivered in and out. His questions didn’t just punish my body. They sliced into me psychologically. They were calculated to make every hit mean something deeper than pain.
“You didn’t tell her,” he snarled between hits that landed with unforgiving accuracy.
Yes. I didn’t tell her.
But how could I? There wasn’t a way to make that truth gentle. There wasn’t a way to make it safe.
He leaned in closer. No shame in his voice. No rush to gloat. Just a familiar patter of truth twisted into intention.
“Yet you claim to protect her.”
My body wouldn’t lift. My head felt heavier than the weight of the world. My ribs were flames beneath every breath I tried to take. I could hear the faint thrum of movement behind me, the echo of Kristen’s voice screaming my name, but even her voice couldn’t pull me up.
The gargoyle stepped back then, towering over me. If he wanted to finish it, he would. The air changed around him. There was no hesitation. No doubt.
“How do you plan to protect her from herself?” he growled, pure rage rolling through his words. “She is coming with me whether you resist or not. Her blood will free my master. And the Bloodhounds will be the first to burn.”
He lifted a long, sharp fragment of metal high above his head. It glinted in the flickering light of the storage unit. I could see the reflection of terror in Kristen’s eyes as she screamed my name again. My name that felt pulled apart in that cursed air.
"Too bad you won't be here to see it," the gargoyle said, nothing but deathly intent in his eyes.
The metal pipe began to fall.
And I could only lie there, barely breathing, barely there — pain and dread corroding every last piece of my resistance.
"Leo!" Kristen screamed again, her voice sharp and pungent. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't even move.
All I could do was stare at my impending death right in the face.
"Leo!"