The Battle for Springville

The Battle for Springville
  Becca’s blatantly amused laughter quickly turned guttural with my nails digging into the skin of her neck.
  She was so confident she could swallow me whole in the dreamspace as though being weak herself didn't matter. I desperately wanted to smack the confidence from her upturned lips.
  I pressed tighter against her throat. Any minute now, or so I would urge myself to snap her neck. Yet, I hesitated. Would killing her here really do anything?
  Out of the blue, smoky shadows speared from her sides like spikey, sharpened tentacles, and they dug right into my gut.
  Blood leaked out of my wounds as I gritted my teeth, refusing to have her hear me scream out in pain. “Is that it? I can heal faster than you can cut me.”
  The smoky shadows twisted sharply, and they burned where they touched flesh.
  Becca leaned in, leaving the surreal feel of her breath to brush my ear. “Your parents beg to differ.”
  The rage tore through my bones before she could move her lips to smile again. I cried out and slammed her against the wall again with my claws carving across her collarbone.
  Her form flickered in response. It then blurred and in the blink of an eye rebuilt itself. “Still think you can kill me here?” she pushed me off her with a force I couldn't see.
  I couldn't kill her, but I would try regardless. I prepared to launch at her, but something in me bucked hard enough to tear a seam in the dark. It wasn’t my power pushing through alone. Something in my marrow split the grip Becca had on the dreamscape and shoved it back down her throat.
  Before I could hit her, I jolted upright with a violent gasp. My spine tingled, my shoulder and gut stung with fresh wounds on their way to healing, and my breathing was hot out of my mouth.
  The stone ceiling of the cave replaced the black haze, returning to its normal build, but the echo of Becca’s hateful comment still rattled behind my teeth.
  A hand caught my jaw, and from the explosion of mellow warmth that burned faster through my thick layers of indifference, I knew it was Ethan.
  “E-” his name fell flat out of my mouth as I tried to hold myself together. His bright amber eyes held on to mine with a puzzled daze, darting from side to side like he was counting my pulse through my pupils.
  “Harlyn, your eyes,” he mumbled first under his breath.
  I heard him, yet I didn't. My rage still blurred my judgment. He persisted regardless. “Hey. Hey. Breathe.”
  I bared my teeth. It wasn’t at him, and I was grateful he didn't flinch anyway when I jerked his hand away. His fingers gently dropped to my shoulder instead. “I'm here. You're here.“
  “I’m fine,” I muttered calmly although my shaky voice betrayed me. My throat scraped raw from breathing wrong in Becca’s little pit of hell.
  Ethan’s thumb moved to brush my temple like he was trying to scrub the nightmare off. “You weren’t fine. You stopped breathing, Harlyn.”
  His voice cracked as though something in him wanted to break for me. I couldn’t stand it, I couldn't stand the way he looked at me like I might fall apart because I could feel myself doing just that. So I ripped my eyes away from him, blinking away whatever darkness lurked in my irises.
  “Where is she?” I rasped, looking past him into the cave.
  “Still tied,” Khalid’s voice replied from the mouth of the cave. He sounded as annoyed as he was concerned.
  Before I could dwell on it, Becca’s strangled laugh slithered up the stone wall behind me before she spoke. “Nice nap?” she sneered.
  I didn’t have to turn to know she was still taunting me. I didn’t want to see her face yet, not when my head was pounding with the ghost of her tendrils trying to gut me out, and my connection to my sorcery felt so weak.
  How could someone be so hateful? Why was I caring so much? My exhaustion seemed to be getting the better of me, and everything I had been keeping at bay was leaking out of me slowly.
  “Breathe, Harlyn.” My wolf nuzzled me in an attempt to comfort me. It wasn't working.
  “Ignore her,” Ethan said, squeezing my shoulder gently. I looked down only to see my hands tightly clutching his clothes. I rose stiffly, releasing my hold as my boots scraped the cave floor.
  My muscles and healing wounds screamed, but I ignored them, leaving my wolf to heal. I moved to peer out into the gash of daylight to survey our path back. “We should head back before Springville becomes a mess.“
  Something was terribly off. 
  Outside, thunder cracked so hard it rattled grit loose from the cave ceiling, startling me. What was that? There wasn't a storm before we got here.
  Khalid stepped aside for me to pass, and to my horror, the passing wet wind carried something worse than the scent of rain. It smelled rotten, like blood left too long in the sun.
  Over the treetops, a black mass twisted above Springville, pulsing at the edges like something was breathing beneath it.
  “The town has been going to hell and the storm has been growing,” Khalid muttered under his breath, flicking his hood up as if that’d do anything to help mellow what was brewing out there.
   “Well. Looks like your idiot pet dog did steal from me after all.” Becca cooed. She hummed to herself like she knew something we didn't.
  I pivoted to finally face where Lorcan had her half-strapped to the cave wall like a carcass waiting to be butchered. She appeared paler, hair as messy as her composure, with a grin that looked sewn on her mouth.
  “You were indeed looking for something important,” I said coolly without meaning to. “And Higan was the one who stole it,” I smiled to myself, feeling amused by the notion.
  Becca rolled her eyes, the smug tilt of her head wobbling with exhaustion she couldn’t hide. “Don't look so amused yet, Harlyn. He might have stolen from me, but I haven't lost anything. Matter of fact, I believe the situation just grew much worse for you lot.”
  “Tear her head off,” my wolf growled menacingly, her tone fueled by my spite.
  I kept my smile on, regardless of not wanting to bite her bait. 
  Ethan replied to her this time. “How, pray tell? Higan is not a threat.“
  As if to emphasize our need to doubt, another crack of lightning ripped through the sky with the air feeling wronger in our lungs.
  “You are right about that, but what he stole is,” Becca paused, teeth flashing in a mean grin. “And none of you know anything about it.”