Reborn Yesterday - Tessa Bailey Page 0,58

two glowering slayers started closing in immediately. She’d never wished for athleticism harder in her life as when she took a running jump, leapt onto her vacated bar stool and ran across the bar. She only made it five feet before her ankle was captured. She was just gearing up to kick her assailant in the face—probably while apologizing—when a blur of color snatched her off the bar and transported her to the exit.

“Hang on, sweetheart.”

Tucker.

He set her onto watery legs and pushed her toward the door. “Go. Run home. We’ll meet you there.”

Without waiting for her response, he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and swaggered up beside a battle-ready Elias and Roksana. “Been a while since I had a decent bar fight,” he drawled. “Who’m I fuckin’ up first?”

All hell broke loose.

The explosion of the battle threw Ginny’s back up against the wall and for a moment, she could only gape and marvel at Roksana’s skill. She took on slayers two at a time, fighting back to back with Elias, her limbs moving in graceful and deadly blurs. Tucker whooped his way through a string of bar patrons, twisting and dodging with the speed of a hurricane. He plucked stakes from their hands and launched them up at the ceiling where they got stuck, enraging the slayers.

I should go.

Tucker had told her to go, but she couldn’t seem to move. All three of her friends were there because of her. Roksana had come to celebrate Ginny’s birthday and Jonas’s friends were there because of her mysterious illness. She couldn’t just leave them to their fate. Not without trying to help.

Even now, the circle of slayers around Elias and Roksana was closing in. They had the upper hand for now, but for how long? Every time they felled one of their opponents, another one stepped in to take their place.

Chewing on her bottom lip, Ginny surveyed the room. The odds were not in their favor, but maybe she could do something to even them up.

Create a diversion. That always worked in the movies, didn’t it?

We see as well in the pitch black as we do in the light.

As soon as Jonas’s words came drifting back to Ginny, she was sliding along the wall toward the bar, hoping her movements remained undetected. Thankfully, the bartender had joined the fray, so there was no one to stop her from going behind the bar and searching for the light switches. There. They were right behind the cash register, beside the fire alarm.

Ginny smacked off the lights and immediately, roars of dismay reached her from the barroom floor. Hoping her friends would use the confusion as a chance to leave, she turned to leave, but changed her mind and pulled the fire alarm for good measure. A liquid sputter preceded a deluge of water raining down from the ceiling—and then the blaring siren started, muffling the exclamations and bodies running into one another.

She wasted no more time sprinting down to the open hatch of the bar and hooking a quick right, praying she didn’t trip in the darkness on her way to the door—and she didn’t. Because someone picked her up and broke land records on their way out of the bar, up the staircase and onto the street. She was assuming that was the chosen route, anyway. Ginny saw nothing but whipping colors until they were beneath a flickering street lamp on the opposite side of the alley.

Trying to recover from the rush of wind in her ears, Ginny braced her hands on her knees and took a breathless head count. All of them were there and despite a scrape on Roksana’s cheek, unharmed. Thank the Lord.

“Nice assist, sweetheart,” Tucker chuckled, giving Ginny a high five. “You’ve got some trouble in your blood, don’t you?”

“Speaking of blood…” Elias said from the shadow just outside the circle of light cast by the streetlight. “We should get moving now.”

Roksana cursed in Russian. “We’re not taking her there. I promised him.”

“If he knew the separation was going to cause her pain, too, do you really think he’d want you to keep that promise?”

The slayer’s mouth formed a grim line.

“Exactly.” Elias paused, before coming back with a terse, “You going to fix that cut on your cheek or just stand there and bleed to death?”

“I don’t exactly have a first-aid kit handy.”

“Maybe your boyfriend in the bar has one.”

Without missing a beat, Roksana marched in the direction they’d come. “Maybe he does.”

Elias caught her by