“What are you doing?” Evie screamed into the storm, but there was no way Trystan could hear her above the noise. The guvre howled when The Villain swerved into her line of vision. Evie watched him crouch slowly, picking up the edge of the grate lid, ready to slam it shut at the right moment.
A helpless feeling seized the blood in her veins, her stomach bottoming out as she watched the lethal animal dive closer and closer to her boss. The guvre’s taloned feet were splayed and ready to pluck prey from the ground. Evie screamed when the guvre raked a claw over her boss’s shoulder, a bright spray of blood visible despite the murkiness of the rain.
To her relief, her boss straightened, seeming unaffected by the wound save for a slightly more hunched stance. It’s only the venom in their breath that’s lethal, she reminded herself. If her boss steered clear of the creature’s mouth, he’d live to see another day.
And then Evie would pulverize him.
“Come on!” she heard him yell. “He’s waiting for you!” The creature had landed at the top of one of the towers, her slow huffing and stillness casting an eerie calm over the scene. “You were too weak to get to him before. Are you still?” He was baiting the beast, like she could understand him.
Whether she did or not, she was angry. And Evie’s boss had grossly miscalculated. She could tell by the flash of panic on his face when the creature flared her wings and opened her mouth wide before going in for one more dive. Her intent was clear.
She was going to kill him.
Evie didn’t think much after that, but she noticed things, of course. Her heartbeat in her ears, her boots beating against the pavement. Her dress, heavy and wet, making her steps slower. Trystan’s eyes when he looked to Evie’s fast-approaching form, putting up a staying hand, enraged. The creature closed in, and Evie saw rather than felt her fingers come up to her mouth, and she whistled loudly.
Her mind wandered back to her first year in school and how she’d won a contest for being the loudest of all the whistlers. She’d gotten a medal, and now probably all she’d get was sliced in the face by an overgrown flying snake.
Adulthood should be illegal.
The creature reared up, angling itself at her with the same expression of fury as before, perhaps even angrier. Evie took a slow step backward, then another.
“Sage!” Trystan yelled in her direction.
“I got it, I got it!” She took one more step before swallowing hard. “Run!”
And she did. Through the ruined back archway and then through the large open doors. Around the corner of the entryway, nearly to the stairs. But then a dark shadow came over her, and she realized the steps above her were melting before her eyes, the stone liquifying into a dark goo.
Freezing and spinning around, Evie fell to the ground when she realized the creature’s head was less than a foot from hers, venomous breath permeating the air, making it difficult for her to breathe. “Oh no, no, no, no.” She repeated the word like a prayer, like a mantra that this couldn’t possibly be happening to her. Throwing her hands over her face, just the touch of the hot, cloying breath skimmed her palms.
She screamed.
It burned like acid, eating her flesh alive. She prayed she’d pass out soon, as perhaps then she wouldn’t have to be fully conscious for her imminent death.
Evie cracked her eyes open, noticing a small alcove underneath the stairs. Rolling toward it, she desperately tried to ignore the persistent stinging in her hands the minute they touched the ground. Tucking herself in as small as she could, she hugged her legs to her chest and lowered her chin.
The creature screeched again, only this was not the cry of attack but a wounded sound. It was followed by a loud, creaking thud. Evie carefully untucked herself and moved just her head outside the alcove to see if her suspicions were correct. And they were.
Smiling despite the pain she felt, Evie pushed the rest of her body away from the space. The female guvre lay on her side with her scaly eyelids closed.
“That took a while. Did you slip on your way in?” she asked.
Her boss stood there, chest still heaving with the force he’d used on the battering ram that he must have ripped from the wall display. “Are you critiquing my rescue?” He wiped the water dripping from his forehead and shook out his shirt.
“No, I’m critiquing the time in which it took you to execute the rescue,” she said before narrowing her eyes in realization. “And this wasn’t even your rescue—it was mine. If I hadn’t distracted her, you would’ve been an evil pancake.”
He tossed the battering ram aside with the same effort Becky had used to throw her pencil before walking to the female guvre’s side and putting a hand to her neck. “She’s alive. I just hit a vulnerable point. She’ll be out long enough for my guards and me to take her to the cellar.”
“Are we changing the subject because you’re embarrassed that you were an evil overlord in distress?” Evie walked to his side, feeling a moment of pity for the felled creature. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Happens to the best of us.”
“I’m not ashamed—it’s just untrue.” He always played right into her needling. To the point where Evie wondered if he did it on purpose, just to entertain her. But she nixed that theory, because really, why would he care about her entertainment?
“You cannot be an evil overlord in distress,” he continued, “if you save the hero immediately after she saved you.”
“So I suppose we saved each other, then.” Evie smiled, wholly unaware of why the sentence shut something off in her boss’s eyes.
“Head back up to the office.” He nodded in the direction of the ruined stairs. “I’ll take care of this.”
“Um, sir?” Evie asked.
“What?” The Villain said shortly, his eyes finding the ruined stairway covered in molten liquid. Eyes flashing to the unconscious animal, he muttered, “Did she—”
“Yes, sir.”
“Damn it.”
“I’m sure it’s fixable,” she said, patting his arm. “In the meantime, you need to find a way to get this winged lady to the cellar downstairs. And try to stop getting yourself into trouble in the meantime; I can’t keep saving you.”
It was meant to be a joke, to lighten the moment, but it sure didn’t feel like one when The Villain’s molten gaze landed on hers.
