Free A Hero Rising by Aubrie Dionne

you’d come back.”
    “I promised ya, didn’t I?” His voice was scratchy, as if he hadn’t used it in a long time. “Too bad Skye didn’t believe me.”
    He held up her note in his shuddery hand. “I followed you all the way here, tracking your footsteps through the sewers.” His head jerked, and she saw a line of black snaking down his chin. “I can smell a lot of things now: the sweat of fear, the reek of a drop of blood, the tracks of a betrayer.”
    Skye threw her arms up, palms outstretched. “Grease, I can explain. I watched the footage of the attack so many times. I thought you were dead.”
    His shoulders squiggled as if scorpions were running up his back. “So you ran off with another man, a do-gooder leprechaun, the enemy of the Razornecks.” Bitterness dripped from his words.
    Skye crashed inside. It hurt to have him see her like this. He believed she’d abandoned what they’d had. “I waited for you for hours until we had no food left and a crazy old woman ransacked our apartment.”
    “Looks like you hightailed it outta there first chance you got, first man you met.”
    Grease’s twitching increased in speed until he shuffled from foot to foot. Everything about him was wrong; the way he stood with his back bent forward, the hatred in his voice, the strange movement of his hands. All those hours she’d wished for him to come back, and now his presence twisted her stomach. She pitied him, missed him, and feared him all at the same time.
    Maybe some promises are better left unfinished.
    Grease reached out and grabbed Carly in the twitch of a finger. He held her close, like a rag doll he’d reclaimed from a stolen loot pile.
    Carly shrieked, tears running down her cheeks. Jennifer fell to the floor, the doll’s eyes lolling.
    Grease’s hands tightened around her. “I’m not going to let you take my family away from me.”
    James held up his hand, gripping the laser in the other. “Let her go, Grease, and we’ll work this all out.”
    “There’s nothing…” Grease paused as if he’d lost his train of thought and shook his head. “To work out.”
    Grease moved from side to side like a predator deciding how and when to strike. He raised his head and his hair fell back, revealing a charred streak of flesh running down his cheek to his neck. His weasel-like black eyes shifted. As Skye looked into them, the darkness spread to the corners. They looked too big and slanted in a strange, alien way.
    “You’ve got to do something,” Skye whispered through trembling lips. “He’s different than he used to be. He’s changed .”
    James shook his head. “I can’t hurt Carly’s father. No matter what he’s become.”
    Grease retreated toward the elevator. “I’m taking Carly with me. You can stay with your new boyfriend. I don’t need ya.”
    James tightened his grip on the trigger. “I can’t let you do that.”
    He fired and Skye screamed. The white light flashed by Grease and Carly, hitting the elevator panel. The wires short-circuited, and the doors sealed shut.
    James held the laser steady. “Now let’s have a friendly talk—”
    But before he could finish, Grease tossed Carly aside. She sprawled through the air and hit the glass wall with a thunk , sliding down to the ground with her face in the soil. Grease bolted at James. His head crashed into James’s stomach, and the laser careened across the greenhouse, landing in a bush.
    Skye sprinted to Carly, feeling every nightmare she’d ever had springing to life. She turned Carly’s head over and felt her neck for a pulse. A raised welt appeared on her forehead, but her heartbeat was steady. Holding the little girl in her arms, Skye watched James and Grease tumble into the pumpkin patch.
    James was an excellent fighter. She’d witnessed his skills firsthand when he punched the guard in the face, but the moonshine in Grease’s veins gave him extraordinary speed. He punched James in the cheek before James could bring up his