Ashes

Five: Felix, Part II

A/N: Aesthetic for Felix.

The impact of my body against the earth is broken only slightly by Felix, and with a yelp, my shoulder slams against the dust.

Except I don't stop tumbling.

By the time I stop crashing against the earth, I must've bruised every single piece of my body, and there's a few skinned elbows and knees between Felix and I.

The crowd of Burning that was after the bus haven't given up their chase on our bus, leaving Felix and I nearly alone in our area of the desert.

He stands up slowly, rolling his shoulders quickly and allowing a terrifying grin to spread across his face.

He's a shell of what he used to be. Where Felix was constantly wearing a mischievous grin, the smirk he now bears holds a much more sinister look to it. His hair is unruly and scruffy-looking, as if he hasn't cared for it in weeks. Amber eyes are now silver, and where my Felix used to be scrawny, the Burned version of himself looks like he could snap my neck with a single movement.

"This is new. Since when does Ariadne Simon throw herself into the fray of a battle?" he chuckles, his silvery eyes glinting with a flicker of something evil.

"Since we lost you," I manage to spit, rising to my feet despite the sharp pain it sends though my ankle. I try to ignore the dull ache in my shoulder, which isn't all that hard to do when you're staring into the eyes of the boy that used to be so kind.

Something flickers in his eyes; if I didn't know better, I'd say it was wild, blood-freezing terror.

Seconds later, it flutters away. Literally. His head kind of twitches sideways twice, as if he's shaking off a ghost.

He slowly pulls the knife from its place at his side, a sardonic grin replacing his previous look of fear.

"Well. Isn't that a pity?" he sneers, and I let out a mirthless laugh. Despite the terror in my veins, my shaking hands, and the fact that I can hear my heartbeat in my ears, I'm not going to lose Felix too. Not like I lost Thea.

"Yeah. I guess it is," I say, and I barely have time to duck as the knife in his hands suddenly lunges for my neck.

There's a loud whoosh as he barely misses what could have been a fatal blow, and he lets out a choked laugh as I take a leap backwards.

"I'm not going to fight you," I tell him, but he merely looks at me with an arrogant sort of glee.

"That makes one of us," he says, and twirls the weapon in his hands ominously.

The funny thing about fights is how quickly things happen. You'd think, after reading so many stories and seeing all the movies, that time magically slows down and that you act almost on instinct, fueled purely by adrenaline.

It's not quite true. Adrenaline is great at first, but it makes you reckless and tires you out so ridiculously fast. Maybe Kyros and Titus act on instinct and manage to stay calm, but I can do neither.

And things move like time has actually sped up.

In the split second it takes me to glance backwards and see the bus approaching, Felix is attacking again, rusty knife slicing through the air with terrifying speed. I try to dodge his attack again, but the knife still tears through the sleeve of my shirt and leaves a nasty cut on my arm.

I let out a yelp without really meaning to, but don't have much more time to stress about it. Mostly because the knife barely misses my stomach a few seconds later.

Okay, Ari, come on! Think! What has Kyros taught you?!

Catch his wrist.