Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

The Devil Inside

Ramirez's finger twitched.

But it wasn't enough to depress the trigger. His hand shook once, tightened, and then released. He couldn't do it, even if that wasn't Maverick, even if this creature was something else just wearing her face, he couldn't pull the trigger.

Renegade grinned, and the expression she made wasn't an expression he had ever seen on her face before. Maverick had been blunt , but Renegade was sharp, and it showed in her face. Her eyes were more gaunt, her cheeks thinner, and her eyebrows pulled down at a sharper angle than Maverick's had.

She leaned in, close enough now that he could sense the heat of her breath. She wore no scents or perfumes, but he could smell the hint of something burnt, and something metallic on her body. Her platinum hair coiled around her head in a mismanaged mop.

Her eyes were cold.

"I didn't think so." She said

"Ramirez..... Ramirez, get away from her." It was Adam's voice from the other end of the room. Turning his head slightly, he saw Adam, Sunny, celex and Krill waiting by the open hallway. Just off to their right Celex had blasted down another pile of the red velvet curtains and covered a struggling Everett to buy them time to escape.

Maverick smirked at him, "That's not how this works, Impetus. You surrender, and I don't put my hand through this Marine's chest. All at once Maverick grabbed his gun by the barrel and jerked him forward. He lost his balance and stumbled right into her arms. Before he knew it she had him around the neck, and her hands pressed up against his back in a threatening manner. His gun dropped from his hands where it hung from his tac sling.

The others dropped into rapid defensive postures, but there was nothing they could do.

She had him around the neck, and at her mercy.

It hurt.

A lot.

Not her hand, or the arm she had around his neck so much as the fact that this was Maverick. The maverick he had gone to bootcamp with, the maverick who had encouraged him not to drop ice skating entirely, the maverick who had come home with him almost every holiday to spend time with his family, the maverick who had learned spanish behind his back as a birthday present so they could dish on other people, hopefully, without being understood.

They had been inseparable for the better part of a decade and now this bitch had gone and taken over her body like it was free real estate.

He clenched his jaw.

"Let's not do anything rash." Adam said.

Maverick laughed, her muscular forearm tightening around his neck, causing him to choke lightly as she did, "I know exactly what I am doing Impetus. So you either come with me, and I deliver you to Kazna alive, or you come with me unwillingly, but you will be dead."

Adam shook his head. The pained expression on his face said it all.

He missed the old maverick too.

Resenting the thing that had taken over her body.

"Maverick, he's your friend, your best friend. You know you can't do this.

Orange light flared from the space just behind Ramirez's head, and her voice began to warp dangerously. Ramirez gasped and gripped at her arm as the choke hold intensified, "That is not my name!" she snarled, "I am not your soldier to command, I am not your friend."

This must be what it felt like to get a dagger to the chest.

It hurt so much.

Like someone had taken an ice cream scoop and removed a sizable chunk in his chest to leave him both empty and in pain.