The Million-Dollar Heart by Rebecca Ryan

With a thunderous bang, Diana’s gun fired, but the bullet whizzed past Vivienne’s ear, barely grazing a hair.

Unfazed, Vivienne did not even flinch.

Diana, panic-stricken, stared at the figure before her, feeling her wrist trapped as if in an iron vise, pain radiating through her bones like a fracture in progress.

“You… you’re Sasha!”

Karen’s gaze was heavy, a mix of the strange and the familiar.

She had never imagined that the story behind her kidnapping was so convoluted!

Clenching her fist, Karen threw a punch that landed squarely in Diana’s gut with the force of a sledgehammer.

“Touch my daughter, and you’re dead meat!”

Diana’s punch could take down a full-grown mastiff, but Karen’s blow could kill a full-grown bull.

The difference in strength was enormous.

Diana felt as if her insides had been rearranged, her nerves and flesh overwhelmed by pain. It was as if she was about to be ripped apart. The agony was excruciating!

Karen then slapped Diana’s face repeatedly, and in no time, Diana’s once delicate features swelled up like a balloon.

Diana tried to steady herself, to take another look at her adversary, but her swollen cheeks pressed so tightly against her eyes that they would not open!

Lifting Diana off her feet, Karen’s fingers flew, sending needle after needle into Diana’s scalp.

“Ah!”

Diana fell to her knees, screaming in torment.

The pain was unbearable!

Rolling on the ground, Diana banged her head against rocks as if the blunt trauma could somehow dull the sharper pain within.

Even as her head was bloodied and bruised, Diana hardly noticed.

anger boiling inside Karen was far

now, Vivienne had untied herself. Karen had already neutralized

side, who was still bound, and

was their

still, watching the display as

she sipped a glass of

silver needles in her hand

high alert, determined not to let

you F-Poison?” Karen asked softly, as if in casual conversation, “You seem… younger than I

caressing her cheek with a soft stroke as if indulging

quipped. “This face is all I have left to charm the days

off her mask and flung it towards Karen and Vivienne, the skin transforming mid-air

“Frost!”

skin-blade, and kicked a

and turning it into a projectile. With

tied, while the rock pierced F-Poison’s thigh, embedding itself in the ground

from F-Poison’s wound, and Karen’s breaths grew

her poison, Karen raised a hand

that could trigger a violent explosion upon contact with poison. It was the reason

no

and Vivienne stood side by

leg, threw down a

their eyes from the smoke, Karen and Vivienne quickly

smoke cleared, they saw F-Poison holding Zelda at the cliff’s edge, a hostage in

hostage, what can you really do?” F-Poison taunted, gripping Zelda’s neck tightly,

above, the sound of a helicopter’s rotors sliced through

up

machine gun—not at F-Poison,

abyss below, but no echo came. Clearly, the

protectively in front of

“Surrender? I’ve heard that before, over a decade ago. Even against many more enemies back then, I didn’t surrender. What makes you think I

frowned. Over

it be the “Destruction

older than

grow into this role by

was puzzled, feeling that perhaps F-Poison was