“Out with it,” I demand. But he’s on me faster than I can think, engulfing my throat once again and slamming me onto the ground. I grapple at his arms, not believing this is happening…again. Odeyssa jumps on his back and pulls his head back by his hair. He merely shrugs her off, like she’s a bug that just landed on his shoulder.
I feel the moment Voraxis is about to release another raging roar. Anticipating the release, I snuff it out as it leaves him, the heat getting too close for comfort.
Not yet.
Shadows spew from my body, wrapping around his arms and ripping them off me. Something cracks, but I don’t care. I command them to suspend him in the air. Then, with the flick of my eyes, they fling him toward a tree trunk, and he hits it with a sickening crunch. As I step in his direction, the bone dagger strapped to my thigh weighs heavy, and without missing a beat,I tear it from its sheath. Stephan slowly rises, wincing in pain with each movement. Gripping him by the roots, I push his head back, pressing the blade to his throat. He doesn’t show an ounce of the fear he did inside the flames. Instead, his eyes roam up and quickly change to frustration.
I dig the blade in deeper, letting out a dark chuckle. “What’s the matter? Are they not listening to you?” The second the question leaves me, one of the branches lowers and tickles him on the back of his neck. He growls low, thrashing to get out of my hold, but it’s no use.
“You are nothing. A pathetic, wasted piece of ass, if you ask me.” I move faster than I thought possible. Using my grip on his hair, I slam his face onto my quickly rising knee. He looks up at me, teeth coated in blood as he smiles.
“Who is responsible?” I ask.
When he doesn’t answer, my fingers unclasp from his strands before backhanding him across the face. He falls to the ground, hard, and I waste no time. Letting the shadows slither beneath him and wrap around his neck, I string him up from the branches and watch as his fingers dig into the obsidian tendril, his feet kicking for some sort of purchase.
I thought it wasn’t time yet,Voraxis chastises. Rolling my eyes, I let the shadows dissipate, and Stephan immediately starts coughing up a lung. Twisting the hilt in my hand, I grip it so the blade is facing down as I stalk toward his pathetic form. Kicking him in the stomach, he lands on his back, sputtering for his next breath. Wrapping my hand around his throat, I haul him up with strength I didn’t know I possessed, pinning him against the tree trunk. I let the heat tingle in my palm, causing my hand to glow faintly with orange, not quite burning but still an unpleasant amount of heat. He grimaces beneath my hold.
“Tell me.”
When he stays silent, I turn the heat to blistering and watchas the bubbles begin to form. “I’m at a tipping point, Stephy.” A point where I don’t really care if he tells me; I just want his life to be over. And I want to be the one to end it. There had been a time in my life where I never thought I’d be able to take another person’s life. But that’s not realistic—not here. I’ve killed, and will continue, and there’s a part of me that doesn’t even think they’d need to deserve it for me to end it. That should terrify me. Instead, it fills me with an overwhelming sense of delight, imagining the light leaving their eyes. It’s…intoxicating.
His face slackens as he stares at me, searching my eyes with a bone-chilling terror. His lips form a singular name, coming out as a mere whisper against the all-consuming pain coursing through him. It momentarily stuns me, and I can see in his eyes that he knows it didn’t matter. He was going to die either way. But there’s also a look of pity crossing over his features, and I hate pity.
Releasing his throat, I slash the bone dagger’s blade across his already sensitive skin. Like it happens in slow motion, I can hear—feel—each vein puncture, the blood flow immediately changing course. The tendons rip apart beneath the sharp force until the line is clean across, and crimson gushes from the incision. Instinctively, he reaches up to stop the bleeding, but it’s no use. He’ll be dead in seconds.
Somewhere behind me, Odeyssa lets out a horrified gasp, but I ignore it. There was simply no other way. I watch as the last bit of air expels from his lungs, and my eyes don’t leave him for a long moment, wanting to ensure that he doesn’t just disappear like last time. Only when I’m satisfied he’s truly dead, I wipe his blood off on my pant leg and secure the blade back in the sheath, turning toward the others.
Odeyssa eyes me with caution as I take deliberate steps toward her. “I’m sorry.” She looks at me with confusion, and I continue. “It wasn’t your father.” I hate admitting when I’m wrong, so Itry to make sure I never am. But in this case, all the signs were there. Like big, neon, pulsing lights that I was too naive to pay attention to. “It was mine.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Subject 763
A chill breaks out over my skin, scattering goosebumps beneath my leathers as I wake. The streaming sunlight bounces off the stark-white snow outside the window, causing my eyes to squint as they open.
Instinctively, my hand raises to shield my eyes but ultimately finds purchase against my temple as a headache resounds against my skull. Sitting up, the previous dull ache quickly becomes an overbearing pounding.
“Take it easy,” 306 instructs, holding his hand out, presumably for me to take.
I don’t accept.
Instead, I push the pain back as I stand, squeezing my eyes shut a couple of times, like it will make it go away. Haze coats my vision as I take in the room, and clarity snaps into focus when I remember where I am and what we’re doing here.
Before I can ask the pressing question, 306 speaks. “Maybe weshould head back. I’m sure the commander is losing his mind, wondering why we haven’t returned.”
“That’s the stupidest thing you’ve said this entire time,” I deadpan. “We’re so close. I canfeelit.”
He crosses his arms. “Now you sound like the stupid one. Besides, he didn’t even tell us where she is.”
“Where is Atticus?” I inquire, knowing if he’s not here, there’s a good chance 306 killed him already. Anger bubbles through me, eating away the cold that had been there. That was my kill.Mine.Just like her.
No, she isn’t.
Yes, she is.
No, she isn’t.
Yes, she…
