For a second she craned around Noah’s shoulder and found Zane’s eyes. It was a last, sticky dart aimed for the softest place.
“Zaney,” she wailed, frantic now. “Don’t let them?—”
“This isn’t his decision,” Asa snapped. “It’s ours. Zane’s only here so he knows you’re actually dead and can’t hurt him anymore. He can’t stop this. He can’t save you. You were dead the moment you stepped foot on this property. All you can do now is hope you go into shock and die before you learn what it’s like to be cooked alive.”
“You’re all monsters,” she screeched. “You’ll pay for this. You’ll pay. You’ll?—”
Archer rushed forward, snagging Bev’s face in one hand. “Shut up before I take your tongue, too.”
Asa’s palm came up, blocking Zane’s view, tipping his head up. “Look at me,” he repeated. Zane did. “This isn’t your fault. I made the decision. We made the decision for you, as your family. You’re not killing her. We are. She meets the code. Thomas made the call. This is all by the book. You don’t have to feel bad about this, Lois.”
They wrestled Bev inside. Her screams warped, muffled, as her shoulders wedged through the opening. The interior was polished bronze, reflective enough to throw her terror back at her. Bronze rang dully where her shoulder struck. She sucked air like it could save her.
Aiden fastened the hatch with a heavy, satisfying clunk, the sound echoing through the room like a gavel’s final strike. He patted the bull’s side, smiling faintly, admiring the seal, not the suffering.
Silence. Then the smallest sound from within, muffled and horrid. “Help.”
The word crawled out, thin, animalistic, reflexive.
Aiden stepped back to the rig. He handled the valves like a pianist touching ivory, each turn deliberate, reverent. August moved to the head, fascinated. “Listen for the resonance shift,” he told no one in particular.
Bev thudded around in the space, but she was no longer able to form the words needed to make Zane feel worse than he already did. Her fists—what was left of them—thumped weakly against the bronze, the sound dull and hollow, like the heartbeat of something already dead.
Thomas tipped his chin, unreadable. Then: “Light it.”
Zane flinched. His mouth opened. He didn’t speak.
Asa did. “Light it,” he said.
Aiden cracked the feed.
The hiss of gas filled the space first, sharp and sterile, then came ignition.
Heat bloomed like the sun. The first flames licked under the belly, trembling blue-gold, then steadied, breathing in and out. The smell of propane mingled with scorched dust, the tang of oxidized metal and something faintly sweet. The temperature climbed; the bronze exhaled a low moan, or maybe that was the first brush of Bev’s scream caught in the chambers.
Nico squeezed his eyes shut. Levi kept his eyes open, both horrified and fascinated. Arsen whistled, Cree frowned. Noah winced. Jordan turned his body toward Cree, pressing his face to his shoulder. The light painted everyone the same color, the fire reflected in sweat and pupils.
Asa, Felix, and Avi were focused entirely on Zane, keeping him turned away from the metal beast.
Lucas hovered grimly beside Atticus and Jericho but said nothing. Jericho watched his brother and Zane.
Inside, Bev howled. The sound hit the pipes and came out wrong, a strangled baritone bellow that vibrated the air. It was mechanical and wet at once, something that didn’t belong to any species. A death hymn.
Zane wrenched himself away from Asa. At first, Thomas thought he might rush to his mother’s aid, but instead he bent and vomited on the floor. Noah and Felix rushed to him, rubbing his back as he continued to dry heave.
“Holy shit,” Mal whispered.
“This kind of takes some of the fun out of it,” Avi muttered, earning a slap from his twin.
The smell arrived slowly…a creeping, smoke that clung to the back of the throat.
August tilted his head, listening, as if the pitch could tell him everything. “Hear the shift?” he asked Mal, almost tender. “That’s the inner wall heating faster than the outer.”
“Thermal gradient,” Mal murmured reverently. “It’ll sing.”
It did. The bellow thickened into a deeper resonance, the bull finding its voice, the chambers shaping a scream into something animalistic once again. The sound hit Thomas in the chest like pressure, vibrating bone, reverberating through him like a tuning fork. The room glowed with heat; shimmering air made faces stutter at the edges, like ghosts flickering in and out of focus.
Asa crossed the room to Zane, shooing the other two away from him. “He’s had enough,” he said. “I’m taking him to bed.”
