“She’s not here.”He grips my face again, forcing me to meet his eyes.“Your mother isn’t here.It’s the devourer, using your memories against you.Don’t let it in.”
The wind outside reaches a fever pitch, and suddenly the cabin is shaking.Not swaying like it would in a normal storm, butshaking, as though something massive is testing the walls, looking for a way in.
And then the screaming starts.
Not from the wind.From inside my head.
People, real people, living people, are screaming in terror as something attacks them.I can see it through their eyes, feel their fear as though it’s my own.A gas station on the outskirts of town, the clerk frozen behind the counter as shadows with too many teeth pour through the door.A couple in their home, huddled together as ice creeps across their living room floor in patterns that spell out their deaths.Children in a school, watching as their teacher’s breath turns to frost and her eyes glaze over with white.
“Oh God,” I gasp, my hands clutching at Vex’s shoulders.“It’s everywhere.It’s attacking everyone.I can see them, I can feel them dying—”
“You’re connected to it through the mark.”Vex’s voice is strained now, like he’s fighting something too.“It’s showing you what it wants you to see.Making you feel responsible.”
“But they’re real!”I can barely get the words out through the images flooding my mind.“Those people are really dying, Vex.Right now.Because of me.Because I have this fucking mark and it’s using me as some kind of beacon—”
A new voice cuts through the chaos.Not one of the whispers.This one is singular, powerful, ancient beyond measure.
Surrender, warden.
The voice isn’t coming from outside.It’s coming from the mark itself, vibrating through my bones and into my soul.
You are the key.The door.The threshold between worlds.Give yourself to me, and I will spare them all.Resist, and I will tear through this land until nothing remains but ice and screaming.
The mark burns hotter, and with it comes a vision so vivid I can’t tell if it’s real or imagined.I see the entire region covered in ice, not the normal Alaskan winter ice, but something else.Something that moves and breathes andhungers.I see the clubhouse frozen solid, brothers trapped mid-motion like statues.The town square empty except for ice sculptures that used to be people.I see Sarah and her parents, their faces locked in expressions of terror as frost consumes them from the inside out.
And I see Vex, his body shattered into a thousand crystalline pieces, scattered across frozen ground.
“No!”The word rips from my throat as a scream.
Then choose.Surrender, and I will stop.Resist, and everyone you love dies screaming.
“Tessa.”Vex’s hands are on my face again, but I can barely feel them through the ice spreading through my veins.“Whatever it’s showing you, it’s a lie.I’m right here.I’m not going anywhere.”
But the vision won’t fade.I can still see him broken, still see the club destroyed, still see everyone I care about dead because I was too selfish to give the creature what it wanted.
Maybe it’s right.Maybe the only way to save them is to—
No.
The thought comes through the bond, sharp and clear and unmistakably Vex.
You are not sacrificing yourself.I won’t allow it.
“You don’t get to decide that,” I say out loud, my voice shaking.“If it’s me or everyone else—”
“Then we all go down fighting.”His eyes are still white, but there’s something else there now.Something fierce and protective and absolutely uncompromising.“You don’t get to play martyr, Tessa.Not on my watch.”
Another scream echoes through my mind, this one closer, more immediate.Someone in town, someone I recognize from the diner.Mandy, the owner, calling out for help as ice shades pour through her kitchen.
The mark pulses, and with it comes a promise.
Surrender now, and I will spare her.Hesitate, and she dies.You have ten seconds to decide.
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
