His face hardened, the kindly mask breaking.
A cloth came over my mouth before I could finish. The chemical burn of it shot down my throat, acrid and bitter.
I thrashed, panic detonating in my chest. The phone slipped from my hand, clattering to the floor as my nails tore at his sleeve uselessly, my body jerking against his grip as I fought him.
But as time passed, I inhaled more, my lungs coated in poison, head spinning, vision warping.
Through the ringing alarm, through the blur of smoke, the world tilted sideways. Another figure appeared, walking through the door, strong arms lifting me out of the library and into what I assumed was a car.
And just before the sleep dragged me under, in the car, I saw him.
Winifred.
The last thing I felt before the dark closed in wasn’t the old men around me or their arms on me. It was the horror blooming in my chest.
If he was here, none of this was random.
They hadn’t come for the library.
They’d come for me.
CHAPTER FIFTY
SANORA
Cold air.
That was the first thing I felt, needling across my skin, sliding into my bones like icy fingers.
Incoherent chanting.
That was the only thing I could hear, low and rhythmic, like waves pounding a cliff over and over again.
I parted my lips and dragged in a shaky breath. The cold burned down my throat, making me shudder as I fought to open my eyes. Even before my eyelids fluttered, I could feel the light on my face, but I hadn’t expected it to be moonlight.
The full moon stared down at me, white and nearly blinding.
I lay flat on my back, and above me, the sky stretched like black velvet, the moon a single, pale coin. I could hear the whispering and the whoosh of trees at the edge of the clearing. But where I lay, there were no branches overhead, no cover. The trees stood back as if this space had been cut out just for this.
My heart stumbled, then began to race.
Shards of memory pierced through the fog: the library, the smoke, the text message.
My blood boiled.
Winifred.
The persistent chanting brought me back into the present.
My eyes darted around.
I was on a flat, cold slab of steel. Ropes bit into my skin. I could feel one around my calves, another cinched tight around my torso, and a third compressing my chest.
I was bound like an animal on an altar.
I turned my head as I fought the ropes, searching for the source of the voices.
To my left, figures stood in a small circle, hands linked, heads bowed, murmuring what I didn’t understand. They were tall and faceless in red cult robes, their hoods casting shadows over their faces.
