“What the fuck were you doing?” He snapped.
“Only saying goodbye. Why?” I asked. “Think I was trying to kill myself?”
“Your boots are melted,” he said. “I can smell the burnt rubber.”
“Just wanted to be the last one at the funeral. I was fine.” I shrugged him off. “And don’t worry, I’d never kill myself over a building.”
“Don’t kill yourself over anything.”
“Touchy. Look, if I haven’t grown suicidal by this point, I can’t imagine what would inspire me to do it now.”
“You were stalling.” He turned away, giving one last lung-clearing cough before his dark eyes slid to the burning building. Despite the blazing fire, the stone walls didn't waver. “A lifetime there, and I didn’t even know what it looked like from the outside.”
“Let’s stay a while to?—”
“No,” he cut me off. Nemo looked down at his white scrubs with a curled lip, as if he wanted to immediately rip every reminder he’d lived there from himself. I swallowed my words. For a long while, I’d insisted we stayed locked up when we couldhave broken out. Had he dreamed of leaving? I groaned. I hated guilt. Thankfully, it was a very rare emotion.
“Orson has a car; they're waiting.”
We turned to leave, and I jumped away in shock from the man standing behind us. The chainlink rattled as my back hit it. The only thing immediately stranger than the man being entirely nude was that he was soaking wet. Hadn’t anyone told him this was a bonfire, not a pool party?
Nemo thrust his arm in front of me, pushing me harder into the fence. I clicked my tongue and sent him a harsh look. But the illogical idea that he’d protect a stranger made me quickly realize he wasn’t doing that at all. He was protectingme, not them.
When had we gone from attempted murders to white knighting?
Long, brown hair was plastered to the stranger’s gaunt cheeks and thin neck. Water dripped from his pointed chin and ran in rivulets down protruding bones. The scent of salt and rot wafted off him as he swayed in front of us, unbalanced on his feet.
He was as abnormally tall as Nemo but with sickly pale, green skin. Despite how wrong everything looked about him, it was obvious he was used to being intimidating. His striking expression bore into me with a sense of dominance. Well, wasn’t that cute?
“Basilisk,” the man said. I knew that voice. I’d heard it in my head, put there by a creature swimming behind glass. It couldn’t be the sea snake. If he could shift, why stay trapped in that sickening tank in the basement?
He collapsed onto the ground. His skin wasn’t just off-color, it was also the wrong texture. Patches of translucent, yellow scales were covering his face and body. He sucked in a breath ofair, and it made his lips turn blue as if inhaling was causing him to slowly suffocate.
“I don’t have much time,” he rasped from the grass. His words were wet and gurgling. I looked at his ribs and saw gaping slashes. They were pale gills that blackened and dried as I watched them spread for nonexistent water, like a mouth widening for breath.
“I am dying.” His webbed, clawed fingers scratched a book he had in his hands.
“No shit.” I looked at Nemo. “It’s the massive sea snake. Levi.”
“The dragon?” Nemo asked. Levi gave a wet chuckle. His blue eyes reminded me of Bree’s, and I felt the strange urge to help him.
“Is there water nearby?” I asked, looking around. But all I saw were trees and a parking lot.
“Supra will come for you,” Levi said. “The one behind everything…” He began to cough, and turned to his side. Something thick and foul was spit up on the ground. It looked like a glob of gelatinous skin. The scent of rot increased, and Nemo covered his nose.
“You knew about Supra?” Nemo asked. Levi wiped his mouth.
“Before, I was…” He pointed at his chest, trying to find the words. “I was his focus. Then the monster scientist. After him, there is the basilisk.” He sounded half mad, and I wasn’t sure if it was because he was dying or because he’d gone insane in the basement. A long, clawed finger tapped the book in his hands while he stared at me.
“He’s coming for you.” Well, I already knew that, but it seemed impolite to tell a dying man he was wasting his last words.
“Supra is coming for me?” I gasped, clutching my chest for extra measure. The least I could do was make the poor guy think he was imparting something important.
“Damien,” he rasped. Another big inhale. Now his whole body was turning blue.
“Wait, who?”
“HeisSupra, and he will find you.”
