“It’s none of your business. Do I really need to talk about this?” I pulled away from my wrist and looked at her. “If I kill them, they won’t be themselves anymore. They’ll be fuck puppets who I butcher mimicking.” I sighed and closed my eyes. “And no matter how hard I pretend, dead dolls aren’t the real thing. I’d never really hear Nemo growl after purposely pissing him off. Never hear Bree whisper how much she loves that I’m a basilisk after the others go to sleep. And I’d never walk away from an interaction with Orson knowing that despite all his judgmental looks and seeming annoyance, he listened to everything I said.” I swallowed thickly and bit down on the shackle. Venom slid from my fangs, sliding against my wrist and the metal. Nothing happened.
“Shit,” I sighed. Whatever was in my fangs, it wasn’t the same as what was in my veins. It was going to have to be blood. I swallowed thickly and looked at the shackle. My arms were raised. Blood was only going to flow down. I bit my hand, thebottom of my palm. I groaned through the pain until blood slid down to the cuff.
“You’re hurting yourself,” Doreen said with annoyance.
“It’ll be fine. It’s not like it’ll kill me,” I said. The blood wasn’t burning through the metal. There wasn't enough. I pressed my fangs to my wrist, wincing as it slid directly into the vein.
“After all this, you still don’t want to die?” Blood welled up from the wound and started to eat through the shackle. This was going to work. But it was too slow.More. That’s all I said to myself while biting and tearing. My head swam.
“I’ve never wanted to die,” I said, watching the blood eat through the metal. I looked at my other hand and took a deep breath. “Maybe it’s just who I am. Maybe it’s genetic residue from phoenix DNA. But dying feels unnatural. It doesn’t even feel real.” I bit into the other wrist, not fucking around as I tore into it. Sour, warm blood filled my mouth, and I spat it on the metal as I bled onto the shackles.
“Baz, you’re hurting yourself too much.”It’s never good when hallucinations sound worried. Nor when they ask about dying.
“It’s fine.” One shackle burnt through, and my arm dropped. I reached up and gripped the collar’s chain. It was thinner than the collar itself. My blood-slickened hand burned through it fast. Then my other hand was free too.
“You know it’s not fine.”
Yeah, I knew. I dropped to my hands and knees. There was blood everywhere. My arms shook. Lying down sounded perfect right now. It’s all I wanted to do. But if I did, I’d wake up to Bree, Nemo, and Orson being dead. They were strong but not like Damien. Actually, I didn’t think I’d wake up at all.
Suddenly, Doreen popped into my vision.
“AH!” I flinched. She was bent down beside me with a smile.
“I’ve got a great exercise for you.”
“I fucking hate myself sometimes,” I sighed, trying to ignore my own absurd hallucination as I began to crawl towards the door.
“When you think about killing everyone in this building—” Doreen started. I paused and looked over at her. “What does it feel like?”I snorted and shuffled to the door. My fingers slid through the handle, and I pulled myself up.
“When I tried to kill everyone at Verfallen. That was pain.” I looked over at Doreen as the smell of the burning door filled the room with toxic fumes. “I thought I’d killed Bree. It’s nauseating remembering that.”
Doreen was growing blurry. The edges of the hallucination were wavering.
“What about here, Baz? Give me an analogy.”
“Killing all of Supra? Hmm.” The handle burned through. I shoved the door open and took a deep lungful of air. For the first time in a week, I finally caught my breath. My eyes closed as I savored it.
“An analogy for the feeling?” I blew out a breath. She wasn’t talking anymore. The hallucination was fading. “Like sex. Killing them is going to feelsogood, Doreen.” I gave her a little wave goodbye and stepped into the hallway. I swayed a little, and the vents turned on. Not that they’d help now.
I stumbled to the elevator. Little drops of dark green blood plopped to the floor as I pressed the elevator button. A moment later, I was inside, running my hands down every button. I didn't want to miss anyone, now did I?
Alarms started to go off. The grating noise banged around in the elevator car with me. My head dropped on the wall. Then, with a sigh, I ripped off pieces of my shirt and tied them around my wrists. Thank god I was still wearing my old stuff. It had enough holes to make tearing possible in my current state.
It probably didn’t make a difference at this point. I’d seen the trail of blood I’d left behind me in the hall. I’d been exhausted since I’d been here, but nothing like the hollowing out I felt right now.
But who knew? Not me.
Plus, there were a whole lot of people I wanted to kill before I was allowed to lie down. My hands started to tremble, and a smile spread over my face. A sudden burst of energy made my heart pound. By the time the doors opened, I was practically giddy.
23
SKYFALL
BAZ
Having airborne toxicity could really take the thrill out of mass murdering an entire skyscraper. Well, okay, there were some highlights. The first floor I stepped off had the ones in charge of me—the extractors, the monitors, the testers, and whatnot. They’d seen me coming on the cameras. When I burst in, they were fighting over the remaining gear. Half of them were still strapping oxygen tanks to their back, frantically clawing over one another as I ran at them. The screams, the terror. It was fantastic.
But after that, it was shooting fish in a barrel, and by the time I made it to the highest levels, everyone was dead before I even stepped off the elevator.
