No no no no no.
Vincent dragged me through the tunnel of lights and across the threshold. Flickers like fireflies, like stars, danced over my head as they dragged and spun me. Vincent gave me a shove toward the dance floor. My feet skidded on the polished court, and I stumbled again, this time catching myself before I face-planted.
Hands dragged me across the court, grabbing my neck and forcing my head down. I collapsed to my knees. I was right in the center of the gym, in the circle where I’d first met the god’s shadows. Before my eyes, a faint trail of blue fire arced across the paint. One of Rebecca’s sigils overlaid on top.
I remembered that I’d seen it the first time I’d tried to shortcut through the gym. If any of the other women saw it now, they didn’t say anything. They were too busy betraying me, baying for my blood.
I know you’re here inside me, Rebecca. Your power runs in my veins. I don’t care about my own life but please, please, I have to stop the god from being unleashed. Please show me what to do.
Vincent loomed over me, his features glowing with triumph. “I’m going to enjoy slitting your throat, gutter whore.”
Spittle flew from Vincent’s mouth, dotting my shoulders. A knife glinted in his raised hand. “Your death will be the final piece of our greatest sacrifice. Of course, we’d never blow up ourselves or our place of power, but we had to make you believe it. You really would do anything for my son. In the end, your love was your weakness. It was all for nothing.”
I gazed up at the face of my enemy, and all the evil and rage in the world coalesced into his icicle eyes.
I smiled.
Snapped my fingers.
I had one more trick up my sleeve. One last, desperate attempt. The guys knew about it, so they might’ve warned him, but…
The scritching started from the rafters, almost imperceptive, tiny feet scrabbling over wood. As Vincent staggered toward me, holding his hand out to his son, the rat army spilled down the fake vines and trees and dropped onto the surprised parents.
Tillie’s mother screamed as rats swarmed up her fishtail skirt, tearing off beads and sending them skittering across the floor. Elena rushed past screaming, trying to tear a rat from her hair. Vincent lashed out, kicking one rat that had grabbed hold of his shoe.
Tearing, gnawing, slashing with claws that had been sharpened for exactly this purpose, the rats worked together, piling one on top of each other to reach the tables where the parents huddled. They tore the switches from feeble fingers and brought them to the students, just in case they weren’t actually fake.
The rats created a barrier between two sides of the gym. Them on one side with the sigil of the five-pointed star. Us on the other side with an exit in easy reach, only I didn’t want to be on that side with them any longer.
“Hazy, now!”
Trey leaped across the gym, crashing into me. I pummeled his chest with my fists until I realized he wasn’t trying to hold me down, but pull me to my feet.
“It was a trick,” he whispered. “I had to make you believe we betrayed you, because I knew you need anger to be powerful. Anger, and love.”
And he pressed his lips to mine.
Chapter Forty
Trey’s kiss was the spark that started all life in the universe. It reached deep inside me, deep inside the earth, and latched on to a primordial force that was bigger and darker and more mysterious than anything. As he cupped my face and poured himself into me, my fire ignited for a final time, the heat stretching down my legs, deep within the earth, drawing up the cold shadows into the light at last.
The world shook.
Plaster and decorations and debris cascaded from the ceiling. Tables jerked across the gym. Glasses toppled from the bar and smashed against the floor. People might’ve been screaming, but I couldn’t hear them over the roar of the god.
Two more bodies leaped into the circle, even as blue flame danced around them. Quinn and Ayaz. They pressed their bodies against me, stoking my fire with the warmth of their love.
The three of us ignited a flame that had burned inside the earth since its creation, since life first began. We drew it up and fed it on all the goodness we saved from a world of hell, until it rushed toward the surface, ready to gorge itself anew.
Ready to wake from slumber.
Trey tore his mouth from mine and grabbed my hand. “Now. Run!”
The four of us led the way to the doors. Students crowded around us, pumping their arms and waving the switches like they were on a victory parade.
As soon as every student and faculty member was outside, we slammed the door behind us, collapsing on the ground with giddy laughter. Quinn clutched me as I chortled and gasped. Trey and Ayaz slammed a heavy steel pole through the handles, locking the Eldritch Club inside with the rats that weren’t rats.
The rats that carried pieces of the souls of Salem witches. The victims that had haunted Parris now worked as one hivemind. And they wanted this cycle of horror and violence to end.
