I had a sinking suspicion that I knew, but by even fully thinking it, let alone uttering it, I’d make it too real.
A roar so loud that I covered my ears echoed through the space, and it knocked all the espers down and back. It struck them like a physical blow, one that not only dropped them but skidded them in all directions.
I forced myself to remain on my feet, staring around at the monsters that encircled me, many injured, purple leaking over their bodies, their eyes bright and locked on me. Long fangs protruded from their mouths, the same beasts who had plagued me in The Pitt, the ones who had nipped at my heels, who had poured their soured breaths over me every chance they got.
So much for thinking I might be wrong, that it was just a coincidence. I should have known better, that there were no truecoincidences, that I had always been destined for an end like this.
I might have escaped it for a short while, but there was no more running.
So I stayed on my feet and held my arms out. “Go on,” I said, my voice trembling at first, barely a whisper, before I said it again and again, louder each time. “Do it!” I screamed, done, ready for whatever these beasts wanted to do. I refused to die in a huddled, frightened mess.
Except none of them moved. They just stood there, staring, some eerie presence there behind those eyes.
That’s when I felt it, the corruption ofhim.
This wasn’t a hit, not even an attack. It was a warning, a message, one he wanted delivered to me.
He was alive, and he wasn’t done with me yet.
So I stared right back at him and delivered my own response. “Fuck you.”
The portal flashed brightly, then disappeared. The monsters fell the moment the portal closed, as though the strings that had animated them had broken as well.
It left me there, in the center, alone, but knowing I wouldn’t be for long.
My biggest nightmare was far from over.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Carter
The room was an absolute wreck, and the way I held a piece of broken table leg in my hand said there was little question who was responsible for it.
Well, to be fair, I was onlypartlyresponsible. Ingram had done his share of the damage as well. Kenyon had only paced, while Shear had remained frighteningly silent.
Not that destroying this place did a damn thing for our actual problem. I wouldn’t even say that we felt any better, but sometimes violence and destruction were all a person had to keep them sane.
“She should have stayed with us,” Ingram muttered for what had to have been the twentieth time in the past thirty minutes.
“She’s safe, and Kaidan can handle her,” Kenyon said, then paused to gesture at the room around us. “And do you really think she needs to see this sort of thing?”
“What sort of thing?” I hid the table leg behind my back, painting on my best innocent expression.
We were in a conference room, waiting for the higher-ups to come and say whatever the fuck they felt like saying. None of it mattered, of course.
They saw what had happened just like we had.
Those monsters had gone right for Yun, but they hadn’t killed her. They hadn’t even hurt her. It felt like an old feud, like something between them that no one else could intrudeon. We’d fought, we’d killed, but none of it had mattered. The monsters had moved with a single-minded focus, caring about nothing but getting to her. If they’d wanted her dead, she would have been—a thought that sobered me.
“I couldn’t control them,” Shear said.
“What?”
“Their minds were entirely blocked.” He paused, then shook his head. “No, not blocked, but filled. It was like quicksand, like the mind of a corrupted. I couldn’t touch them.”
Which pretty much said what I’d suspected. I hadn’t mentioned it to Yun, but her expression had screamed the same theory.
Her own nightmare was alive and well in The Pitt, and even ten years hadn’t been enough for him to let her go.
