I was a step behind him. Decorative. Silent. A living accessory.
People poured out of buildings as if drawn by a magnet. They pressed toward the carpet, clapping with mechanical enthusiasm. Their faces told a different story. Confusion twistedtheir features. Some twisted their arms at unnatural angles, puppets struggling against the unseen force holding them.
Seth soaked it in like it was sunlight.
He touched his chest in mock modesty then tossed a kiss into the crowd. The wave of forced cheering surged louder.
“How can I make this world effortless for you?” Seth crooned. “How can I lift every burden, so you live only in pleasure? All I ask in return is your unwavering devotion. Your admiration. Your appreciation. Your love.”
The grin that followed sharpened so much it could cut glass.
He drifted to the edge of the carpet where a line of people clapped against their will. He stopped in front of a couple in their eighties. Their hands smacked together on command. Their faces trembled with fear.
“And perhaps,” Seth said lightly, “a few tokens of your affection.”
He lifted his hand toward the woman. Her necklace ripped from her neck and shot straight into his palm. She gasped, but her applause never stopped.
The wrongness of everything bit into the marrow of my bones.
Seth glanced over his shoulder at me, reading my expression with smug amusement. “Sentiment holds far more power than money,” he murmured. “Mortals used to bring offerings to our temples. We are reviving the old ways.”
The crowd cheered again, thunderous and hollow, and I was unable to move, unable to help, forced to watch Vegas become his temple while he paraded me at his side, proof he had already won.
The cheers pounded against my skull in punishing waves. Every clap, every forced scream from the crowd was wired straight into my nerves. I stood there behind Seth, frozen and useless.
I did this. I handed him the weapon he needed. I walked straight into it.
I’d wanted to matter. I’d wanted to be stronger, brave, invincible enough that Timothy wouldn’t have to carry the weight of me. I wanted to stand beside him without feeling like a fragile mortal who would crack under the first bad hit. So I let Seth change me. I let myself believe I was taking control of my life. I thought I was stepping into power.
Instead, I’d handed Seth the match and poured the gasoline myself.
Before Seth moved farther down the carpet, his gaze snagged on a girl near the front row. Eighteen at most, flanked by her parents, still clapping against their will.
“Just a few tokens,” he murmured.
With a flick of his hand, the girl’s spine snapped straight. She jerked forward, ripped from the line, her feet carrying her toward him with mechanical obedience.
“I thank you for such a beautiful trinket,” he said to her parents, dripping false sincerity as he inspected their horror-stricken faces.
In an instant, the girl’s tank top and shorts shimmered away. A glittering micro dress clung to her body, sequins catching every stray beam of neon. Her ponytail exploded into a sculpted updo, and heavy makeup settled across her features as if brushed on by invisible hands.
Seth didn’t stop there. He swept his arm over the crowd like he was selecting hors d’oeuvres. More young people lurched free, their clothes morphing into the same glitzy, hollow glamour. They lined up behind him, each wearing that awful frozen smile the moment resistance flickered in their eyes.
A parade of unwilling offerings.
The cheering spiked again, louder, emptier.
The girl cast one last look at her family. Pure pleading. Then her face snapped back into that plastic smile, and she waved as if she’d always belonged at Seth’s side.
Seth basked in it. He fed on it.
And then he turned his gaze down the length of the Strip.
Toward Sinopolis.
A slow, delighted smile unfurled on his mouth. “Time to expand my portfolio,” he said lightly. “Why limit myself to the living when the dead are so…ripe for the taking?”
My stomach dropped.
