He’s unbinding Briella from the cross. She’s limp. Barely conscious. Her feet drag.
She tries to resist—her hand weakly claws at his coat—but she’s too far gone. And she can’t. Not with the limp.
“No—no!” I scream.
He carries her through a back door. Disappears into shadow.
I start to chase—but more guards drop close in on all sides. Vincent’s yelling something. Raphael is firing like a machine. Hehasn’t even pulled the twin blades from their sheaths yet. Just as deadly. Jude throws himself over one of the acolytes, trying to go for the chemical bag.
I glance at Rory and gesture to the door where the Prophet took her.
He nods, his eyes like hot, blue blazes. “Let’s finish this.”
We fight side by side. Back to back. Covered in blood. Until the last of them is dead.
Then we run.
Into the night.
After her.
77
Briella
“IF I CAN’T HAVE YOU, NO ONE CAN.”
Everything hurts.
My skin feels fried. My dignity shredded.
But all I can think about is the moment Raphael and the others charged into the Circle. Part of me wants to fight Alden. But I’m exhausted. I’m burned in so many places. Sweat coats my skin. My nerve endings are shot.
And I know they’re coming. I just need to survive until they do. Keep breathing. Keep my heart beating.
My vision whirls. My stomach churns with bile. But terror ices my veins when Alden dumps me into a too-familiar chair. I find what little strength I can to struggle, but he locks my hands into the cold, metal cuffs on the armrests, does the same to my ankles, then cranks the lever on the side to spread me wide. It’s the damn gynecologist’s chair. The one they used for their sick experiments. And electroshock therapy.
The air chills my naked flesh, surging ice straight to the bone.
Alden grips my jaw, and I spit right in his face. “I’m sure you must be feeling quite proud of yourself,” he says, lethal. “Reports are circulating of the main dorms burning.”
“Good, you can burn in hell with them.”
“I’ll take you with me, little Bri.” He tilts his jaw, his brown eyes like a falcon in the dive, closing in on its prey. “If I can’t have you, no one can.”
“Spoken like a sick, twisted, impotent narcissist who’s not even fit for hell.” I spit fire, biding my time. Praying they’ll rushin at any moment. “You belong in a void. An abyss where you can’t even hear your own screams.”
Alden simpers, then turns to the side, dragging a hulking machine over like it’s some long-lost lover. It’s old—steel and knobs and worn leather straps—and somehow more terrifying in its age. The rubber bit for the mouth dangles like a predator’s tongue. Wires coil like snakes at the base.
“Do you remember her?” he murmurs as he strokes the device like a pet. “She missed you.”
My blood runs cold. I do remember.
The way it felt when they strapped me down the first time. The burning in my skull. The way my limbs spasmed. The way I screamed until my vocal cords broke.
He flips a switch. The machine hums to life with a low whine that climbs slowly, maddeningly. All the blood leaves my face.
No.
