The guards continued to bark into their walkie-talkies, throwing panicked looks at the gate as if praying Marcus would appear any second and take charge.
Shifting under Whisper’s towering bulk, I caught the cat’s eyes as my hand strayed to the dagger in my chest.
I’d wanted to keep it in for visual purposes. To make them panic and take me to the hospital. But these bastards were too well trained or too scared of repercussions, so...I would pivot.
Gritting my teeth, I wrapped my fingers around the hilt and tugged.
A flash of searing pain cut through the foggy numbness of the pill, but I ignored it.
I kept pulling, wincing at the sickening sensation of it coming free from my body. I groaned as I tugged it the final way.
The guards spun to face me, horror on their faces as fresh blood drenched my shirt, glossy and thick even on black fabric in the rain. “What thehellare you doing?! Stop it. You’re bleeding. Shit, it’s everywhere!” They rushed toward me but wheeled backward again as Whisper opened his jaws androared.
“Don’t move, alright?” James panicked, raking a hand through his dripping hair. The fact that no one had shot Whisper was a testament to how afraid they were of me. How afraid they were of my blood...even if I was bleeding out before them.
“Mr. Ward is almost here. J-Just...wait. We’ll get you sorted. Just...fuck, don’t die.”
If Marcus was almost here, that meant I had to hurry.
Because the games weren’t over yet.
And once they were, I wanted to stand on a hilltop of their corpses, not look out from behind prison bars.
That left only one option.
Slaughter my way out.
Chapter Six
IT WAS EASIER THAN I THOUGHT it would be to stand.
As the Cryolyt’s numbness kept my pain at bay, that strange power kept building—granting life to my seized muscles. Chills darted down my back as I climbed slowly and unsteadily to my feet.
The world spun.
My chest ached.
But...no pain.
“Mr. Ashfall!” James shouted. “Stay down! You’re bleeding! Stay the fuckdown.” He tried to get to me, only for Whisper to slash a claw-tipped paw in warning.
Parrying backward, he yelled, “Why the hell did you take out the knife?! What if you die before we get you treated? What if—”
“Quiet.” I shook my head, unnerved at the strangeness of feeling nothing, the oddness of feeling somethingelsebeneath. “Your shouting is so annoying.” Straightening my spine, I brushed down my blood-soaked shirt as if preparing for a board meeting, not a rampage.
James’s eyes popped as the three other guards cursed and danced on the spot with panic. “How are you even standing?!” James choked. “You’re killing yourself.” Pointing at Rook passedout by my feet, he added, “S-She stabbed you. Why issheunconscious and you’re...somehow not?”
The Cryolyt pill continued to strengthen and numb me, spreading out like a blizzard through my blood.
The surgical erasure of pain was suddenly my most favourite thing in the world.
And I was officially done with his questions.
“Whisper...” I flexed my blood-covered fingers, glancing at my predator friend.
The panther froze, his whiskers flaring as if he could smell something different about me—as if he could see the steam billowing through my veins as the pill shovelled snow onto the remaining fires within.
Through some unspoken bond that’d formed over years of sharing a life together, Whisper understood exactly what I wanted.
