The final step.
I was right behind him. Inches away and he had no idea. I watched him bite into the chicken. I heard him chew. I saw him pick up his cup and drink from it.
I raised the mace. My whole body hurt, but I bent back, against the pain, lifting the mace as high as I could.
The Butcher reached for his bread.
I brought the mace down on his skull. His head cracked like a walnut being hit by a hammer. Blood spurted out. He spun in his seat. His eyes opened wide, the gray irises stark against the whites, horrified.
I smashed the mace into his face, crushing his nose into a bloody mush. I felt the impact all the way in my bones. He tried to scream and scramble away from me, but I hit him again and again. I heard a voice and realized it was me screaming. No words, just sounds.
He blurred, but I gripped the mace and kept hitting him, again and again, flinging blood into the air. And then he was on the ground, and I was hammering him with the mace, and the sounds became words.
“Die. Die!”
There was blood everywhere, and the mace made a wet squishing sound when it landed and then a sucking sound when I lifted it back up, but I kept hitting him.
Time stopped. It was me, the mace, and him, and if I stopped hitting him, he would get up and torture me again and then I would die and come back and die and come back . . .
I kept swinging the mace over and over. I had to. It was the only way to survive. I was trapped and I couldn’t stop.
“Die die die you sick twisted fuck die.”
A hand caught the mace and tore it away from me. Strong arms wrapped around me. I flailed, fighting and snarling. Someone lifted me off my feet and carried me backward, away from the body.
“No! No!”
I tried to kick the Butcher’s body, but the person carrying me spun around, away from him. I twisted in his arms and saw Everard’s face and his green eyes. Long tendrils of darkness spilled out of him, writhing around us. His voice cut through the mix of rage and terror that wailed like an animal in my head.
“He’s gone, Maggie! He’s dead.”
He’d found me.
Everything I’d lived through in the past few hours hit me all at once. A single ragged sob came out of me.
Everard let me go and pulled off his black cloak. The dark smoke boiled around us, raging like a living thing. He wrapped his cloak around me and picked me up off my feet. He wasn’t a hallucination. He found me. He came for me.
There were people around us. The familiar screech of a pissed-off mordok sounded outside.
“Pack everything up and bring it to me,” Everard ordered. “Secure the body, then burn this place down.”
More people rushed into the room.
Everard turned and headed to the doorway. The door lay on the floor in pieces, smoking, sparks of green fire dying on its wood. He walked over it and carried me over the threshold.
Rain slammed into us, a gray curtain of water pouring from above. The sky was pitch-black and churning with storm clouds. A carriage loomed in the downpour, two men in cloaks on the driver’s bench. They turned and I saw Will and Lute. Lute’s face looked bloodless, his eyes dark and desperate. Tzeri stuck her head out from the inside of his cloak and hissed at me.
Not dead. He wasn’t dead. I nearly choked from the relief.
Recognition shone on Lute’s face. “You’re alive!”
Will jumped off and flung the carriage door open. Everard started to set me inside. Fear strangled me, cold and suffocating. I wrapped my arms around his neck and held on. Some part of me was sure that if I let go, he would disappear, and I would be back on the table again with the Butcher leaning over me, his teeth bared.
Somehow, Everard climbed into the carriage with me clinging to him and then we were on the bench.
I couldn’t stop shivering. He hugged me to him, wrapping the cloak over us. His body was so warm, and I was ice-cold.
The carriage took off, rocking as the rain drummed on its roof. It was over. The nightmare was over. Everard was holding me, and I was safe.
