I remember what Sullen asked me before, when he trapped me in a room with him.I don’t think you’ve ever been hit before. Have you, Karia?
No.
Never.
My pulse thumps violently throughout my body and I wish I was braver.
I want to stop Stein. I have a brief, insane moment of longing for the past, when I should have paid attention in my mandatory self-defense classes. When I could have made my mother proud.
But I am unmoving.
Perfectly still.
And Stein is smiling, as if he knows I am so fucking sheltered, I will not understand how to fight back.
And yet, the moment before he hits me, the very second I want to screw up my eyes tight and cringe away, Sullen’s hand wraps around Stein’s wrist, and he twists it the same way he did to Cosmo, back at the Emporium.
A popping sound fills the dungeon.
The light sputters—no doubt from one of Stein’s guards—arching haphazardly around the room, but I can see Sullen’s brown eyes on mine, even as he keeps his hand on his father’s.
He leans in close to Stein, his mouth brushing the tip of the man’s ear. “Soon,so soon… you’re fucking dead.”
Then Isadora’s shriek of rage fills the dungeon.
The light clatters to the floor.
A body thuds somewhere, against something.
Darkness fills my eyes once more.
And fingers wrap around my wrist, jerking me nearly off my feet.
I know this macabre dance.
Now,we run again.
Chapter 12
Karia
This time, we aren’t fleeing alone.
“Don’t stop. Don’t turn around.” Sanford Rule’s low but clear voice comes at my back as we leave the fray. I have to fight down the savage desire to do exactly what he just ordered us not to.
I want to know if he’s real.
If this is all inside my head.
I want to stop for my friends. Save them from Stein’s twisted cruelty.
But I know Isadora. I know Von.
They won’t be bested, and although they took my side for unknown reasons moments ago, I don’t want them to have a single second to regret their choice and tack their loyalty to Writhe once more.
Sullen pulls me through a doorway, my shoulder jamming into the side before I angle my body and we both slip between it. The scent of rust, like wet cemetery gates, fills my nose.
A heavy clang sounds behind us like a door closing, and I’m terrified of the sheer amount of darkness pressing in on all sides until I see something glowing, up ahead.
