Distant screams echoed, overpowering the voice's potential response, and a sharp pain made me flinch and stumble. My knees landed on the floor as another piercing cry made my ears bleed.
“What the—”
My vision blacked out, and the last thing I felt was my shoulder and temple hit the cobblestone ground.
It was different. Stranger. I wasn’t in Arc’s head and watching the scene through his eyes but more like a spectator from the outside. Instead of the now familiar creepy room, the whole space was blurry, only shadows and shapes telling me I wasn’t alone.
“Hello?” I croaked as my head throbbed. Whether it was from my fall to the ground or the voice screaming in the room, I wasn’t sure.
But no one answered. Two blurred shadows were in the corner. One seated, one standing in front of the other. The one tied up to the chair screamed again, the shape of his head tilting back in agony. Red and black smoke swirled around them, somehow muffling the sound enough for it to still be painful to hear but unrecognizable.
But I recognized it. My brainknewthat it was Dimitri and Arc in there. I knew they—
“Help him.”
I made a sharp turn only to end up facing the Warlock. Blurred by some thick fog and the same shadows that concealed the two others. Only his eyes were clearly visible, shining with a thousand golden stars.
“Nomin,” I said.
He tilted his head to the side, surprised. “You know my name.” Not a question, and yet I nodded. “Help him,” he repeated.
“How?” I asked.
“He’s lost within himself. He’s losing the battle.”
“What are you even talking about?”
It made no sense. Was it Dimitri’s madness? I guess that being tortured for days would make him even more dangerous. If he escaped now, I doubted anyone in the area would even survive…
“He’ll kill him. Kill us all.”
“Who?” I insisted. It could be either of them. Dimitri, if he managed to escape. Arc, if he got whatever he was looking for.
The Warlock grunted in pain as the shadows to the side shifted. His whole body blurred, like a screen glitching.
“Help us!” he gritted out, grabbing at his head. “When you come for theothers, help us!”
“When we—” I gasped as the image glitched again. Nomin screamed, his voice distorted, switching from a screech to a growl before both sounds mixed together. Shadows attacked him from everywhere as he fell to his knees, pulling at his hair before he completely disappeared behind them.
“Nomin?” I asked, taking a step toward the spot he stood in just a moment before, only to be sent flying back by the shadows lashing.
Loud noises echoed around me as the smoke became thicker, hitting at everything in the room.
And then a voice. Familiar as it had spent a few days taunting me, but strange as it was laced with anger and cruelty instead of mockery.
“You thought you could keep me in a cage?” Dimitri asked, the sound sharp. Clear. “Keep me locked up for you to torment?” Glass shattering. Bones breaking. People agonizing. “And what do we thinknow?” he growled.
The whole room shook from the deep sound. My head swirled as if I was forced back to consciousness.
“You want to treat me like a monster?” he continued, but his voice grew distant. “Then I’ll act like one.”
“Carter!” Someone was shaking me.
My whole body tensed as I opened my eyes and sat up with a gasp. Lola’s eyes were wide, lips parted, her hands still holding my shoulders.
“What’s going on?” I asked, eyes darting over her shoulder where a couple of guards stood, their helmets still on. The pain was gone, but my muscles felt sore, my head dizzy, vision still blurring at the edges.
“You scared the crap out of everybody, that’s what’s going on,” Lola muttered, inching closer to grab my chin and inspect my face.
