Deedee reaches for me.
“No!” The syllable comes out garbled. I blindly kick out, unseeing, gasping for breath against the pain radiating through my skull. My heel makes contact with bone, then a body topples onto me. Something clatters to the side.
“Bitch!” Knuckles collide with my cheek.
My head whips to the side as my arms scrape against the floor. She tries to scramble upright, reaching for the gun several feet from us.
“Fuck you,” I hiss, driving my knee up.
She tips forward, straddling me, her legs on either side of my body. “I’m going to fucking kill you,” she screeches. Talons wrap around my throat in a bruising grip, cutting off my oxygen.
I sputter and cough, attempting to jerk away. My surroundings blur, deaf to the sounds of death and destruction. Black spots mar my dwindling vision. Fatigue sinks past flesh and bone, burrowing deep into my marrow, spreading its poison to every corner of my body.
Air slams into my lungs at the same time a loud boom shotguns through the room. Then a roar—a thundering crack so loud, I expect a blast of fire to follow. Yet all that’s there is him, standing before the broken doorway, crowding the room with his presence until it feels too cramped to move an inch. His shoulders are wide, tentacles suspended in the air, coiled to strike. The heat of his rage bursts from him in violent shockwaves that rip through my flesh.
Deedee drops her full weight onto the hands around my throat, and they’re ripped away just as fast.
Everything happens so quickly, my brain and eyes experience a three-second lag. A ball of yellow and cherry brown comes flying out of nowhere and latches onto Deedee’s limb. Crimson explodes throughout the room, spraying the walls, the floor, my bruised skin in putrid warmth. The walls bleed with each body part ripped to shreds.
And then I feel it.
The pressing, cloying weight on my chest, like a living entity taking its first breath, a sickly puff of condensation rolling down my spine. It pulses. A thud. A shattered heartbeat right up against my own struggling one.
My limbs are weak, broken without real breaks, muscles atrophied without the passage of time. A presence leeches me of life and warmth.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice whispers. Not my own, but someone else’s. Hers.Them. The Witch and Deedee.
The Curse made to be carried by two. It’s been transferred to one.
I’m going to die.
32
Cindi
Ordus whispers words I can’t make out as I slip in and out of consciousness.
I feel it. It’s hungry, ravenous. A beast wanting both slaughter and rest.
The moon shines overhead, bright and not quite full. It hides behind the trees we’re darting past. I’m not sure how long it’s been since I blacked out in the room. Minutes. Maybe an hour. Could be longer.
“Deedee is the Witch’s daughter, Ordus.” I force out the words between bouts of energy. “She’s the reason your lands remain Cursed.” My voice is raspy like it hasn’t been used in days. “I can feel it, Ordus. The Curse. It—it’s in me. It’s there.”
Ordus slows to a stop, and I have half a mind to survey my surroundings, but I can’t bring myself to turn my head.
“We—we need to talk,” I pant, held upright by his hands around my back and cupping my cheek. “About the Curse.”
“I failed you,” Ordus rasps against my lips.
I shake my head, fighting another wave of fatigue. “You didn’t.” My voice is barely above a whisper as I try to keep myself together. “Take me home.”
The request turns his expression tortured. “You can leave, Cindi. Move away from the krakens and those who wish you harm.”
Grief hits me at the thought of leaving behind the cave and the beach I know better than the back of my hand. It’s like I’m losing someone I care about, and I refuse to go through it again. In the past five years, all I’ve done is lose: Dad, my college friends, my freedom. Enough is enough.
I’m not going to let myself lose the one place I’ve felt any semblance of safety. No one is allowed to take that away from me. Deedee herself confirmed I’m the only one who can end the Curse. That gives me massive bargaining power with the krakens.
We can swing it somehow.
