It was so overwhelming that even with Jagger’s hateful blood curiously drawn to the creature, I still felt a gnawing, instinctual fear prodding at that tiny pit of self-preservation in my stomach.
Run, the fear whispered. Don’t free this thing. Run while you still can.
“How will you control this creature when it’s loose?” I asked, another drop of sweat falling as I pulled a knot free. And another. And another again.
There was a war happening in me: I fought Jagger and the Clarks’ wills—and lost each time I untied a knot.
There are some battles in life people can win. But there are others you can never win. You can only keep fighting and hope to survive.
I wondered if the rockslide weight of Jagger’s will was like that. I couldn’t throw it off—I could only grapple and wrestle and fight it so the weight of it didn’t crush me. There was no winning. There was only losing or surviving.
Years ago, Jagger had executed a slipshot by stacking slabs of slate on his chest, until his lungs were finally crushed beneath the weight. It had taken twenty-seven slabs. The slipshot had survived for days.
Some people might say surviving is winning, but I don’t know if that’s the truth.
You can survive and lose, just like you can win and die.
In the beginning, I’d hoped this was a fight I could win. Even Justice had told me to hide my good so someday, I might be able to defeat Jagger. I wasn’t certain, though, if Justice had been wrong. Maybe this fight with Jagger was the type that could never be won.
Justice had gone before me. He’d lost already. Survived and lost.
There was only one question. Was he alive enough for there to be hope, or had all his hope withered, died, and become a rag man haunting his soul?
I didn’t know.
I only knew I was unlocking a being that made Jagger’s blood groan and my insides shudder.
“I don’t think you’ll be able to,” I added. “It doesn’t feel like it can be controlled.”
I pried another knot free from the torturous jumble of tightly woven locks.
“Control?” Last frowned. She’d perched on a narrow stone ledge, nestled against the rib cage of one of her ancestors. “Who said we want control? What’s the point in controlling chaos?”
“But—”
“We’ll let it devour the Smiths, and then we’ll put it back.”
Put it back? She thought they could put this thing back? I wasn’t certain exactly what it was. Spirit? Stone? Creature? A horror that couldn’t be looked at without turning to stone?
“And if you can’t put it back?”
She shrugged. “Then we’ll kill it.”
The thing in the walls stilled. Was it listening? Could it understand?
It had never seemed intelligent to me. It was only hunger. Madness. Hate. It was a mindless, devouring thing, driven by the need to inflict pain and then consume the screams. I didn’t know exactly what it was, but I knew it was the sort of darkness that hated the light.
I tapped on the rope that connected me to Jacob again. Maybe he would come. Maybe he’d stop the Clarks.
“But what if it destroys the city?” The Clarks lived here. This was their home. Why would they want to destroy their home? “And what about the millions of people?—?”
Last jumped down from the ledge and slapped me.
I blinked, the cold sting of her hand bringing a flush of needles to my cheek. The knots I’d been untangling slipped from my mind and snapped back into place.
Last turned her hand and smiled at the red working its way over her pale palm. “Sometimes, Mari, you say the stupidest things. We want to destroy the city. We want people to die. What did I tell you when we first became friends? Sacrifice is a necessary part of life. Why do you care what happens to people you don’t know? More importantly, why don’t you care about me? I’m your friend, but you haven’t even asked about my wedding night.”
I pressed my fingers to the hot sting of my cheek and thought about Luvic’s stricken, horrified expression when he’d realized Cora was gone.
