Thorne roars, a sound of pure animal fury, and grabs my hair, yanking me off her. She throws me against the cinderblock wall so hard the air leaves my lungs in a sharp, pathetic wheeze. I hit the floor, and she’s on me, her heavy knees pinning my chest, her fists raining down like hammers.
Thud. Crack. Thud.
“You think you’re special?” Thorne screams, her spit landing on my forehead. “You’re just meat! We’re all just fucking meat!”
She grabs my throat, her massive hands cutting off the air. I claw at her face, my nails finding the corner of her eye, digging in until I feel something wet and soft. She howls, her grip loosening just enough for me to pullone hand free. I don’t go for her eyes again. I go for the jagged, half-healed scar on her throat.
I rip.
“Enough!”
The sound of a heavy baton hitting a rib echoes through the hall. Miller slams the stick into Thorne’s kidneys, and she collapses sideways, a heavy, dead weight. I lie there on the cold linoleum, gasping, my vision swimming in a sea of red. My gown is torn, my shoulder is screaming, and I can feel a tooth rattling loose in my gums.
I start to laugh. It’s a wet, bubbly sound that makes the blood spray from my lips.
Miller stands over us, his chest heaving, his face pale. He looks at the blood on the walls, at Thorne twitching on the floor, and then at me—a broken, blood-streaked mess of a girl who looks like she’s just won a prize.
“You’re a fucking monster, Hallow,” Miller whispers, his voice trembling.
“No, Miller,” I rasp, spitting a mouthful of red onto his boots. “I’m the monster’s reason. Now get me to the doctor. I don’t want to keep him waiting when I look this… beautiful.”
My knees don’t just buckle; they vanish.
The adrenaline that was keeping my world uprightevaporates, leaving nothing but the cold, gravitational pull of the floor. I hit the linoleum hard, the impact jarring my teeth, but I don’t feel the sting. I feel the silence. My vision is a blurring tunnel of white light and red smears, the edges fraying like burnt paper.
“Hallow? Fuck. Hallow!” Miller’s voice sounds like it’s coming from the bottom of a deep, rusted well.
I’m lying in the middle of the hallway, a heap of torn cotton and shredded dignity. I can feel the warmth of my own blood pooling under my cheek, spreading across the white tile like an inkblot test. Thorne is somewhere behind me, groaning and clutching her neck, but she feels miles away. Everything feels miles away.
I stare at a discarded staple on the floor. It’s shiny. Perfect.
“Code Silver! Hallway B! Now!” Miller is screaming into his radio, his heavy boots pacing around my head. “The asset is down! I repeat, Hallow is down!”
Then, the sound of the heavy double doors at the end of the hall slamming open. Bang. The rhythmic, frantic click of dress shoes on tile.Aris.I’d know that walk anywhere—the sound of a man who thinks he owns the ground he walks on. The shuffling of the other inmates stops. The air in the hallway turns ice-cold, the way it always does when the Devil enters the room.
“Get away from her,” Aris’s voice drops like a guillotine blade.
“Doctor, Thorne jumped her, I tried to?—”
“I said get away!”
I feel him before I see him. The scent of espresso and expensive soap cuts through the smell of Thorne’s sweat. Then, cold, trembling hands are on me. Aris drops to hisknees in the middle of the hallway, ignoring the blood that immediately ruins the knees of his trousers.
He rolls me onto my back. The movement makes my head spin, and a fresh gout of blood spills from my mouth. He looks at my face—the new bruises, the swelling eye, the raw, jagged tear on my shoulder where Thorne’s nails found purchase.
He doesn’t look like a doctor. He looks like a man who just watched his favourite porcelain doll get shattered by a hammer.
“Hallow,” he breathes, his voice cracked and raw. “Look at me. Look at me, you stubborn, beautiful wreck.”
I pull my eyes to his. I want to tell him to go to hell, but all that comes out is a wet, rattling breath. I reach up, my fingers stained with Thorne’s life and my own, and I press a bloody hand directly against his pristine, white-collared shirt. I leave a perfect, crimson palm print over his heart.
“I… told you,” I rasp, the words bubbling through the red. “I’m… the apocalypse.”
His face twists. A dark, terrifying vein of possession ripples through his expression, a hunger so sharp it’s almost violent. He doesn’t call for a stretcher. He doesn’t call for a nurse. He slides one arm under my knees and the other behind my back, hauling me up against his chest.
“You’re not an apocalypse,” he whispers against my forehead, his lips brushing the blood. “You’re a ghost. And I’m the only one who can see you.”
He turns and carries me down the hall, his grip so tight it bruises, his heart hammering againstmy palm. The orderlies step back. The inmates watch in a terrifying, hushed silence. He isn’t taking me to the infirmary. He’s taking me back to the dark.
