I can’t let her. I can’t let her do that.
The fear and the anger and the sick horror of watching someone else’s body work like a puppet have nowhere to go except into my power. The scythe materializes in my hand before I think to call it.
I appear behind her and bring it down in a high arc, aiming for her wrist.
And then I see Lila’s skin under the smoke.
That’s not Rhea’s arm. That’s Lila’s.
A girl who has already survived enough to break most people ten times. And I’m about to take her arm off because someone else parked herself inside her body.
The scythe wavers.
Rhea doesn’t.
Lila’s arm snaps forward and the knife sinks deep into the man’s throat.
Blood sprays.
“No!”
His body jerks against the restraints. Heels scrape uselessly against concrete. His soul flares bright and panicked, already loosening, already slipping.
He’s gone before I can reach for him.
Somewhere at the edges of my consciousness I realize that Mark is here too. He’s grown so small in his seat that he’s almost invisible. I couldn’t pay him any mind, though. Not when red blood is on my own clothes and hands.
I had the scythe in my hand and I let a man die because I couldn’t bring myself to hurt the girl wearing the body.
Fuck.
I look at Rhea, still inside Lila’s body. She’s smiling. Eyes closed, lashes fluttering, like she’s caught in the most beautiful dream she’s ever had and doesn’t want it to end.
“What have you done?” I repeat, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking. Those black eyes find mine. There’s no regret in them. Not even a shadow.
“I made things right,” she says.
My heart drops. Because even before she finishes the sentence, that smile starts stretching wrong. Pulled too thin, like Lila’s face is pushing back against whatever is wearing it. Then the shaking starts, and dark smoke curls up from the floor at her feet.
“What is happening?” Rhea’s voice. But Lila’s lips aren’t moving.
I know what’s happening.
Every single thing I tried to tell her outside is true, and she didn’t listen, and now it’s eating her from the inside out.
Right in front of me, Rhea is becoming a wraith.
“Guys!” I scream, stumbling backward.
Cassian appears at my side instantly, stepping in front of me and raising his dagger.
“Get back, Skye,” he says. “Behind me.”
Rhea screams. But the sound tears through Lila’s throat, and it comes with so much force that the girl’s body convulses. Her spine arches backward at an angle that shouldn’t be physically possible, and for a second I’m not in a basement anymore. I’m watching some shitty horror movie. Except the screen is three feet in front of me and the girl on it is real.
Lila’s hands claw at her own face. Nails dragging red lines down her cheeks. For one horrifying second I am absolutely certain she’s going to try to rip herself open from the inside out.
“No.” I lunge forward.
