Текст книги "Burning Blood"

Автор книги: Pepper winters

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 24 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

Her eyes glazed as I let her go. “Go with him.”

“What?” Her eyebrows flew up. “But...where are you going?”

“Look after her.” I pushed her gently toward Dillon. “Protect her with your life. If you don’t, I’ll take yours. And there won’t be enough left of you to fill an urn once I’m through.”

Before either of them could argue, I left.

* * * * *

I stalked into my father’s office with Whisper, heading straight to the shelf where he stored every map of Brimstone’s geothermal sites and reactors.

Old and new, working and decommissioned, I spread the maps across the desk and pinned them under my palms. The Gaoligong Ranges stared back with neat contour lines and elevations, hiding what truly lurked within.

Volcanic power.

The same power that dwelled in me.

The edge of the parchment curled with smoke as every droplet of my burning blood fixated on the east.

To the mountains that swallowed souls.

To where Lao Li heard the wind screaming...

Chapter Sixty

“AGAIN.”

“Ugh, you can’t be serious.” I groaned and flopped onto the ground beneath the gnarled tree growing in the centre of Lucien’s courtyard. My eyes strayed to the closed gates. The gates Dillon had locked—keeping us trapped and hidden behind the stone wall.

Dusk had fallen.

Dillon had physically hauled me back ten times already—stopping me from racing through Ashfall Cliff to find Lucien.

Wherever he was, he was burning.

I felt him.

That bond around my heart sizzled and tugged.

He needed me just like I needed him, but...Dillon had taken Lucien’s command to protect me far too literally.

“You can’t keep distracting me like this, you know.” I calculated my odds of bolting to the gates before Dillon could get up from where he’d sprawled on a rattan lounger.

“If you don’t want me lurking around and getting in your way, then prove to me that you can protect yourself.” Wolfing down the tray of fried wontons, meat bao buns, and custard tarts that Auntie Mei had delivered, he pointed at the dead piece of grass where I’d been ‘training’.

The grass was dead because I’d killed it by accident.

“Again.”

“I hate you.”

“Don’t care,” he mumbled around a mouthful. “Do it.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

Licking his fingers, he leaned forward and watched me haul my very heavy, very exhausted, very grumpy body off the ground.

“Does it look like I’m afraid of a little cold?” He snorted. “I grew up in the Westfjords. Your little parlour tricks barely qualify as weather. Winter tries to kill you before breakfast there.”

My gaze went to the gates again.

“He’s fine.” Dillon rolled his eyes. “His room might look like an overdone steak, but nothing else has caught fire, which means he’s controlling himself. Just like I want you to do. So go on. Do it.”

I glowered at him, a cold misty ribbon playing around my wrists. “I told you. I don’t know how. The ice responds to Lucien. I can’t wield it. I—”

A small dagger soared straight toward my face—

A blast of hoarfrost detonated from my chest in a violent shockwave, turning everything into frozen glass. The dagger never landed—it hung suspended in midair, trapped inside a casing of ice, inches from my nose.

“There. Finally. That’s what fear can do.” Dillon leapt to his feet, smacking at his frozen trousers, brushing frost off his eyebrows and eyelashes. “It’s emotionally triggered like you said. Good. Again.”

“Are you trying to kill me?” My breath fogged with white plumes even as the courtyard thawed as quickly as I’d frozen it. “Throwing knives at me now?”

“It was a gamble, I agree. See? I ran the risk of being murdered by that psycho you call a boyfriend just to prove you can wield it.”

“He doesn’t like that word. Makes him feel like he’s ten.”

“Certainly acts like it sometimes,” he muttered under his breath.

“I heard that. And if he does, you’re in trouble.”

“His little pyro tendencies don’t scare me. Just like your impression of a fridge doesn’t.” His grin fell as his gaze landed on my balled hands. “Eh, you’re glowing.”

Swallowing hard, I spread my fingers and glowered at the white-blue etchings that looked like snowflakes stamped my skin. “It’s a hazard.”

“Alrighty...well.” He clapped his hands. “Doesn’t matter. I won’t judge and no one is here to see you. Again.”

My gaze flicked to the gates as the bond tugged hard.

Lucien.

What was taking him so long? What was he doing?

“I need to go to him,” I argued. “He’s burning up.”

“Then learn how to use the gifts you’ve been given so you can help him.”

“How are you so rational about all of this? Don’t you find everything crazy?”

“Fuck yes, I do.” He chuckled. “It’s the craziest thing I’ve seen in my life, and I’ve worked at Snowflake Corp for years.”

“Not even going to try to assure me I’m not a freak, huh?”

“It would be a waste of breath.” He shrugged. “You’re the daughter of two of the most renowned scientists of this generation. It’s almost a given that you would turn out...odd.”

Slipping his hand into one of his many vest pockets, he pulled out a small glass vial holding large silver pills. “You’re like these Cryolyt pills. Something that never existed before yet is now mainstream in warfare. They’ve helped countless injured soldiers, just like you’ll—”

“Wait.” Cutting across the courtyard, I snatched the vial out of his fingers. I gasped as the same silver pills that Lucien had used while escaping Cinderkeep rattled behind the glass.

“I was right,” I murmured. “I had seen them before.”

“Your mother was the one who came up with the final recipe for those, I think.” Dillon snatched the pills back, shoving them into his pocket. “All I’m saying is, if they were willing to create and manipulate things in a jar, why would they stop at creating and manipulating you in her womb? You were their greatest experiment.”

A blanket of ice covered the ground with a giant spiral, killing yet more of the shrubbery.

“What emotion was that?” Dillon frowned. “Pain? Betrayal? You should be writing your reactions down, so you know what each feeling does.”

“So you agree that you think my parents were the ones who did this to me...who did this to Lucien?”

The temperature suddenly plummeted again.

Dillon’s breath crystallised as snow began to fall. Not from the sky, but from me. Tiny flakes spiralled from my chest—blanketing the entire courtyard.

It didn’t hurt. I didn’t have a migraine or nausea like before but...I was in pain.

“That’s grief.” Dillon hugged himself, shivering from the cold. “Write it down. It’s soft but lethal.”

Shaking away the agony in my heart for what my parents had done, the snow lightened, turned to powder, then vanished.

“Your parents loved you,” Dillon said softly, stepping into me and rubbing away the single tear that rolled down my cheek. “Maybe they loved you too much and wanted you to be more than what everyone else is.”

“If my parents loved me.” I sniffed back my sadness. “They would never have experimented on me.” My heart pinched with guilt. “What if I’m the reason Lucien has been suffering his entire life? What if—”

“Are you honestly saying you feel responsible?” He cupped my shoulders and held me firm. “That you feel guilty for something you didn’t even know about?”

“Yes.” My temper flared, bringing another scattering of frost. “I do feel guilty. He’s spent his entire life in misery. And if it was my family who did this to him—”

“Then I suppose you were meant to find each other, seeing as it’s looking more and more likely that you’re keeping each other alive.” He cocked his head. “Or are you denying that fact?”

“No, I just—”

“What if they’d tampered with you and not him? Do you think you would’ve survived when your necklace came off? Because I’m telling you right now, you wouldn’t have. You were almost dead when I found you that day.”

He swallowed hard as if the memories haunted him. “I’m grateful he was able to protect you and I’m grateful you have each other. You’ve been on your own for far too long. So...whatever other worries you have. Whatever guilt you feel or questions you have...those are all tomorrow’s problems.”

Letting me go, he ordered, “Focus. There’s a shit-ton more emotions we haven’t tested and I’m not letting you out of this courtyard until you do.”

Feelings surged inside me.

Panic and worry, disbelief and shock.

I missed Lucien.

The bond’s incessant tugging made me irritable and anxious.

I wanted him.

I—

The bond tightened without warning, wrenching. I staggered forward, clutching my heart.

“Rook?” Dillon reached for me. “You okay?”

Heat flared through the tether. Snippets of Lucien’s thoughts bled into mine.

The fear of what lurked in the mountain. The rage of his hate. The single-minded determination to exterminate all those who’d betrayed him.

If he got hurt.

If something happened to him—

I almost doubled over from the pain.

I loved him.

I’d admitted it to myself before, but now...now the very earth shifted beneath my feet. The words carved themselves into my bones, branding their truth into my soul.

I love him.

Something primal and insanely powerful unlocked inside me as if it’d been waiting for that final confession.

Love was cruel and kind, vicious and forgiving. It was domination and surrender, protection and savagery and the cold kept rising, rising.

The temperature dropped so quickly, the stone wall cracked. Ice spikes the size of spears erupted from the ground in jagged constellations. Sound warped. Light bent. Permafrost surged outward in violent rings, devouring the courtyard tile by tile. Snow condensed into razor blades. And a polar maelstrom formed above, its eye directly over me.

I cried out as a cryonic shockwave shot out of me, sending weaponised sleet in every direction.

Dillon didn’t stand a chance.

The blast hurled him backward.

He hit the pavilion’s doors as the stone lions turned into solid icebergs.

Bending over, I planted my hands on my knees and gulped air.

Stop it.

Stop it!

The storm dissolved above. Snow vanished. Frost melted.

With a groan, Dillon peeled himself off the frozen doors. The courtyard looked like the aftermath of an ice age. Adjusting his vest, he shook icicles out of his hair and came toward me with the slightest limp. “Whatever emotion that was...that’s the one I want you to remember how to wield if you’re ever in trouble.”

My bones started to shake.

I wanted to collapse and pretend I wasn’t capable of such destruction. That my love could cause such a catastrophe.

“I-I need to go see him. I need—”

“Not yet, you’re not. We’re not done.” Moving out of striking distance, he crossed his arms and commanded, “Again.”

Chapter Sixty-One

IT WAS ME WHO TURNED DESPERATE THAT night.

Lucien’s arms snaked around me, dragging me out of troubled dreams and pulling my back into his naked body.

I didn’t know what time it was. The exhaustion from Dillon’s relentless drilling ached in my bones, but the moment Lucien’s heat enveloped me—bare skin to bare skin—it felt as if I’d stepped into the heart of a flame that would never burn me.

We fit. Not physically, but existentially.

There was no me or him, just us.

The room was nearly pitch-black. I could just make out Whisper as he lifted his head, yawned, then settled down again as if knowing what we were about to do.

The love I’d unleashed earlier had nowhere to go. I’d choked it down and bottled it up but now...Lucien was here. He was here and I loved him and frost whispered across the blankets, thin veins of ice etching the walls to glitter on the ceiling.

My need for him sharpened into something feral.

Without speaking, I reached for him, my fingers inching down his scorching body, locking around his hot erection.

His breath caught against the back of my neck. His mouth found the sensitive curve beneath my ear, his lips branding me in the softest kiss as his hands moved over me like he’d already memorised every inch.

The fire in him answered the frost in me and it was as effortless as breathing to arch my back, bring him between my legs, and surrender to his domination as he slid inside me.

His husky groan as he filled me made every part of me come alive. My skin turned luminescent while his sparked with fire. Silver shine and golden glow, we rocked together in the dark.

Each time he thrust, he pushed me deeper into all those feelings of love and possession, devotion and connection. Slow and gentle, he took me from behind, drowning me in sweetest pleasure.

We moved together as if we’d rehearsed this in another lifetime. Every slow roll of his hips wasn’t just sex...it was a vow. A quiet understanding that we’d found each other and would never, ever let go.

My fingers gripped his forearms as he hugged me from behind. His rhythm turned deeper as he kissed the curve of my shoulder. His breath grew rough against my skin, his control thinning, his heat rising to meet my ice that transformed the walls with fractal patterns.

Ecstasy built, coiling tight in my core until I felt like I’d shatter into pieces.

And when he buried his face in my hair and whispered my name, I couldn’t hold on anymore.

My orgasm broke over me with heart-clenching waves.

He followed me.

His groan as he spilled inside made the bond between our souls flare brilliantly hot and scarily cold—as if acknowledging the horrifying truth that we were never meant to survive alone.

We’d tried and suffered through a lifetime of pain.

But now we had each other.

He was mine.

I was his.

And nothing—not mountains or monsters, rage or revenge—could break us.

Chapter Sixty-Two

LOVE LIKE THIS SHOULDN’T EXIST.

Not for someone...something...like me.

I’d done everything I could to run from affection. I’d spent my lifetime killing anyone who tried to get close.

Yet her?

I would never get enough. Never be worthy enough. Never have the strength to let her go.

I studied her in the dark—drinking in her black eyelashes and imprinting her honeyed cheeks. I memorised her perfect lips and inhaled her delicious scent.

Whisper never took his glowing eyes off me as I sat upright and tucked the blankets tighter around her. She mumbled in her sleep and rolled over, looking so small and fragile and mine.

The surge of possession and blinding, blistering love almost made me buckle over.

It was the same level of connection I’d felt bleeding from her earlier this evening. An echo of her fear had rippled down the bond, distracting me from my father’s maps.

I didn’t know what had made her feel so desperately, but I felt the same way now.

If anything ever happened to her.

If anyone ever hurt her—

Fuck.

Fire raced down my arms, external and dangerous instead of internal and smouldering. Being this close to her soothed me—I didn’t have to work nearly so hard to contain the power stalking within my veins, but...I couldn’t sleep.

Not after what I’d read.

The scribbled note to some unknown sender—that I’d found tucked down the back of a drawer—haunted me like a dirty secret.

It almost seemed like fate was taunting me. Not only had I narrowed the screaming mountain that Lao Li mentioned to a potential disused cave system in the east, but...the note proved something was going on.

To, K,

They’re trying to create another like my son.

Ever since you took him and sent him back...he’s different.

His crib keeps smoking. His bathwater keeps boiling.

I’m trying to hide it from the staff, but he’s getting worse.

There are rumours that the Eastern Crucible has been reopened.

And not for Brimstone reactors.

You need to shut them down.

Meilin and I are trapped and can’t get out, but Wen can be trusted. If you get this message, please find a way to destroy it.

And I’ll...I’ll find a way to stop my son.

Jin.

Not save. Not help. Stop.

Did that mean my father was planning on killing me?

What if the one man who was meant to love me unconditionally decided I was too dangerous to stay alive?

But if he believed that, why had he given me a lifeline beyond his grave? Why give me access to Sovereign Retrieval? Who was he writing to?

What the fuck is going on in that mountain?!

The fire simmering in my chest grew hotter. I didn’t like so many unanswered questions. I didn’t like my past overshadowing my future, all while my present was still so unknown.

Rook shifted, her foot sneaking under the blankets to find me in her sleep.

The bond between us tugged, her feelings feathering into me.

Fear and worry, love and loyalty.

She frowned as if her dreams turned to nightmares. Nightmares full of loss and pain and panic.

I went to gather her in my arms, but...

I suffered the same feelings.

The same clawing dread.

Something was waiting in that mountain.

I needed to go. Had to find out. But...I didn’t want to risk hurting her.

She’d already seen far too much death thanks to me.

And if the note was true. If Lao Li’s ramblings weren’t pure madness...that meant my hands would be coated in blood before I was through.

Leaning over her, I brushed my lips over her cool cheek. “I refuse to put you in danger, little ice heart. Not now.”

Not now, when losing her would slaughter me.

If I let my vengeance be the reason she got hurt. If I took her with me into certain carnage and she suffered because of me...

I’ll never forgive myself.

Slipping out of bed, I padded silently through the darkness to the wardrobe.

I didn’t bother showering. I wanted to keep her on my skin—to use her scent as a way to control myself while we were apart. Pulling on my familiar black uniform and black boots, I wished I had a gun or two.

Then again, I was used to knives. I’d taken countless lives with a blade.

Palming a few daggers that I’d been given as a child—heirlooms with dragon-carved handles—I wedged them into my waistband. At least, wearing all black, bloodstains wouldn’t show if I cut someone’s throat tonight.

Whisper prowled toward me, his whiskers flaring as if tasting my burning.

Ducking to my haunches, I grabbed his cheeks. “Once again, I’m going to ask you to protect her.” Pressing my forehead to his, I stayed there for a moment before standing and stalking to the door. “Don’t leave her side.”

I paused on the threshold, my eyes catching Whisper’s as he went to stand guard over a sleeping Rook.

Rook continued to snooze safely.

My hands balled with the vicious need to keep her that way.

The urge to defend her was visceral—an instinct carved deep into my bones. My only purpose was to protect her—even from myself, which meant I would clean up my messes so she no longer had to suffer.

With one last look, I told myself I would return before she woke.

I was wrong.

Chapter Sixty-Three

I SQUATTED IN THE DARK LIKE A DEMON.

Ahead, the cave system of the Eastern Crucible sulked in the night. I’d walked here after trying to figure out how to drive Wen’s jeep—only to give up when the grinding gears threatened to tell everyone in Ashfall Cliff that I was up to no good.

Then again, a vehicle wouldn’t have worked.

It’d taken three hours of mountaineering to get here. The forest was almost impassable; the cliff edges narrow and steep. I’d memorised my father’s map but almost got lost a few times, thanks to the rugged terrain doing its best to turn me back. I doubted the villagers would’ve gone this way while looking for their lost ones—purely because of the risks.

I clenched against the inferno fighting to get free.

One hundred and eighty minutes away from Rook, yet the burning in my blood was unbearable. The fire hated being separated from her. It acted like a separate entity—a parasite slowly vampirising my soul the longer I was away from the one person who kept me sane.

Focus.

On the horizon, the moon glimmered brightly. Dawn was still hours away and the croaks of frogs and night insects rang in my ears.

I studied the cave’s entrance. Half-collapsed and covered in vines, it looked abandoned—just like the site notice on my father’s map. A rusted, broken fence hung on rotten, wooden posts—the metal cut in the centre and rolled aside as if explorers had ignored the signs to keep out. A weather-beaten sign with the Brimstone logo had been torn off the fence and left to be swallowed by moss against a tree.

Everything about this place looked forgotten and unwanted, yet...the air tasted wrong.

The fire kept growing, snarling at something I couldn’t see.

The faintest coil of cigarette smoke hit my nose as two men exited the mountain’s mouth.

One of them smacked aside a low branch; the other kicked aside a weed. The low hum of conversation came as they settled onto two fallen rocks by the cave’s entrance, pulled out a bottle and some packaged food from their coats, and proceeded to have a midnight snack.

The fire in me snarled.

The violence that’d always been a part of me—the part that Rook had done her best to tame—sprang free with claws and fury.

A lamenting moan hung on the breeze, whipping my head to the side. It sounded exactly like Lao Li had said—like the mountain was screaming.

I moved before I could stop myself.

Leaving my spot in the trees, I marched directly toward the two men sharing their starlit feast. Why were they here? Why guard an abandoned geothermal site in the middle of the night? Even if it was still operated by Brimstone—some off-the-books reactor or some other business experiment—it didn’t explain why guards were needed at this time.

It took an embarrassingly long moment for them to spy me, chatting quietly and working their way through their food. I cut through the broken fence and drew to a stop.

The one who’d been smoking the cigarette froze. Choking on a mouthful, he launched to his feet, knocked over his bottle, and whipped a gun from his holster.

“Stop right there!” His Mandarin was short and choppy, revealing he wasn’t from around here. “Who the hell are you?”

“Let me in.” I crossed my arms, palming the dagger hilts in my waistband.

The other man stood slowly, looking me up and down with a laugh. “You want in? You think you can wander here in the dead of night and—”

“I’m the rightful ruler of Brimstone Industries.” Leaning forward, I smiled thinly. “I’m Yunhui Luxin. Let. Me. In.”

They shot each other a look.

I gave them a few seconds.

A single minute to prove they were innocent and I didn’t have to kill them.

But they ruined it by pointing their guns at my head and—

I swooped forward, feinted to the side, and plunged a dagger into the closest guard’s jugular before spinning and slashing the neck of the other. All those nights of murdering eager little assassins came in handy as I dispatched them without a sound.

Dropping their guns, their hands clutched their blood-spurting throats. As they gurgled and choked, I shoved the knives back into my waistband.

The fire inside me raged.

It wanted out.

But I gritted my teeth and watched them die, then stepped silently into the mountain.

* * * * *

The deeper I went, the narrower the tunnel became.

The air grew stagnant.

Breathing felt wrong—as if the mountain itself exhaled a toxic mix of misery and mourning.

A few sporadic lightbulbs led the way, their grimy wires guiding me down and down. No signage. No guards. Just the oppressive sensation of stepping into hell.

Around a few corners and down a few more pathways. Voices echoed from the depths. Muffled and uneasy, the murmurs of pain and the occasional cry of agony.

The fire in me slammed against my ribs, threatening to break my control.

Sweat beaded along my spine as I kept going. Heat crawled across my skin in erratic pulses, scorching my shirt.

Hurry.

The mountain beckoned me deeper.

The tunnel sloped left, then right—a few misshapen steps carved into slick stone.

The moans grew louder. A wail cut through the low murmurs. Someone screamed.

The fire snarled and sizzled, threatening to erupt out of me.

Clenching every muscle, I turned a corner and—

Found two guards with their backs to me.

In front of them was a little girl. A filthy little girl dressed in rags, holding out an empty wooden bowl.

They laughed and shook their heads at whatever she’d asked. The taller one kicked her, sending her bowl flying. She slammed to the ground with a cry.

In a fugue of heat and fury, I shot forward and severed one guard’s throat before stabbing the voice box of the other.

The little girl huddled and sobbed, not looking up as she covered her head. The men’s blood rained down their chests, covering my hands as they toppled quietly to the floor.

The fire roared.

I staggered backward. The cave walls shimmered red. Every bone in my body throbbed as if the burning venom threatened to get free—pushing against my ribs, testing its cage of bone and flesh.

I doubled over, balling my hand in my stomach as I tried to control it.

It just kept building.

A hairline fracture cracked across my chest, splitting my skin and revealing glowing muscles beneath.

Fuck...

What if Rook and I hadn’t evolved, after all?

What if the unlocking of fire and ice by the river was just the beginning? What if it’d just been waiting? Waiting for me to be stupid enough to leave her?

I groaned as the fire gnawed at my insides like blazing rats—

Something hesitantly soft landed on my wrist—almost too faint to feel.

My head snapped up, eyes locking onto the little girl who jerked her fingers off me and held up her empty bowl. Offering it with one hand, she extended her other arm in sacrifice.

“Please?” she whimpered. “I’ll give you my blood if you give me food.”

More heat howled through my chest.

No older than six or seven, her skin was littered with silver scars. Just like my arms had been when I’d lived in Cinderkeep.

Why was she trading blood for food?

Where the hell did she come from?

Sweating and shaking, I dropped to one knee. Wiping the glistening, still-warm blood from the slaughtered guards onto my thighs, I did my best to stay human.

The little girl fought her terror and eyed me, her black hair knotted and covered with hay, her bare feet so thick with dirt, it looked like she wore socks.

“Please?” She trembled, her rags shivering. The tattered holes around her torso revealed ribs beneath. “Food? Give me food for my blood?” Shoving her scarred arm under my nose, she wrinkled her tiny nose. “I’m hungry.”

She peered into my eyes...

And reeled backward.

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I commanded the fire to stop trying to rule me. I needed to swallow it down—to remove the scarlet line that’d undoubtedly appeared around my pupils.

But it fought me. Burned me. Without Rook’s frost, I wasn’t strong enough, but...I was here because of this little girl. I was here to find out what the fuck was going on in this mountain.

Focus!

Locking everything down, my voice came out smoky and sharp. “Who are you?”

She held her bowl higher, her lips pinched and collarbones stark. “Take my blood. I won’t tell. But you’ll give me food, won’t you? The others did.”

My hands shook as I took her bowl and placed it beside the dead guards. She didn’t even give them a second glance. As if death was nothing to notice.

Sweat poured down my back. My heart slammed so violently, it threatened to rupture.

I could feel my control slipping. Feel the wrath winning. But...I couldn’t hurt her.

If I let go, I would melt this entire mountain.

If I lost control, everybody in it would die.

That knowledge was enough to keep me sane...for now.

Standing, I held out my hand. “Can you take me to where you live? Are there others down below?”

She eyed up my bloody fingers, then shrugged and placed her fragile, tiny hand in mine. “Okay.”

I staggered as the power inside me snarled.

It wanted to burn.

Burn them all.

Burn every-fucking-thing to the ground.

Forcing a smile, I let her lead me deeper into hell.

* * * * *

The heart of the Eastern Crucible wasn’t a reactor.

It was a prison.

I lost the ability to breathe as the little girl guided me into the mountain’s belly, leading me into caverns bigger than the Dragon Courtyard. Other caves branched off, illuminated with lightbulbs bolted to the rock, casting shadows and glare.

The smell made my stomach turn over.

Rot and blood, death and waste.

Divots in the rock had become sleeping areas for anyone lucky enough to claim them. Stuffed with rancid hay and achingly cold, threadbare blankets looked as damp as the stone walls. Rats darted about—narrowly missing being caught by a group of starving men, the clink of their chains bouncing off the low ceiling.

My heart caught fire as the little girl tugged me deeper into her terrible home. Shallow troughs were filled with stagnant water. Several bodies lay where they’d died, and those lucky enough—or condemned enough—to still be alive, watched me with sunken, hopeless eyes.

Other men and women barely looked up as I walked past with my little guide, their ankles and wrists oozing from iron shackles. A huddled group of children glowered at me; one gnawed on a tiny bone—hinting at some point they’d been successful in hunting the rats.

Further in, cages lined an entire wall.

Animals looked through the bars. Goats and dogs, cows and pigs until we got to the end where a bear, a fox, and an emaciated panther brought tears to my fucking eyes. Just ribs and bone, its black pelt rubbed raw with sores.

That could’ve been Whisper.

Any of these poor fucking people could’ve been me and Rook.

Blood roared in my ears.

Chains clinked behind me.

I turned as a trio of young women shuffled past, holding onto each other as they wobbled, bringing water to fill up the animals’ dry bowls.

Every moment, the fire grew worse.

It sank deep, deep inside me, going dangerously quiet and ferociously hot.

In the distance, someone screamed. My gaze shot to another small cave where a group of women huddled on their knees. A man rocked a woman who lay with her head on his lap. Tears ran down his cheeks as he held her hand, supporting her as she gave birth.

Her belly was enormous, but her body was skeletal. Blood streaked her inner thighs as the women helped her deliver.

“Please,” she begged, her voice bouncing off the cave. “Please don’t let it live. Don’t let it become like us.”

One of the women cried as she did her best to ease the mother-to-be’s pain. “We can’t. You know what they’ll do—”

“Kill it!” The woman thrashed, making the man holding her sob harder. “Don’t let them take it. Don’t let it suffer like we do. Don’t let them—”