I stalk forward, my blade heavy and perfect in my hand. I press it to his neck, slow, deliberate. He begs, but I don’t listen. I drag the blade across his throat in jagged strokes, sawing into him. His scream gurgles out, blood spraying my face, hot and metallic. I don’t stop until he crumples at my feet, twitching, choking, and then nothing at all.
The lab is chaos. Screams, blood, shadows tearing through flesh. But I don’t care. I only care about him.
I fall to my knees beside Malachi’s body, cradling his head in my lap. My hands shake as I stroke his hair back, streaking it red with his own blood.
The anguish rips through me like fire. It’s too much, too consuming. The world is ending. I can’t survive this. Ican’t survivewithout him.
An icy chill stabs my chest, spreading through my veins like frostbite. My vision wavers, the room rippling and distorting like water. Static slashes across my sight, buzzing in my ears. I clutch Malachi tighter, screaming his name, but it doesn’t matter.
Everything collapses into white.
I blink rapidly as the room comes into focus—a different room entirely.
The Viridian woman lies in bed, wired to countless machines, watching me with knowing eyes, somehow, she brought me here again, wherever here is. This time feelsdifferent though. It feels more tangible as if I’m physically here, not my mind venturing into the Veil. My blood runs cold as that familiar chill creeps up my back, and I turn my focus back to her.
“You knew,” I grit between my teeth, closing the distance between us. “You knew! Why didn’t you warn me? Why didn’t you tell me how to save them?”
I slam my hands down on the bed, my breathing becoming erratic again as rage and desperation consume me.
“You must lose everything before you can save anything,” she says with maddening calm.
I unleash a blood-curdling scream that tears from the deepest part of my soul, releasing everything that’s been building inside me like a dam bursting. “I’m tired of your riddles and word play!”
I grab the monitor next to her bed and rip it from the wall, hurling it to the floor until it explodes in a shower of sparks and broken glass. The screen goes dark, but still, she lies there unmoving, watching me with those ancient, knowing eyes.
I seize another monitor and drive my fist straight through the screen, not caring as the glass slices into my knuckles, not caring as blood streams down my arm. Pain is nothing compared to the agony tearing through my chest.
“Let me out!” I scream, my voice cracking with desperation. “I don’t want to be here! I don’t want to see you! Send me back to him now!”
I grab the cords attached to her frail body and yank them as hard as I can, ripping them from whatever machines she’s hooked up to.
Alarms start blaring, lights flashing red.
Chapter Thirty
LOG THIRTY – TEMPORAL DISPLACEMENT: HER DREAMS REFERENCE EVENTS YEARS AHEAD WITH MUNDANE ACCURACY—WEATHER PATTERNS, ELECTIONS, DEATHS. IT IS NOT PROPHECY. IT IS MEMORY DISPLACED.
I gasp awake,my eyes flying open, lungs dragging in air like I’ve been drowning. My chest heaves, ragged and uneven, and for a moment, I don’t know where I am or what’s real.
Mischka shifts beside me, warm and solid in the crook of my arm. Alive. Real. Breathing. My throat tightens as she licks my face with gentle concern, her soft weight grounding me in this moment.
Not a ghost.
Not a memory.
She’s here.
I sit up slowly, my hands trembling as I pull the wires from my temples and wrists. The adhesive tugs at my skin, and I coil the cords neatly around the monitors at my bedside—muscle memory from too many sessions like this. My body moves on autopilot, even while my mind spins in disbelief.
The door swings open before I can fully orient myself.
“This is the longest amount of data we’ve been able to record to date,” Dr. Harrison says, practically vibrating with excitement. “I know it takes you a few minutes to get yourbearings, so meet us in the debrief room in ten minutes. The board is here for the first time. They couldn’t have picked a better day.”
His smile is wide, hungry. He looks at me like I’m not a person but a breakthrough waiting to be dissected, eager to pry apart whatever horrors my mind just endured.
“Project M,” he adds with a satisfied nod at Mischka—my very much alive dog—before shutting the door behind him.
The silence he leaves behind presses down on me like a weight as I sort through everything that happened.
