“Let’s get out of here! These bitches are crazy!” one of the men shouts as they scramble to gather their shit and take off down the street.
I turn to Aurora, whose red hair is whipping around her face like she’s standing in the center of her own personal inferno. “That was too easy. It wasn’t even fun,” she huffs, sounding genuinely disappointed.
“Aurora,” I breathe, her name escaping with a plume of mist in the frigid air.
The chill claws its way back into my bones with skeletal fingers despite the inferno still raging beside us. I look down and watch in horror as tendrils of absolute darkness begin to bleed up through the pristine snow, spreading like spilled ink across paper. The blackness moves with purpose, with hunger, devouring the white ground beneath our feet until nothing remains but shadow upon shadow.
Aurora’s towering fire begins to flicker. The flames stutter and gasp like dying breaths before the darkness swallows them whole, leaving us in a profound cold.
“What is happening?” Aurora’s voice is barely more than a whisper, as if speaking too loudly might wake something better left sleeping.
I cannot answer. My throat has turned to ash. Goosebumps rise across my flesh. I know this unholy chill and sense reality bending at the edges. I have felt it twice before, and each time it came with the same person.
Emerging from within the darkness, she appears across the yard. Her mouth is no longer the grotesque prison of black thread I remember. Instead, festering scabs ring her lips where the stitches once bound her mouth shut. The sight makes my stomach lurch.
ChapterTwenty
LOG TWENTY – EFFICIENCY TEST: SHE NO LONGER REACHES FOR OBJECTS. THE MIND IS FASTER. WE ASKED HER TO HAND US A CLIPBOARD. IT FLEW ACROSS THE ROOM BEFORE THE WORDS LEFT OUR LIPS.
Meadow’sobsidian eyes lock onto mine, and I feel her stare searing my skin. Her ravenous leer is suffocating, as if death itself learned to walk upright and wear a girl’s face.
Aurora lunges forward, but I scream, “Don’t let her touch you! She’ll track you!”
Meadow’s hand snaps out, catching Aurora’s wrist. The sound of bone grinding against supernatural strength makes me wince. Aurora’s arm bursts into flames, white-hot fire that should melt flesh from bone, but when Meadow releases her, she simply studies the blackened skin of her palm with the detached curiosity of a scientist examining a specimen.
No scream. No flinch. Nothing human at all.
She smiles, a grotesque parody of joy that splits those scabbed lips and reveals teeth stained dark with something I don’t want to identify. Every instinct screams at me to run.
She’s already touched Aurora.
We’re fucked.
“Meadow,” I shout, my heart hammering against my ribs, “you can come with us. We can help you. It doesn’t have to be like this.”
“Kat, are you insane?” Aurora’s snaps. “Look at her. She’s not even human anymore.”
I shoot Aurora a look and mouthShut the hell up.
“I’m not leaving without you, Katja. He will never let you be free.”
Her voice hits me like nails on glass—flat, monotone, like someone’s speaking through a broken radio.
“What the hell did he do to you?” I snap, backing up another step.
“Katja, come with me now, or your friend dies.” Same robotic delivery, each word precise and emotionless.
Aurora mouthsWe can take her. Before I can respond, Meadow melts backward into her own shadows like smoke.
One second, she’s there, and the next, she’s gone.
Her arm locks around my throat from behind, cutting off my air. I claw at her forearm, but it’s like trying to bend steel. Her other hand grips my shoulder, nails digging through my jacket hard enough to draw blood.
“I have new tricks,” she says in my ear, her voice sounding a bit more like herself.
I throw my elbow back hard, connecting with her ribs, but she doesn’t even grunt. Aurora shouts something, and I see flames erupting toward us, but Meadow drags me deeper into the shadows.
Aurora comes after us. A stream of fire erupts from her hands, aimed right at Meadow’s head. But Meadow dissolves into shadow as the flames reach her, and I drop to the snow, gasping and clutching my throat.
