His face relaxes back into that terrible, controlled calm, but I can see the rage simmering just beneath the surface.
“If I was such a sick, horrible man, I wouldn’t let you do this,” Marco says with twisted magnanimity. He motions for Orin to release me. “Say your goodbyes.”
I drop to my knees, my arms flying around Malachi’s neck as I squeeze him desperately. I’m hyperventilating, tears streaming down my face as I blink, trying to clear my vision. But the room wobbles, and suddenly I glimpse the Viridian woman in her bed before snapping back to reality.
Malachi can’t hug me back with his hands restrained, but he tips his head against mine, holding me as best he can.
I can do this. I can summon Banks and Viktor right now and end this. I need to focus.Control your breathing, Kat. This isn’t over. Get a grip.
“Hey, Katja,” Malachi says, and I lean back to see his face. His eyes soften when they meet mine. “Do you remember what I said before? We don’t need saving.”
“We are the storm,” I finish under my breath.
He nods once, and I understand. He’s telling me I’m strong enough to do this. This isn’t over.
“We are the storm,” I repeat, finding my strength.
Orin yanks me back, and a guard steps forward with a blade to Malachi’s throat.
I reach for him but can’t move.
Time fractures. The world around me slows until sound collapses into a distant, muffled roar. The blade bites into flesh, and I watch in horrified clarity as it sweeps clean across his throat.
Blood erupts in a violent arc, splattering hot across my face, my chest. Our eyes lock, his wide with shock, mine with desperate denial. He’s still there, still alive, stillhim—until he isn’t. The light dies, draining from his gaze, and I can do nothing but watch as he collapses forward, crumpling against the tile floor in a lifeless heap.
A scream tears out of me, raw and curdling, shredding my throat as my body convulses with grief. My heart feels like it’s being ripped from my chest, torn to ribbons in someone’s hands. My lungs seize, panic and rage boiling inside me until they overflow.
I close my eyes and scream into the void—so loud, so furious, the air vibrates around me. And with that scream, I reach for the door I swore I’d never open again. I tear it down.
“You want a demon, Marco?” My voice rips through the chaos, low and venomous. “You created one.”
Every barrier between realms shatter, walls collapsing like glass splintering under my will. Shadows pour in like a flood. My chest is an open wound of rage and hate and anguish, and it all spills out of me in a torrent.
They answer.
One by one, the spirits manifest. Wisps of blue-gray light at first, then sharper, clearer—faces half rotted, jaws broken, limbs twisted. Some I know. Some I don’t. They crowd the lab, a swelling storm of the forgotten dead.
Viktor appears, looming beside Marco, his skeletal grin splitting wide as his eyes blaze with malice. Banks rises before me, more solid than ever, his touch cold against my shoulder.His eyes are heavy with sorrow, but sorrow no longer matters to me.
And then the darker ones arrive, the ones even I can’t name. Shadows with gaping maws, eyeless sockets, clawed fingers scraping along the tile. They spill across the floor, swallowing the room in darkness, their hunger vibrating in the air.
Marco takes a step toward me, and I smile. It’s jagged, deranged. I see it reflected in his eyes when he falters, his bravado crumbling as he takes an instinctive step back.
“You call it the devil’s work,” I whisper, my voice shaking the lights in their sockets. “I call it reckoning.”
I pour everything I have into them—every ounce of pain, every scream that won’t leave my throat, every shred of fury still burning in my veins. My skull feels like it’s cracking open, my vision flashing white-hot. Blood trickles from my nose, then gushes, sliding down my lips. My chest seizes like my heart might explode.
But I force the spirits to take solid form.
And for the first time, everyone sees them.
Panic breaks out. Security shouts, weapons raise, but it’s useless. The spirits launch themselves into the living. One tears a man’s throat open with translucent claws. Another drags a scientist screaming into the shadows, his cries cut short with a wet snap. The lab becomes a slaughterhouse.
Marco’s face twists in horror as Viktor lunges at him, slamming him to the floor. Marco thrashes, scrambling like a rat, but Viktor tears into his neck with his teeth like an animal. Blood sprays across the tiles. Marco wails while Viktor rips chunk after chunk from his flesh, eviscerating him.
Orin shoves me hard, trying to push me down, but Banks and Damien seize him. They don’t kill him quickly. Fists crash into his face, his ribs. He screams, but there’s no mercy. Blowafter blow until blood pours from his mouth and nose, until his teeth scatter across the floor.
And then there’s the one who slit Malachi’s throat. My vision narrows, red-hot fury tunneling in. He sees me and bolts, but he doesn’t get far. I snarl, and the spirits seize him mid-stride. Hands sprout from the shadows, clawing up his legs, pinning his arms back. He thrashes, screaming for help, but there’s no help left.
