My heart stops.
Zane’s blood-curdling scream flays me down the middle as Cainon lifts him off the ground by his hair and dangles him over the edge of the pier. “Think I’ll let thesharksdo it.”
“No,” I sob, crawling forward, reaching. “No!”
“You. Did. This.”
He lets go.
Zane falls too fast yet agonizingly slow, cramming me full of every horrifying detail:
Crumpled features …
One hand reaching, the other clutching onto his cloak like it’ll grow wings and save him …
The pure, undiluted fear in his eyes …
I scramble toward the edge, but Cainon lands a boot to my ribs, and I collide with the pier in a dash of blood and water. The sound of Zane splashing into the hungry ocean drives a stake into my gut, and I unspool around it. Not slow and steady, but so fast my entirebeingends up in a tangled, messy heap.
Lashing lengths of caustic blackness slither up from that chasm deep within my chest, honing their tapered tips, slitting my skin from the inside out. Hissing for me tokill.
Kill.
KILL!
I can no longer hear the wind, the thunder, or the sound of my own heartbeat. I can no longer hear the raging ocean as it heaves and churns—riddled with beasts that won’t think before theychew.
All I am is brain-bursting pressure and hissing vengeance.
My fingers twist with the chain around my ankle, brutally aware that the jetty is made of wood. That cutting my ugly loose will kill me, too.
I’ve lost the will to care.
I.
Did.
This.
Blood weeps from my eyes as I hold Cainon’s stare and rip my necklace free.
KILL!
The pressure doesn’t immediately abate. Blackness doesn’t burst through my skin and shred everything around me.
I spur the darkness on, screaming for it tokill.
Kill.
Kill …
Pressure swells until I can hardly see through the blood in my eyes, and I’m certain my skull has just as many fractures as my heart.
Something’s … wrong …
Blood gushes from my nose, forging a warm path down my chin.
My scream fades to silence as my lungs deflate, spine arching back. My chest tips to the sky, and I’m certain my eyes are about to pop from the pressure.
