Kai tilts me back and tips my head to the side. There’s a swishing sound before something slippery, cold, and wet is laid upon the searing hurt that feels as though it spans half my cheek.
I reach up, try to peel it off, but Kai gently eases my hand away.
“It will help, Treasure. You must leave it on.”
I wish he’d score his fingers across the hurt instead. Tear out the things that are gnawing at me.
TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP.
The sound splits my skull, and I groan.
“Shh-shh-shh … It’s okay, Treasure. You’re doingsowell. We’re going to get you through this. I just need you to hold on a bit longer, okay? Keep being strong,” he says, patting the sore, its sizzling roots wiggling down into my skull.
My jaw.
Much like the hungry welt on my hand. My foot.
Everything hurts, and the world’s shaking to the beat of thattapping—the cavern, the water lapping at the treasured shore made of sparkly things that tinkle.
I must be in Kai’s trove …
I wish I could see it properly. Appreciate it. Tell him how beautiful it is and fawn over all of his pretty, precious keepsakes.
I shut my eyes, my vision useless anyway—a grub in each one, munching on my corneas, grating their teeth around my pupils.
Distorting things.
TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP.
“Thatsound,” I gurgle, feeling it peck at my skull with each incessanttap.
Kai snarls as inky claws grip my consciousness, crushing it in their tightening fists.
This time when she opens her eyes, a gurgled scream rips up her throat as she reaches for the ceiling, her violet irises gobbled up by blown pupils.
“Kai? Are you—”Wheezing through short, bubbling breaths, she searches the space around me. I can tell by the erratic wobble of her eyes that she’s lost her sight.
‘Let out. Let out. Let out.’
I ignore Zyke’s screeching pleas and grip Orlaith’s seaweed-bound hand. Do what little I can to tether her by planting a kiss on the inside of her wrist—right where her rapid pulse picks at me. Too fast.
Too violent.
Zyke becomes a manic, thrashing swirl in my chest, whipping against my ribs with his slashing tail.
“Treasure …”
Her lips tremble, face crumbling. She lifts her other hand and blindly pats my chest. “You’re here …”
My heart cracks.
I should have beenthere.
Andnow—
I scan her war-stricken body, recalling the wounds I discovered when she first came to us:
Deep cuts in her palms.
