She tilts her head, grimacing. “It was always going to end this way.”
Nyx steps forward. The transparency of her soul in the Afterlife makes her skin shimmer.
“You’ve caused quite a stir,” she says.
Two guards are already binding my hands. I don’t even struggle. I can’t fight or talk or bluff my way out of this.
“I’m going to deal with you personally this time,” Nyx says. “Right after I clean up this mess.”
My eyes are fixed on Poppy. She swallows, looking away.
“Take her to the cell sixty-six,” Nyx tells the guards behind me.
Again, so close to 666. It’s like they’re doing this on purpose.
They start to drag me away when out of the corner of my eye I catch a flash of light. At first I think I’ve imagined it, but it happens again, this time brighter. I look over my shoulder.
One of the souls about twenty feet up is flickering.
“Dante?”
It flashes brighter frantically.
I take a step toward it. “Dante?”
It’s him. I know it’s him. I don’t know how I can be so certain, but I am. It’s gut instinct. It’s built into my DNA, nurtured from birth, sharpened by experience, and sealed in my bones.
“Dante!” I yell, struggling against my captors. “Poppy! It’s Dante! Look, the soul! Do you see it? That’s Dante!”
She looks up, but I can’t tell if she sees what I see or if whatever message the soul is imparting is just for me. I pull harder against my bonds. The rope burns against my skin.
“Let me go!” I yell. The soul is still flickering, but it’s growing softer as the guards drag me toward the stairs. A few more feet and he’ll be lost to me. “Dante! No! Dante! That’s my brother!”
My wrist snaps as one arm slides free from the rope. It burns but probably not nearly as much as a broken wrist would in the Beforedeath. My brain can’t imagine that pain at the moment.
I try to tug my left arm loose, but the force dislodges my shoulder. And since I’ve done that recently and know exactly what the pain feels like, I take the full force of it. It almost knocks the wind out of me.
But then I’m free, running toward Dante’s flickering soul.
I don’t make it two feet before the last thing I expect happens.
A familiar lightness comes over me—like I’m drifting, slipping out of sync with the world. The pain fades. My vision blurs.
Someone grabs my wrist. I look down and notice I’m just as see-through as they are.
It can only mean one thing.
I’m being pulled back to my body.
TheHandoff
Thirty-Four
My soul hits my body like a snap of a rubber band. My eyes fly open. Rook’s face is above mine, behind him the shadow of trees and the pinpricks of stars. His hands are on my cheeks. His mouth is moving, but I can’t make out what he’s saying.
I shove him away, turn to my side, and vomit into what I’m realizing is grave dirt. We’re in the cemetery. Which means it’s time to do the resurrection. Except it’s not. I never met up with Ezra and CJ, which means they shouldn’t have given Credence her finger bone, which means Tolliver shouldn’t have brought me back.
Phantom pain runs up my arms, but my wrist holds firm, my shoulder now intact. However, my body shudders as I continue to heave, though my stomach has been emptied.
