Page 36 of Vervain

Manni knocks on the door again. “Saya, are you in there? I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

My lip trembles, and a warm tear slips down my cheek. “I can’t do that…”

The creaking noises intensify. My arms ache, and my body tenses, yearning to open the door and hug my best friend. But this isn’t real.

None of this is real.

“I’m sor⁠—”

The door shudders as Manni slams her fist against it. “OPEN THE DOOR!” she screams, her voice cracking. “Open the fucking door, Saya!” Another thud. “Open. The. Fucking. Door,” she says, every word a slam that quakes the door and cracks the wood.

I shake my head over and over. “Stop! Please! I’m sorry, Manni! I’m sorry!”

She slams her fist against the door again. “Open the door! Open the door! Open the door! Open the door!”

The sound grows louder and louder, suffocating the room, lacing the air with pain and desperation, while I shake my head back and forth, my hands pressed over my ears to try to block Manni’s cries. “STOP!” I screech, my head trembling with the sound, and my chest seizes.

The banging stops. Opening my eyes, I look at the door, my muscles locking in place. The handle slowly twists, spinning all the way around. My shoulder jerks as it clicks, and the door slowly opens on groaning hinges. With every inch it moves, the sound is deafening.

The door swings fully open, and I stare into darkness. The small lantern in my room throbs with soft light, but it doesn’t pass through the door.

My heart pounds in my chest, and there is a ringing in my ears, stinging like wasps. Every breath becomes shallow as the creaking noise starts again. Someone is walking towards the room, their footsteps heavy, pressing down on the flooring: a slow thud, thud, thud. My breath quickens with terror, and I stand paralysed, forgetting about magik.

Forgetting that I can scream.

“Saya,” Manni says, but her voice sounds distorted, deeper, and as if a second voice is melding with her own. “Can you come out of the light for me, please?”

My eyes widen, straining in their sockets, when a long, translucent claw with red veins curls around the doorframe. Then another one. And another. They clink, the tips of fingertips pressing into the wood, splintering.

“Saya…” This time, Manni’s voice is consumed, swallowed up, becoming insect sounds. The noise fills the room until my breath has no volume, and the cacophony surrounding me drowns out my thudding heart. “Come out. Show me the face you made when it took your friend away.”

Another creak, and a transparent foot with red veins worming inside like live wires comes into view. Then the creature that attacked my brother steps completely inside the room. Deep red eyes, hollow and lifeless, tower over me. The spine of the monstrosity curves along the ceiling, and a loud thud comes from a tail hitting the ground. I crane my head, and as it smiles, its mouth splits, flesh cutting away on either side. Slick drool drops from its mouth and drips across my face.

Long, clawed hands curve around my jawline, and its tail curls around my leg, tightening as it rises higher and higher, cutting away the fabric of my clothing.

“Found you,” it growls.

Claws sink into my flesh, and as I let out a guttural scream, I jump from bed, my hand going to my chest and over my pounding heart. Taking a deep breath in, I face the door as I exhale, but it’s closed.

I’m alone in this tiny makeshift bedroom, rattling as the train takes me to the Undercity.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SUNDERED

Saya Claymore

Every nightmare that plagues me is another rock thrown in my mind of glass. The horror of what happened—everyone I have lost—threatens to shatter me.

I knew it wouldn’t pass quickly. Took me ten years to face talking about my Blessed, and even now, his name lodges in my throat.

Exhaling a breath, I run my fingers through sweaty hair, pulling the wet strands away from my nape. It was a long day attempting sleep, tossing and turning—but before that, I thought everything was going okay.

For most of the night, I listened to Serun, and he listened to me. We moved a distance away, afraid to keep leaning into each other. We thought it would ease the tension, but it didn’t. It was like an electrical circuit sparked, a live wire whenever I looked at him and that hint of a half-smile.

When night ended, Serun retired to his room first, and I soon went to my own to sleep. Though I didn’t think trying to sleep would be so difficult.

I emerge from the tiny room. Is the day already over? It’s hard to tell. Metal shields the windows, and the candles in the lamps aren’t burning. Trapped in darkness, it’s not until I reach Serun’s door that it starts to take shape.