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His brothers panic as they take his side. “No!” one screams.
“Knight!” another shouts.
“Someone help!” the last yells. “She fucking killed him!”
I begin to shake, bellowing cries escaping me as I stare down at the man.
They scream and shout and lift his limp body in their arms, barking orders at one another, all while Ben is frozen in place.
“I… I’m so—”
I cut off when not one, but all of the brothers begin to laugh, the sounds sending chills down my spine.
Confused and sick with a feeling I can’t describe, I search their expression, but mine freezes on my face when Knight’s dead body is no longer dead.
Slowly, he pushes to stand, facing me as he tips his head, pulling the long, sharp glass from his artery. He tosses it at my feet, and I jolt, my palms planting on the wall because there is nowhere else to go. No escape to be made.
“Nice try,” he speaks in a tone so deep I swear even my organs shrivel at the sound. He steps closer, blood all over him as he gets in my face. He grips my chin, tilting my head all the way up so I’m forced to face him. “You can’t kill me, but be very fucking careful, mate, because I can…kill you.”
I gasp in fear, and then everything goes black.
Twenty-Two
London
Cold. The incisive bites of ice snap over my skin as my eyes fly open and I’m staring up at a sky so dark the stars almost blind me. I push myself up from the ground, facing the familiar bridge. Sharp metal waves up to the sky like serrated talons before joining to braided wire that propagates over the road. I lift my foot to take another step when a loud squawk pierces from behind me.
I turn to see a crow with its head tilted to the side, his eyes on me and his beak slightly open.
“Hey.” I open my mouth to talk, but nothing comes out. I don’t want to be here. What if I’m here and that same shadow visits me? Does things to me? Things I don’t want…
I try to run, lifting my leg from the ground to direct off to a sprint, when rain touches the tip of my nose and the snow that’s pinched between my toes turns to sand…and I’m falling.
Quicksand.
I open my mouth to call for help when granules fill it up and the little light where I came from turns black.
So black…
My eyes feel leaden, but I slowly open, blinking away the obscurity. The rotten egg smell of sulfur is strong, and I twist my body to the side, swinging my legs over the bed to climb out. What happened last night? What…everything flashes back through my mind at one hundred miles an hour. I killed Knight, or I didn’t?
Scrubbing my hands over my eyes, I shake my head, curling my toes into the plush carpet beneath.
Wait.
I blink, noticing the black rug made of the softest texture I’ve ever felt in my life…nothing like the cheap carpet in my dorm bedroom.
Where the fuck am I?
The air is humid and sticky. So hot that sweat bubbles on my flesh. I tiptoe around the four-post bed, bringing my hand to a post and squeezing. The walls are licked with deep purple and white trimmings, yet everything feels outdated. As though I’ve stepped right through a time portal and into another century, maybe one that doesn’t exist yet.
This could be possible, after everything that I’ve witnessed lately. I move across the room and to the windows, shifting the curtains out of the way while bringing my hand to rest on my belly. Silk meets my palm and I look down to see a little camisole dress, the same color as the walls. I release my hand from the curtain as I spin around to find a mirror. Blinking through the shock, I take everything in.
A small sofa is tucked in the corner of the room, the two small doors to the left, and a stairwell that leads down, instead of up. I move toward it and see the curl go around and around as it falls right to the bottom of the room below. A single light flickers on and I lean farther over to see what it is down there when a loud crash sounds from outside. I shuffle back toward the window, moving the curtain out of the way and my stomach drops to the ground.
The sky is dark, the color of midnight on a full moon, and the planets that orbit around the moon don’t look like anything I’ve ever seen. The fact that I can fucking see the galaxy around us as if it is within literal reach is about as terrifying as it is mind-blowing.
I blink back the shock and try not to lose myself on the astral side of things, when I notice movement down below, where a large stretch of grass spreads out. What the fuck have I been forced into, and why do I get the feeling it has only just begun?
