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I’m certain he’s left no shadows in that space so that there’s nowhere for me to creep in. Bastard.
My claws curl into a fist and dig into my palm until I draw blood, hungry violence welling inside me.
Anger coils and urges me to spring forward. But that’s exactly what he wants. He wants me driven by anger. Fueled by fury. He wants me to make a mistake.
Instead, with every bit of willpower I’ve got, I uncurl my scarred claws and raise my blue hand until I waggle my fingers at him.
“Hey, Dad!” I call out in my most cheery, 1950s human television show voice. “So glad you could make it!”
To my right, Dev howls as he tackles a potato-shaped Seven. With his fangs, he peels strips of skin off the bastard.
A fake smile plastered to my face, as if this is all just a fun little game, I turn and charge at an orange blob Eight.
But as I run, the ground beneath my feet trembles. The metal machinery above me starts to shake, tiny gears inside of it clanging. Eyes widen all around when a ridge appears in the floor.
Alarm bursts inside of me—me and every other monster still alive. In unison, as if this has been fucking choreographed, we turn toward the slides and start to climb.
The earth rumbles.
My heart pounds painfully as my blood blasts through my veins, sizzlingly hot. My claws scraping at the metal, piercing it, I scramble upward frantically.
Faster.
Hurry.
Higher.
A layer of frost forms on some of the machinery, and around me, several monsters start to slip, sliding down and crashing back to the ground with terrified screams. Only my claws save me, helping me dig into my perch.
The middle of the floor erupts, chunks of cement and dirt spraying everywhere as a sandworm emerges, mouth gaping open, eighteen rows of teeth gleaming. Three monsters fall into its gullet along with a bit of floor and a metal slide that it crunches like a hard candy.
Then the sightless beast flops over, and its mouth starts suctioning up the bodies on the ground like a vacuum cleaner.
Fuck.
At least its priorities seem to be easy food first today.
I search the room to find the Devourer clinging to a giant guillotine device. His red eyes glow, and he’s staring right at me. Then his eyes dart to the side.
I follow his gaze and realize that the walls are slowly buckling. The bricks have shifted and are no longer neatly stacked.
This entire place is about to come tumbling down.
I could portal out, but we don’t know where our mate is. And I can’t leave her.
4
ALIANA
The ground beginsto shake underneath me, and I throw my arm out for balance, dropping Chase’s hand and scraping my palm against the rough poured concrete on the ground as my knees threaten to buckle.
“Sandworm,” Chase/Em growls as he attempts to stand. He almost immediately collapses back onto his ass, a pained moan escaping him in the process.
Fuck.
If he’s not even strong enough to walk, then how the hell am I going to get him out of here?
Bits of cement begin to shower down around me as the earth trembles yet again. I curse, knowing that Chase—it’s easier to just refer to him as that instead of continuing to alternate between Chase and the Empty Man—is right and that a sandworm is crawling beneath the earth as we speak.
