Chapter 48

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

CAT

M y cheek burned where the monster's saliva dripped onto me. The monster who'd been our school administrator until seconds ago. It happened so fast I couldn't scramble out from under Elaina, couldn't do anything but try to keep her massive jaws away from me. But I was weakening. Being dragged through the woods had given me too many aches and pains to hold those huge teeth away for long, and they grew closer with every second.

"Get the fuck off my sister," Virgil growled, only recognisable because of those two words— my sister. His voice was garbled and deep. I wanted to see if he'd come out of the cell but I didn't dare take my eyes off Elaina as her chest vibrated with a growl and she lurched closer to me, enough that rancid breath pushed the hairs off my face.

Her eyes blazed sapphire blue, almost glowing as they pinned me in her sights and—weren't the monster's eyes amber? I remembered staring into its eyes through the gate to Death's domain. It was burned into my memory. Those big eyes, soulful and menacing at the same time.

I was knocked out of my thoughts when Virgil threw himself into Elaina's dark, furry side, slamming her into the wall. I scrambled to my feet, my legs like jelly, my hands shaking as adrenaline surged through me. All I could smell was the monster's rancid breath.

My eyes shot to Virgil when he jumped back, his hands in fists and his whole body trembling. Elaina shook out her fur and rose to four feet, so big she towered over me, almost too big for this small tunnel. Now I'd got a good look at her, her fur wasn't black but a very dark grey, and where I remembered her horns curled like a ram's, these spiralled straight up to a point. Fear sharpened my vision until I saw every little detail as I backed up. Virgil took another step back.

He swallowed, his hands shaking harder as he glanced at me. "When you get an opening, I need you to run down the tunnel. In the first room you come to, there's a heavy wooden box with a crescent moon on it. I need you to get two syringes from it and bring them here. Can you do that, Prickly?"

"What?" I breathed, jumping when Elaina lowered her head to the ground, huge teeth bared on a rumbling growl.

"Did you hear what I said?" Virgil demanded, raising fists in front of himself. Anticipating Elaina's attack. The monster's attack.

"I heard," I confirmed shakily, flinching into the metal bars of his cell when Elaina suddenly leapt at Virgil. "I can't leave you!"

"If you don't, you're dead," he snapped. "Don't worry about me, I've fought worse than this woman."

Panic clawed at my chest, my head pounding as the numbness wore off all at once. "Virgil, I can't—"

Elaina jerked toward me, her head lowered like a goat about to lock horns with another. She meant to split my stomach on her razor sharp horns. My heart pounded so loudly I heard it in my ears. On instinct, I threw myself aside, catching the bars of the next cell to stop myself falling. Every other cage was empty except for Virgil's. But why did Nightmare need so many?

"Virgil!" I screamed when he leapt at the huge monster, grabbing her horns and swinging his body around so his feet slammed into her face. She stumbled into the wall, giving me a clear opening to the tunnel.

"Go!" he commanded, throaty and loud. Chills went down my arms. "If you meant what you said about loving me no matter what, go, Cat!"

I felt sick, but I forced myself to stumble away from the cells. I shook, every instinct screaming at me to stay at Virgil's side, warning that I would lose him, but I put one foot in front of the other until I reached the tunnel's mouth.

"I really do love you, Virgil," I said, my stomach lurching when I saw him leap down from Elaina's body, driving a trembling fist into her throat. Where did my brother learn to fight like that?

"Go!" he roared, his voice echoing off the ceiling, startling me back into motion.

I sprinted down the tunnel, the emergency lights making my own shadow look menacing. Behind me, a frightening roar came from the monster, and I gasped, running faster. What if I got back to Virgil and he was smeared on the cobbles like the florist? What if Elaina ripped him apart?

Why did he need a syringe more than he needed me beside him? My head pounded the harder I ran, but I didn't stop until I skidded into the greenish room with the gurneys. I knew the answer to that question; there was only one that made sense. Whatever this syringe contained, it must be able to calm Elaina. Calm the monster.

I didn't like calling her a monster now I'd seen her transform from woman to animal. It felt wrong, especially knowing Nightmare had done this to her. It wasn't Elaina's fault she was a creature. But I couldn't avoid the memory of Caroline laid in the park, or the way the creature had crouched over the florist, eating her. My sympathy for Elaina hit a brick wall.

"Wooden box," I panted, stumbling around the room, scanning every surface and shelf, bumping into the metal tables as I tried to move faster than my body would allow. Too slow, too slow, too slow, my mind panicked, the words a frantic heartbeat as I searched the computer desk, my hands shaking as I lifted papers and records, growing more desperate with every second that passed.

What if I took too long? What if Virgil was murdered while I was here, too far away to save him, failing to find the box he'd asked for?

I turned to the shelves full of vials of dark liquid I couldn't call anything other than blood, peering behind the racks of them, crouching to search the bottom row, going onto my tiptoes to peer above and biting back a scream at the pain through my ankle and—

I found it. I exhaled a relieved sob and reached up to grab the mahogany box, biting the inside of my mouth until I drew blood, my shoulder blazing with sudden agony. Box in hand, I stumbled back, clutching it to my chest as tears spilled down my face. Fuck, it hurt. I wanted to curl up on the floor and cry, but Virgil needed me and I wouldn't let him down. I wouldn't lose him when I'd finally found him.

I rested the box on the edge of a shelf, prising open the top, the crescent moon burned into the top a darker shade than the rest of the box. Inside, as Virgil promised, were two dozen syringes of a luminescent yellow solution. It was almost gold in the dim green lighting. I grabbed three of them just to be safe, dumped the heavy box on the table behind me and—paused as something I'd seen finally registered to my conscious mind.

A ripple of unease made my belly clench as I turned back to face the shelves, syringes in hand. I hoped I was wrong. I hoped I'd misread the label of the vial. But no, there it was—WALLISON, CACTUS, 2024.

Nightmare had my blood. In a lab that was distilling an unknown liquid into something a completely different colour. The same colour as whatever was in these syringes. An antidote to whatever made Elaina monstrous, or something worse? I felt my pulse double in my throat as I stared at that vial labelled with my name.

She had my blood. Nightmare had my blood. The true monster, the goddess that made Byron into a murderer and made Miz kill my best friend. She had my blood.

Noise rang in my ears. I adjusted the syringes into one hand and eased the vial of my blood from the rack.

"Fuck you," I whispered, and smashed the glass vial at my feet, the explosion of glass and blood across stone immensely satisfying. Revenge made my breathing quicken. I wanted to shatter every last one of these vials, but Virgil needed me. I would come back. When Elaina was subdued, when we were safe—I'd come back.

I shifted my weight to take a step, but I paused when I saw the blood splattered on the floor was smoking.

"God," I whispered, backing up a step, but the sight of yellow smoke curling from where my blood had hit the floor entranced me. Fear held me in place. Why was my blood smoking?

I froze when streams of blood reached up from the ground, billowing like it was smoke itself, and I finally stumbled back another step. But the blood rose higher, dancing in the air like a living thing, yellow flashes within the rich crimson. My temperature spiked, the room humid.

Whatever substance Nightmare was distilling here… it was in my blood. Infecting it. Twisting it. Changing it into something terrifying.

I retreated another step, my hand sweaty around the syringes, the yellow liquid inside suddenly far more dangerous than it was minutes ago. Was this what made Elaina into a monster, into a nightmare herself?

Why did Virgil send me to get it if this thing made monsters and—

"Oh, god." If it was in my blood, it was in every single vial on these shelves. Hundreds upon hundreds. Why? What did Nightmare stand to gain? I didn't understand, and that made me want to scream. And then I really did scream as a drop of blood touched my hand, not just burning the backs of my fingers but scalding.

I scrambled to get away from the blood, the liquid too alive, too steeped with magic. The scent of it was everywhere, inescapable—copper and iron and bitterness. Sweat dripped off my upper lip. My foot caught on the table leg, panic making me clumsy, and I hit the floor on my knees so fast the fall was a blur.

My hand shot out to stop my head hitting the stone floor, the move pure instinct and no thought. Goosebumps covered my legs as my hand landed directly in the blood, slippery and hot. More blood hit my face, then my throbbing shoulder, my bare arms. The dress was flimsy protection and blood was everywhere.

All the places it touched burned like I'd been doused in acid.

I screamed, so guttural and raw that I didn't recognise myself. Tears obscured my vision. I couldn't think or feel or breathe. Blood burned and branded me.

Run, my darkness howled at me. Get up and run and don't stop running until this cursed building is far behind you. Move, lioness!

I screamed louder as the pain crested, the syringes falling from my hands as I collapsed onto my side, gasping for shallow breaths. My vision swirled in shades of red like the pain scorching my skin. My chest was a bonfire, making every breath raze my lungs and throat. I couldn't feel the pain in my head and ankle anymore because there was no part of me that didn't scream in protest and torture.

Something was wrong with the blood in that vial. It wasn't the first blood I'd had on my hands, and it had never burned like this before, had never—

I fell onto my back, my spine arching off the floor as the pain mounted, burning through my veins, tearing through every cell. I had to be sick, had to be infected. I wouldn't entertain the darker thought in my mind, wouldn't think about the yellow substance or the administrator who was now a monster.

Get out of there. Run or crawl or drag yourself by your fingernails—whatever it takes, get the hell out.

"I can't," I sobbed, my whole vision flashing back.

They're coming, just hold on.

I tried, I really tried. But the next time my back arched, bones snapped, and the pain made me black out.