Chapter 50
Seph
I had never seen a person move so efficiently.
Within seconds of the alarm, Marr’s files were packed. Techs were packaging up vials like they were just pieces of furniture.
Not like it was my blood at all.
“Pack the tank first. We’ll put Persephone on the gurney,” Marr snapped, his voice seething with irritation. A tech pressed a button, and the tank holding Echo closed like a storage box. “Pack them both up and take them to the transport.”
“No! Echo!” I screamed. Her eyes were fixed on me as a silver plate slid into place, hiding her from view. She was lifted from the base and carried out of the room, Marr walking beside her.
“Echo!”
I felt her panic spike through our bond—sharp, thin, breaking.
In my hand, I still gripped the scalpel she had given me. I cut my bindings in an instant. When one of the techs grabbed for me, I lashed out, slicing the woman across the face.
Blood poured from the wound. She screamed, stumbling back.
I cut my other hand free, my own blood dripping down my palm. I ripped the tubes from my arms in a burst, fluid spilling across the floor.
Another tech lunged for me, but I charged her like a linebacker, knocking her flat.
“Echo!” I yelled, staggering from the room. I waved the blade wildly, hoping to hit someone.
My vision was murky, but my gloves were gone. Someone tried to grab me. I drained her in an instant.
She hit the ground with a dull thump.
The power hit me like a scream—too much, too fast. I vomited on to the ground.
The ground rumbled suddenly, like an explosion tearing through the structure. Chunks of wall fell around me. The screams—
Those horrible screams.
Smoke flooded the corridors. I had to get out.
“Echo…”
The word came out broken.
Tunnels branched in every direction. No signs. No markings. Just concrete and alarms.
Where is she? Where—
I coughed violently as the smoke thickened. People ran past me, frantic and desperate, pushing for the exits.
Something struck me in the back. A syringe. Cold liquid flooded my spine. Darkness surged, immediate and familiar.
“Echo…” I mumbled as I fell to the ground.
Hands grabbed at me, latching onto my covered skin. I tried to fight them off, but I was too weak. I kicked. I lashed out.
“Take her,” Marr snapped. “She’s destabilising.”
I dug my nails into the floor as if I could claw through the tiles. They dragged me anyway.
Below me, blood smeared across the ground. My blood—dripping from my face, my nose. Red streaked and distorted the white.
We passed a doorway. I grabbed for it, fingers slipping. No one dared touch my bare skin to pry me loose. They just kept pulling.
Until—
Someone moved around me with inhuman speed.
I saw a guard hurled into a wall. Another’s head was torn clean from his body.
More screaming. Gunfire.
I took the opportunity and scrabbled away. I could barely see. Bodies hit the floor around me. From the corner of my eye, I saw Marr’s men dragging him down the corridor, away from me.
Beside me lay a guard. In his hand was a pass.
I stared at it, unblinking.
Then I grabbed it.
I pulled myself upright against the wall. In front of me was a keypad beside a window. I looked through the glass and saw her.
Amelia Ambrose.
She watched me with blank eyes on the other side of the glass.
Worse—she had no aura.
No glow. No presence.
Only darkness. Like her light had been stripped bare — and something else was wearing her skin.
I don’t know why I did it. The pull came from somewhere deep and cold — not my thoughts, but my power.
I pressed the card to the reader.
The door opened.
Amelia stepped out slowly, drawn to me like a moth to a flame.
For a moment I felt a tug on my flesh, like I had inadvertently summoned her.
Black tendrils of darkness floated around her — not hers, but answering me.
I stumbled back. She looked at me once—then smiled, silent and unsettlingly blank—and turned toward the guards.
She raised her hands.
Water poured from her fingers, slamming into the guards’ faces, drowning them where they stood.
Even when they shot her. Even as the bullets filled her, bursting like stars on her body. She didn’t stop.
For a moment I heard her whisper—inside my head.
Kill them all.
She walked through the guards like she felt no pain, taking down one, after another. One guard shot at her. She built a bubble of water around herself, slowing the bullet down, flicking it to the side.
“Amelia.” I said.
For a moment she stared at me. And she smiled.
“Time to run, little girl.” She rasped, raising her arms. A tsunami of water poured up around her in wobbly columns. I watched it grow and slide down the throats of the guards.
I watched them choke to death. I backed up, stumbling for the way out.
A bullet caught her straight in the throat. Her eyes rolled back.
The water collapsed instantly — like a string had been cut.
She fell. I reached for her, before I could stop myself.
But she was already dead.
Maybe she had been all along.
Just another broken soul for Marr’s collection.
I caught a sob in my throat and scrambled away down the hall.
I ran. I had to get out of here.
Bodies fell all around me. I reached a door. I yanked it open, only to see reinforcements arrive.
Three guards charged in, their weapons aimed at my face.
As if from nowhere, Ash leapt over my back and hit them directly.
He ripped them apart like paper. I fell back on to my ass, my back hitting the wall.
I saw it all, even as my vision went black.
He was covered in blood, from head to toe.
And I had never seen something so beautiful.
“Seph!” he yelled, reaching for me, just as another explosion hit the building.
The walls crumpled around me and all I could see was Ash’s terrified expression before something struck me hard in the head and sent me into darkness.