Chapter Sixty-Three #2
My heart caught fire as the little girl tugged me deeper into her terrible home. Shallow troughs were filled with stagnant water. Several bodies lay where they’d died, and those lucky enough—or condemned enough—to still be alive, watched me with sunken, hopeless eyes.
Other men and women barely looked up as I walked past with my little guide, their ankles and wrists oozing from iron shackles. A huddled group of children glowered at me; one gnawed on a tiny bone—hinting at some point they’d been successful in hunting the rats.
Further in, cages lined an entire wall.
Animals looked through the bars. Goats and dogs, cows and pigs until we got to the end where a bear, a fox, and an emaciated panther brought tears to my fucking eyes. Just ribs and bone, its black pelt rubbed raw with sores.
That could’ve been Whisper.
Any of these poor fucking people could’ve been me and Rook.
Blood roared in my ears.
Chains clinked behind me.
I turned as a trio of young women shuffled past, holding onto each other as they wobbled, bringing water to fill up the animals’ dry bowls.
Every moment, the fire grew worse.
It sank deep, deep inside me, going dangerously quiet and ferociously hot.
In the distance, someone screamed. My gaze shot to another small cave where a group of women huddled on their knees. A man rocked a woman who lay with her head on his lap. Tears ran down his cheeks as he held her hand, supporting her as she gave birth.
Her belly was enormous, but her body was skeletal. Blood streaked her inner thighs as the women helped her deliver.
“Please,” she begged, her voice bouncing off the cave. “Please don’t let it live. Don’t let it become like us.”
One of the women cried as she did her best to ease the mother-to-be’s pain. “We can’t. You know what they’ll do—”
“Kill it!” The woman thrashed, making the man holding her sob harder. “Don’t let them take it. Don’t let it suffer like we do. Don’t let them—”
Her shriek tore her words apart and something snapped inside me.
The walls flexed as my heart staggered. The fire stopped burning me and fed off me instead. It woke. Stretched. Stone rumbled as if the mountain couldn’t contain me.
Rook.
Help.
Untangling my hand from the little girl’s, I clawed at my throat.
Without Rook’s ice, the fire kept rising. Gathering. Impatient and wild and angry.
A red film coated my vision as I drank in the horror around me.
This wasn’t just imprisonment or torture...they were breeding people. The scars on their arms hinted they were harvesting their blood—just like they’d done to me.
Another like my son.
The line from my father’s note almost dropped me to my knees.
They were making more.
Creating another...like me.
That was why Marcus wanted my blood. Why he took so much—
My stomach turned. Bile scalded my throat. The cavern lights flickered as the fire stole my control. The prisoners’ chains began to glow.
I tripped backward, my heart pounding, pounding.
Stop.
Don’t hurt them.
Too late.
Fire detonated. The little girl scuttled behind a rock as my skin erupted with flames, lighting up the entire cave. I was no longer the host but the fuel—burning at the stake of my own bones.
Stop!
It spat and sizzled, reaching for the prisoners as if it would be a mercy to turn them into ash.
I choked and closed my eyes.
I couldn’t watch.
Couldn’t stop—
Don’t.
Don’t hurt them.
Free them.
Save them—
My heart tore.
I coughed up blood, clutching the broken vitalsync core that always knocked me out.
For a second, I was grateful. Thankful that I’d never had to fight this level of power. Never had to be at the mercy of such catastrophic annihilation.
The fire enveloped the prisoners. They screamed—
“Don’t hurt them!” Another pulse detonated through my ribs. “Please!”
The fire paused.
It listened...
...another wave blasted out of me like a volcano, tearing through my skin that was never meant to contain such power. Cave walls blackened as incandescent power consumed everything.
“NO!”
Flames swallowed the prisoners.
“Stop!” I dropped to my knees. “STOP!”
The scent of scorched flesh hit my nose just before the acrid stench of melting slag. The fire didn’t slaughter them—it aimed its fury into their chains.
Every link ignited white-hot. The animal enclosures burst open as iron bars dissolved in a shower of metal shards. The cavern filled with burning rust as every shackle melted—plopping off wrists and ankles like mercury.
The fire cracked back into me with a soul-rending punch.
Heat crucified me—purring and murmuring, whispering its secrets that all I had to do was become one. Stop fighting. Sacrifice my life in return for its power.
It showed me what I could become.
Cities reduced to cinders. Mountains turned to ash.
No more cages. No more chains. No more helpless children—
Enough!
Sagging forward, I trembled violently as the fire listened and calmed, giving me time to think about its bargain. I choked on a mouthful of blood and smoke, wincing against the overwhelming wrongness of being trapped. The flames didn’t fit inside me anymore. They were too much. Too strong.
I should never have come here without Rook, but...how the fuck could I let her see this? See this horror and filth and learn that these people suffered because of me?
I almost retched—
“You okay, mister?”
I grunted as the little girl placed her tiny hand on my shoulder. “You can vomit if you want. I can clean it up. I know how.”
The fact that she asked if I was okay.
That her eyes swam with worry even as her belly growled for food.
I couldn’t fucking do it.
Scooping her up in my arms, I shot to my feet.
I needed to get back to Rook. Now.
But...I couldn’t leave without these people.
Clutching the girl close, I ordered, “Get up. All of you. Move.”
The woman giving birth screeched as she delivered in a gush of blood.
Her baby joined her, its tiny lungs the loudest things in the cave.
And slowly, as if waking from a nightmare, the men and women blinked and looked down. Tears glossed their eyes as they noticed they were no longer chained. Nothing else mattered. Not the how or why...just that they were finally free.
Raw, animalistic hope made them stagger upright. The cave filled with the noise of limping, racing feet.
Slinging the girl onto my hip, I followed them.
She broke my motherfucking heart as she linked her skeletal arms around my neck and pressed a kiss to my cheek. “You finally came.” She beamed the most breathtaking smile, complete with blackened teeth. “I knew someone would come one day.”
My throat closed up.
The fire devoured yet more of my insides as she thanked the very man who was the reason for her nightmare.
Had she been born here? Did she carry the R gene like me and Rook? What did all of this mean—?
A scream echoed down the tunnel where people had fled. Hurrying forward, I chased after them. “Wait! I’ll come with you. Don’t—”
The crack of gunfire cut me off.
Hot, lancing pain punched into my shoulder like a giant wasp.
The vaguest acknowledgement that I’d been shot came and went as I spun to my left. A swarm of guards poured into the cave. Two, six, ten, twenty—
They kept coming, appearing from a different pathway, hopefully giving the prisoners time to escape.
Spreading out, they trained their guns on me.
The woman who’d just given birth clutched her newborn baby, while the man clutched her.
They were the only two left, including the animals too sick to move.
The panther that reminded me so much of Whisper wobbled out of its cage, its shoulder blades almost cutting through its skin as it fought to stay breathing.
“We were told you might stop by.” The guard who’d fired glowered at me. “What a fucking mess you’ve made, but...your timing couldn’t have been more perfect. Mr. Ward is on his way. He’ll be so happy to see you.”
I bared my teeth. The fire grew fangs and the little girl made a sound that wrenched my soul right out of my chest. My gaze snapped to hers. To the hole where her heart used to be.
The bullet that’d lodged into my shoulder had torn straight through her, blending my golden-tinted blood with her muddy-amber life-force.
No...
Her tiny body jerked as confusion arched her eyebrows. Her thick, filthy lashes fluttered. “I’m...” Blood bubbled at the corner of her mouth as her arms loosened around my neck. “...hungry.” Her final word branded my neck with the last puff of air she would ever breathe and...that was it.
Flames no longer waited for me to give them an answer—they claimed me.
A bargain struck.
A life stolen.
Just like all the lives they’d stolen down here.
I sank into the fire and...
broke.