Chapter Twenty-Five
I don’t have a choice. I have to trust that Mason can handle himself, or at least that he can tell what I’m about to do.
When Dane comes towards me, I move.
So does Mason.
He jabs an elbow back at the same moment my bat connects with Dane’s leg. Dane shouts in surprise more than pain, and when he shoves Mason toward me, we both fall.
I’m back on my feet first. Mason’s hands are still bound, but I catch Dane around the middle and bring him down to the ground, narrowly missing one of the tables.
“Get off!” Dane punches me in the side, and fuck, I’ve already let go of my bat. I twist around, trying to reach my knife. Dane punches me again, in the chest this time.
All the breath rushes out of me. Mason’s still trying to get his hands free, wrists rubbed raw. I kick out at Dane, but he grabs me, using his bulk to keep me pinned.
“You just had to fucking agree , Isaac,” he snarls. He hits me again, in the face, and stars burst behind my eyelids.
Fuck this. I’m not dying like this. And when he hits me again in the side, then the shoulder, I know that’s what he intends to do.
I bring one leg up between his thighs, and he grunts when my knee connects but doesn’t move. He hits me again. My head is swimming, and I can’t fight him off when he tightens one hand around my throat.
I struggle to no avail. He squeezes, cutting off my air, and it’s seconds before I panic, tugging ineffectively at his arm. “D-Dane,” I wheeze, and he smirks, grip tightening.
“I don’t have to take any of you back,” he says. “Fuck you, Isaac. I’d have given you everything you ever wanted.”
Black creeps in at the edge of my vision. His face is so close to mine, but he’s not the last thing I want to see. Mason might be—He might have done terrible things, but he never hurt me. I believe, still, that he never would.
My gaze seeks out Mason instead. Hopefully, he can get out of here. Hopefully, he’ll tell the others, and they’ll stop Dane before he gets on that train. That’s all I want. If they kill him, then Autumn and Blake and Otto didn’t die for nothing.
Mason’s hands are unbound. He’s standing, unmoving, eyes closed. I wheeze, breath rattling with the little air that remains in my lungs. Why isn’t he moving? Running?
He said he’d protect me.
Why isn’t he doing that?
Dane follows my gaze and smirks. He leans down, lips pressing against my ear. I hear the rushing of blood, my heartbeat so fast as I try to draw in air, but I can’t—I can’t …
“You made the wrong choice,” Dane whispers, his voice a slithering, loathsome thing.
Then he screams.
His grip on my throat loosens and the first lungful of air I get feels like a salve, even if it tastes like death. I smack his hand away and push myself back, coughing as I try to breathe.
He doesn’t even notice. How can he? He’s far too focused on Autumn, who’s digging her teeth into his shoulder.
She’s still dead, the edges of that fatal wound on her throat fluttering with each groan.
She has hold of him, the skin on her hands torn where she forced her way out of her bindings.
Stronger in death than she ever was in life, she digs blunt teeth in again, biting through Dane’s T-shirt and the flesh beneath.
“No, no!” Dane cries. He hits her, blows that are strong enough to crack bone, but she doesn’t stop. Even when he cracks her skull, when he caves it in and all I see is red beneath, she doesn’t stop.
I look at Mason. His eyes are still closed. This is nothing like the magic he showed me before. Mere tricks. Now his pale face is devoid of all colour and every vein stands out in stark relief. Not blue or green, but purple and black, almost pulsing with every twitch of his fingers.
It’s grotesque. It’s magnificent. I can’t tear my eyes away.
I have to, though, when Dane lets out another desperate cry. He hits Autumn again, but this time it’s his hatchet that meets the side of her face. Her jaw dislocates on one side, enough for him to finally get away.
I try to get to my feet, but my legs won’t support me. Not yet. I still haven’t caught my breath, and the throbbing around my throat tells me that bruises will be the least of my worries.
Dane turns on Autumn with an animalistic cry. Each swing of his hatchet brings a new spray of blood or crack of bone, and she’s still trying to move when he’s done—Mason is still trying to move her—but all she can do is drag her pulverised body across the ground.
Dane laughs and gets to his feet. His shoulder is bleeding where she’s bitten him. It’s not a virus, but will he turn anyway?
I push up onto my knees. My bat is too far away, and I still can’t stand. Dane lists to one side as he steps past me, well out of my reach.
Mason’s eyes are closed. He hasn’t reacted to a single thing we’ve done. I don’t think he can hear us.
“Mason!” I try, all the same. My voice comes out in a croak. He doesn’t flinch.
“You get to watch this,” Dane says. “And then I’m going to fucking kill you, Isaac.”
My fingers brush the handle of my knife. Then up. My jacket, the pocket…
The gun.
I pull it out just as Dane reaches Mason. We don’t practise shooting. Why would we? Guns aren’t useful weapons doing the job we do.
My hand shakes when I take aim. They’re both only a few feet away, both in profile, and Dane lifts his hatchet in his left hand, non-dominant but uninjured—
It’s both quieter and louder than I expected. The gun kicks in my hand, startling me enough that I fall back and land hard on my arse.
Dane is still for a moment. I see a small, dark hole at his temple. Blood has sprayed over the tables and wall to his right. I can’t catch my breath.
Mason’s eyes snap open. The hatchet drops to the floor first, landing with a dull thud, and then Dane’s body follows it, hitting with enough force that I gasp.
Autumn isn’t moving anymore. Dane doesn’t so much as twitch, either.
Mason looks at me, eyes wide. “You…” He trails off, but when he approaches, I don’t shrink back or move away. I’m shaking all over. I only realise that when he crouches and gently takes the gun from my loose grip.
He tosses it aside and kneels between my legs. “ You saved me , little lamb.”
I want to laugh. I want to cry. I want to not think about everything I now know because I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it and how I’m supposed to deal with it in the next hour, or what will happen when the train comes or I have to talk to Rae or…
I kiss Mason instead. This is the first thing to surprise him, I think, because he makes a sound against my mouth before he kisses me back. The air is full of the scent of blood and death, but I inhale the earthy scent of him instead and lose myself to each desperate meeting of our lips.
“Is it true?” I ask when we part. “All of it?”
“I don’t know about the Citadel, but the necromancer? Me? That’s true, yes.”
I should let go of him, but I can’t. I still don’t think I can stand, and now it has nothing to do with shock or Dane trying to kill me. If I stand, I have to leave. I have to. Mason and I can’t have a future, not after he—
“Do you regret it?”
Mason looks at me, confused. “Regret…?”
“Unleashing it all.”
“I—” He licks his lips and swallows. “Will it help if I do?”
We’re breathing the same air. His hand is warm and heavy on the back of my neck.
I’ve never, in my life, felt so safe as I do right now in his arms.
“Would you do it again?”
“Yes.”
I don’t know what to say to that. I’m lucky that I don’t have to try to form words. Noises come from outside—voices, footsteps—and Mason helps me to my feet. I don’t lean into him, but I don’t push away his touch.
The end is coming. I can feel it.
Nia is the first to walk into the room. She stops, eyes widening at the sight before her.
Rae sees Autumn’s body and shakes her head in disbelief. “I-I told her…”
“I tried,” I say. Can she hear the regret in my voice? I should have bargained with Dane to get her out. I should have put myself between them, threat be damned. Autumn might never have liked me, but she was young, and she didn’t deserve to be sent out like this.
“There was nothing we could do for her,” Mason says.
Nia’s eyes snap to him. They’re shining and full of fury.
“Nothing?” she hisses.
She knows what he’s done. And I find, despite myself, that I’m leaping to his defence. “There was nothing else—”
“It’s fine,” Mason murmurs.
“We need…” Rae shakes her head. Callum wanders over to the trapdoor, face paling when he spots Otto’s body within.
“Her ID,” I say, nodding. Dane’s too, if we’re to go back. When I move toward her, Mason grabs my arm.
“You’re not going back.”
“I think I have to.”
He stares at me in disbelief, grip slackening enough that I can approach Autumn’s mangled corpse.
I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood, but I don’t make a single sound as I slip my hand into her pocket and pull out her hunter’s ID.
Dane’s is easier. I feel nothing but low-banked anger when I look upon his face.
“Blake?” I ask Rae, and she nods.
“We found him. We didn’t know what had happened at first.”
“Dane killed him.”
Nia nods. She jerks her head. “Mason.”
He still just looks at me. I don’t know what to do. Will they let us go back?
“Mason, now,” Nia snaps. She leaves the classroom, and Mason gives me one final, longing look before he traipses out after her.
Rae approaches me and lets out another faint sob.
“Do you have Blake’s ID?”
“Y-yes.”
I cross to the trapdoor. Callum and Sal have pulled Otto’s body out, and my heart hurts and my stomach twists at the sight of him, the backs of my eyes stinging. My throat hurts, too, and it’s not just the bruising. I take Otto’s ID from his inside pocket and push to my feet.
“Come on,” I say to Rae, and when she doesn’t move, I grab her arm. She stares up at me, a question in her eyes. “We have to go.”