Chapter 11
Karia
“Flashlight!” Stein’s voice clips out in the darkness.
A breath later, a tunnel of bright white light beams through the underground.
I blink, my throat dry, the gunshot ringing in my ears.
But it’s Stein I see first.
His blue gaze is on mine.
A smile plays along his mouth.
He drops the scalpel he used to hurt Sullen, and the ping of it chimes in the room.
I don’t know who was shot.
I need to turn around, to find Von, Isadora, ensure they are still standing. But there is commotion at my back, scuffling, and the light wavers in the dark.
Sullen looms behind Stein, his face pale, complexion ashen.
I can’t discern precisely what this room is, but I see dark walls, cement floors, and a gap in the wall ahead of me. A door slid open, flush with the divider. The thing that kept Sullen from me.
The scent of pennies is bright here, but smoke is the most overwhelming.
Someone extinguished the fire; it’s why the light went out.
Someone who was probably one of my friends.
I do not know why they chose now to take my side, but a rush of gratitude sweeps through me at the same moment I step back from Stein, my fingers curled into fists, my eyes narrowed on his.
Then he lifts his hand, as if to slap me.
I freeze, my body rigid.
I remember what Sullen asked me before, when he trapped me in a room with him. I don’t think you’ve ever been hit before. Have you, Karia?
No.
Never.
My pulse thumps violently throughout my body and I wish I was braver.
I want to stop Stein. I have a brief, insane moment of longing for the past, when I should have paid attention in my mandatory self-defense classes. When I could have made my mother proud.
But I am unmoving.
Perfectly still.
And Stein is smiling, as if he knows I am so fucking sheltered, I will not understand how to fight back.
And yet, the moment before he hits me, the very second I want to screw up my eyes tight and cringe away, Sullen’s hand wraps around Stein’s wrist, and he twists it the same way he did to Cosmo, back at the Emporium.
A popping sound fills the dungeon.
The light sputters—no doubt from one of Stein’s guards—arching haphazardly around the room, but I can see Sullen’s brown eyes on mine, even as he keeps his hand on his father’s.
He leans in close to Stein, his mouth brushing the tip of the man’s ear. “Soon, so soon… you’re fucking dead.”
Then Isadora’s shriek of rage fills the dungeon.
The light clatters to the floor.
A body thuds somewhere, against something.
Darkness fills my eyes once more.
And fingers wrap around my wrist, jerking me nearly off my feet.
I know this macabre dance.
Now, we run again.