Chapter 46
46
Miya
The porcelain mug shattered as Caelan’s scream tore through the small apartment. Scalding tea sprayed the scuffed hardwood, seeping through the fissures that’d formed with age. Heedless, Caelan stepped over the mess on the floor, her cries punctuated by the crunch of blistering shards beneath her feet. Thankfully, she was wearing shoes. Palms pressed to her temples, she staggered until she curled in on herself with a whimper.
The cacophony cleaved Miya from her seat as Caelan’s agony razed the quiet. She rushed over, gently prying the teen’s hands from her face. “What’s wrong?”
A frantic shake of the head, then, a repeated mutter. “I have to go. I have to go. I have to go.” She pulled away, her movements lethargic, and oriented herself toward the door.
The call. Cursing under her breath, Miya side-stepped the broken mug and wrapped an arm around the girl’s waist, hoping to stall her. She’d invited Ama over to make peace, yet the forecast proved anything but peaceful.
Unhindered by Miya’s grasp, Caelan heaved toward the door. She was so strong, so unencumbered by efforts to stop her. Miya caged the teen in her arms, but it was useless. Fingers rigid, Caelan reached for the door handle with a graveled shriek. Shadows boiled from the floor around her feet, the air crackling with a suffocating, otherworldly static.
A barbed knot twisted in Miya’s stomach. She was too weak. “Stop!” She tried anchoring her feet but slid across the floor, her slippers providing little purchase.
Caelan knocked her knuckles against the brass, bruising, lacerating. Before she could get a grip, the door flew open, a hand splayed on the wood as it crashed into the adjacent wall.
Ama stood at the precipice, her eyes like balefire. Without missing a beat, she locked her arms around Caelan’s midsection and lifted her into the air. The teen thrashed, feral in her attempts to break free. Limbs flailing, she threw a careless elbow and kicked at her captors. Pain spangled Miya’s cheekbone as she was struck, though she bared down and brushed off the blow.
“Let me go!” A desperate command from a throat scraped raw. “I can’t stay here anymore! I can’t take it?—”
A sickening pop, a scorching scream. Miya’s hold slipped as her mind reeled to make sense of what she’d just witnessed. Caelan’s arm, warped all wrong. Dark, amorphous shapes leaked from her clothes and skittered along the walls. Umbral creatures gobbled the light as though starved, and for a split second, Miya swore she saw a thousand searching eyes embedded in the shadows. Ravening.
Was there something living inside Caelan, seeking to devour her human double? Had it grown impatient, threatening to consume its own host? Alina and Caelan were a matching pair. Perhaps it didn’t matter which of them remained when the dust settled.
Perhaps a forgery could be just as delicious as the original.
Miya flung away the intrusive thoughts, viscous inside her skull. She’d picked up on something—a will that lived within Caelan but was not her own.
They hauled the girl to the couch, holding her with as much tenderness as they could afford. She writhed furiously, her body twisting against the thing inside her—a volition diametrically opposed to her own. A vein bulged in her temple, her face scarlet, contorted. Miya watched, horrified, as her bones bent in ways brittle things ought not to bend. Blood trickled from the corners of her eyes, oozed from her ears, her nose, her gums. Her screams became layered, discordant—a sound from nowhere and everywhere at once.
“We have to do something.” Miya locked eyes with Ama. “We have to?—”
“Let her go,” Ama said, her voice hard.
“We can’t—you know that.” Confusion scored Miya’s features, panic lacing her clipped reply.
Ama shook her head, white hair fluttering around her face. “Keeping her here is pointless if she breaks into pieces. Let her go. We can follow and deal with whatever comes.”
Miya choked on her objection when Caelan’s back arched, her spine curving until it nearly splintered. Ama was right. This couldn’t continue. “Okay,” she conceded, her grip on the teen slackening.
Ama faltered, her gaze thawing. “Miya.”
She glanced up, the meekness in Ama’s voice yet another jolt.
“I’m sorry,” said the white wolf. Then, she let go.
Caelan trundled from the couch and limped to the door, her arm and ankle badly sprained, but she paid the injuries no mind, her gaze fixed on something beyond. Entranced, she stumbled out of the apartment, the floor creaking underfoot. At least she wouldn’t be difficult to follow.
Miya spared a moment, rotating to face her friend. “Ama?—”
The white wolf raised a hand to silence her. “I owe you an apology. I let my insecurity get the better of me. And I—” Her jaw clamped, the words catching on her teeth. “I’ve been treating you like a child to guard my own fears. It was wrong.”
This wasn’t the time or the place, but it was needed. Miya’s arms encircled her friend—her sister. “Thank you for being vulnerable with me.”
Ama returned her embrace. “Crowbar helped,” she admitted, her eyes wandering.
Miya waited a moment longer, hopeful for any mention of Kai. When nothing followed, she pushed down the pinch in her chest and turned to the wide-open door. Miya laced her fingers with Ama’s and tugged. “Come on. I know where she’s going.”
Ama shot her a quizzical look, but Miya refused to dither. There was only one place in all of Boston that Caelan kept returning to.
A tangle between worlds.