Chapter 4
The deep screams fill my head, and I already know this is over.
A taste.
A tease.
Like biting at fucking smoke and trying to rip it between my canines. Useless.
One second, I’m howling, and the next, a man’s voice echoes through my skull.
Are you there?
Like he knew. He knew he could talk to me, be present in my mind, communicate beyond the Wall—which means not every citizen of Xantera is an empty, vacuous body to be controlled.
For the first time in my life, I have a link to the inside. How this man found the necklace laced with the blood of my ancestors doesn’t matter right now. If the Guardians take him while it still hangs around his neck, he’ll die for nothing.
This opportunity cannot be wasted.
Throw it, I yell in my head.
Anyone, anything, would be better than one of those Twelve parasites getting their hands back on the one, tiny part of me I have on the inside.
Rip it off your fucking neck, I urge him further, more vicious, forgetting his name he told me mere hours ago. Do not let them take it again.
The man’s mental grunts are like punches to my gut, and I take off running through the mist of the forest. It’s so thick it feels like rain against my face. A chill follows it. But I need to be closer, to feel the stone against my body.
My veins ignite as I approach it, a chaotic energy wrenching through every nerve. My spine straightens, I stretch my legs, and my arms reach out.
I press my claws against the ten-foot-thick Wall, ignoring the pain that zaps me. There’s a path that winds to the left and right from the amount of times I’ve paced the perimeter. Scratch marks rise above my head from the number of times I’ve tried to climb it.
I was so close this time. So close to instructing this man how to open the Wall, only to have the hope ripped from my heart.
Anger surges again at the sound of another scream. I slam myself into the stone and growl, Throw the necklace if it’s the last thing you do.
I’m met with only silence.