Chapter 12
Adouse of fear sparks within me, and I know something’s wrong.
I don’t just feel it in the marrow of my very bones. I know it in the sparse memories that have woven through the synapses of my brain. Saskia’s words replay over and over in my head, like a symphony of clues I can’t help but fuse together.
I have no other choice but to hand over this annoying piece of jewelry to the Guardians.
When she said that to me, there was a hint of bitterness in her tone that I didn’t catch right away.
At the time, I was having too much fun toying with her to notice, but now that I’m obsessively inspecting each and every thing she’s said to me over our two very brief conversations…
this isn’t a woman who likes being told what to do.
Maybe she’s stifled that part of her in order to survive the fucking zoo she’s been bred and raised in, maybe she doesn’t even know it about herself, but deep down, she wants nothing more than to be given a choice. A real one.
Which means she wouldn’t turn the necklace in to the Guardians, even after I told her I was the Monster. Even if she was paralyzed with horror, her curiosity and thirst for knowledge would overpower her need to obey.
So something’s wrong, because the sun is about to set on the fifth day of silence, and I swear I just felt her fear spurt through my veins.
I sprint back toward the Wall before the others can stop me, but this time, I shift as I go.
My pounding footsteps morph into thundering paws.
My panting shatters into snarling as the branches of the forest whip past me.
My speed increases as the shape of me lengthens, honing my momentum so that when the Wall comes into view between branches, I don’t stop.
I launch myself at the one thing that has kept me from my future, my birthright, for my entire life.
Maybe this time, my rage will give me enough fuel to triumph over it.
Just like all the other times, my claws scrape at the surface. I let them take root in some of the spiderwebbing cracks, digging into it deeper so that I can pull myself upward.
Not even two seconds later, pain explodes from the point of contact.
It feels like nails are driving through my paws, up my arms, and straight into my fucking heart. My skull splits. White-hot stars bloom across my vision.
And still I scrabble for purchase, pulling myself upward.
If it weren’t for the pain, I would have been able to scale this thing a long time ago, or ram myself through it no matter how thick it is. The spikes at the top wouldn’t matter—I’d simply rip them off with my teeth and spit them off the ledge.
But the pain. The pain. The pain.
It’s like I’m rotting from within.
My vision turns black as it drives deeper into every trembling part of me. Fire licks across my veins, stabbing every organ like pieces of glass. Still, I climb, dragging myself higher than I’ve ever been before, pushing the pain into a dark cavern of my mind.
Until my muscles spasm and freeze—because it’s not just my own fear that paralyzes me. It’s what’s laced through the Wall.
I slide back down and land in a heap at the bottom.
A fury like I’ve never known bubbles back to life as the pain slowly leaks out of my body.
I can’t get to her.
My father was never able to conquer the Wall, and that has been a stone-cold fact that haunts my every waking moment. But now I know one of the people I was born to protect. I know her name and her voice and the secret desires she’s trying to bury.
And I. Can’t. Get. To. Her.
I wasn’t joking when I said she’s a traitor simply for fraternizing with me now. If the parasites catch her with that necklace and all her other secrets…
Scrambling upward, I run to the edge of the woods and launch myself at the Wall again.
Again.
And again.
And again.