Total pages in book: 209
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Kyle’s eyes reflect terror. “Tristan … what did you do?”
Tristan stares back, silent.
“So when this lil’ ol’ thing spills,” Mance goes on, “the soul of your dearly beloved spills out, too, bleedin’ all over the place, all of it, right in front of your eyes. You ever seen what a person looks like without their soul?” He wiggles the tube again. “Just reach out and take it. Otherwise this cutie-pie you love so much ain’t gonna look all that cute in a little bit …”
“T-Tristan,” hisses Kyle, panicking.
“Why the hell aren’t you takin’ it? Tell you what. At the count of three, I let go. The moment it’s outta my hands, it’s no longer my concern. Last warning. Reach out n’ take it.”
“Tristan!” cries Kyle, shaking.
“One …”
Do you know what I miss the most about our years together? asks Tristan—only to Kyle’s mind, no one else, lips remaining still.
“Two …”
Kyle’s eyes fill with tears, lips quivering.
That nothing else existed in the universe except us. Not even our pasts. Our pain. It was only you and me, my love.
“Three.”
Only you … and me.
Mance lets go of the tube.
It spins in the air, flipping round and round.
Past their eyes, lower and lower it falls, dropping between the canyon of their bodies, out of sight.
Shatters on the floor.
A moment passes, breathless, weightless, and silent.
Even the Ferals have frozen in place, waiting.
Mance takes a step back. He squints in thought. “So … it wasn’t this Kyle guy here? I got it wrong? Who—” He points at Kyle, then Markadian, then drops his hand. “Who the hell—?”
The next instant, thick black fluid spews from Mance’s lips.
Splatters across Markadian’s face and chest.
Pours over the floor.
“What in the f—?” Mance gags through the fluid, chokes, staggers backwards, slams against the nearest table. “F-Fuckin’ fuck?! Did you—?” Then he retches again, black spilling over his chin, creating a bib down his chest.
Specks of black now paint Tristan’s cheeks. I really wish you hadn’t spilled the tube like that.
“D-Did you seriously fuckin’—” Mance doubles over and hollers out in anguish, gripping his stomach.
You were the only one I thought of with every bite of a bead … the one I wanted to protect. You were doing such a deadly deed for me, after all. Wouldn’t you need all the protection you could get?
Shadows have emerged around Mance’s eyes, swirling and pulsing. He slaps a hand to his mouth to stop another wave of dark blood spewing out, but it only succeeds in seeping through his odd fingertips, which Tristan notices have gone completely black, the darkness spreading up his arms in twisted veins.
It breaks my heart that in the end, the one you needed the most protection from … was yourself.
Mance screams, with a force from the deepest abyss in his being, filled with earsplitting rage and torment, he screams and he screams as the black spills from his lips and his eyes.
The tables reignite, blazing with frightening power.
Everyone in the room stirs, their bodies freed.
The Ferals react, noticing, instantly on-guard.
Then it’s an all-out war. Fangs and torn dresses, throwing cutlery, clawing at faces. Screams ripping across the room. Glasses shattering. Guests charging at Ferals, grappling them, attacking. Ferals fighting back with wild ferocity, enraged.
Tristan doesn’t think. He grabs hold of Kyle’s wrist, tears off in the direction of the exit.
He barely manages three steps before Kyle yanks his wrist free. “My brother! We need to save my brother! He’s still—”
Your brother is safe, Tristan insists. We have to go. Now.
“I’m not going without my brother!”
Kyle …
“Not this time,” he growls.
Tristan stares back at Kyle, realizing what he means.
What he’s feeling.
How this scene of chaos so reflects the one Tristan dragged him from so long ago, urging him to leave behind his family in the bloody aftermath, his mother, his father, his brother.
Then Tristan gazes past Kyle at a sound.
A shout of anguish he did not anticipate.
Or perhaps he did.
It wasn’t just the tables that burst into flames. Markadian is engulfed in fire from head to toe, screaming, as Mance stands over him, black oil dripping from every orifice in his twisted, demonic face. Ashara appears to have made an effort to strike Mance with a chair, but is being held back by a Feral, and all she can do is emit inhuman shrieks Tristan had not thought her capable of, tears falling as she cries out for her brother.
Through it all comes the roar of a lion—as the room itself begins to flicker and twist in and out of shape, giving way to reality, its writhing synchronized with Markadian’s screams.
∙∙∙
The fire rages around Kaleb.
The air so impossibly hot, stifling, agonizing.
He clings to the bars, but there is little strength left.
In his final moment of clinging to the roof of the cage, his shaking muscles giving away, he suddenly finds it funny.