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Before Valary had a chance to right herself and attack, Loren was up off the ground and sprinting in the opposite direction, making a beeline straight for the bruise in the Veil. Loren swore she could see it from here, glimmering way off in the distance, a curtain of starlit velvet. Her breath tore apart her lungs like jagged shards of glass, but she did not slow, not even when she sensed Valary gaining on her with bated breath, claws audibly digging into the soil with a strength and speed that had Loren’s blood vibrating with fear.

There was a shift in the air that alerted Loren to Valary’s next attack.

She braced herself for it—

And ducked just as Valary was leaping for the back of her neck.

Just as she’d hoped, Valary missed her mark. She hit the ground and rolled, turning back into a hellseher in the same second. The shift was fluid and graceful, and soon her gloved hand was reaching for the gun that was strapped to her hip. Those eyes were still gleaming with the gold that lingered from her shift as she spun around to face Loren, snapping the safety off the gun. Lightning-fast, she aimed—

But Loren was already moving. With a battle cry, she jumped on Valary, pinning her shoulders down with her knees. She ripped the gun out of Valary’s grip and struck her in the temple with it.

Before Loren could deal out another blow that might’ve rendered the Warg unconscious, Valary was bucking her hips, throwing Loren off.

Loren lost her balance and fell back with a shout.

Valary was upon her then, her fist connecting with her lips, knees pinning her shoulders in place. “You’re a useless, half-life coward,” Valary spat. Her fist lashed out again, this time connecting with Loren’s nose. “That house was supposed to be mine.” She tasted blood, and she could smell it too. It ran down the back of her throat, gagging her. Choking her. “Hell’s Gate was supposed to be my house.” Of course she would want to cash in on Darien’s money. His possessions. Everything Darien had to offer, she wanted.

Too damn bad.

Loren hit the Warg back, hard enough to make her nose gush blood like a fountain. It dripped onto Loren’s neck, sliding over the numbers glowing on her skin.

“You need to get over yourself,” Loren panted, striking her again with an uppercut to the chin, the force rattling the Warg’s teeth. “I never did anything to you, Valary. It’s your own bruised ego that you can’t handle.” Red stained the white glove of her bodysuit and misted the air, eliciting hungry cries from starved creatures far away.

They were no longer alone.

With a cry of determination, she pushed Valary off, sending her sprawling across the ground.

The Warg’s surprise was an opportunity Loren did not allow to slip away. Pushing herself up off the ground and into a crouch, she got on top of Valary and hit her, again and again, her knuckles cushioned by the glove, allowing her to strike more times than she would’ve been able to without it.

“He’s not available,” Loren hissed, hitting her again, bloodying up her mouth. “And he’s never going to be.” Valary fell back into the dirt with every strike, unable to even lift her head.

Valary’s eyes were wheeling, glazing over with the threat of blacking out, when something caught Loren’s eye.

A mass of night-dark fog was descending upon them, coming straight from the wall that separated the Aether from the Void. It was a blanket of swift-falling night that stretched on farther than her mortal eyes could see, as if it were swallowing all of Spirit Terra. But it wasn’t the fog that rendered her immobile, her fist frozen in the air above Valary, her lungs unable to draw a breath.

It was what she saw lurking in the darkness. There were eyes and heads and teeth and…

And she swore those were people she was seeing in the darkness. Sentient beings walking toward her and Valary, their gaits fluid and predatory. Their bodies suggested they were human, but there was something about them that told Loren they were not. Something about them that told her she had to get away from here, and quickly.

Especially when she heard a series of ravenous, wailing cries ripple out from deep in the fog.

Loren pushed off Valary and ran, taking the gun with her. A part of her begged her to return, to be the bigger person and help Valary get up, to get the Warg away from whatever was living in that darkness before it had a chance to consume her.

But she kept running, knowing she wouldn’t stand a chance even if she wanted to try. She did not slow, not even when she sensed the darkness spreading, latching onto every bit of light in the area and lapping it up.

Not even when her surroundings visibly darkened, as if a storm was sweeping in. Thunder rumbled overhead, and every plant in sight seemed to shrink away from the noise, away from the darkness that was growing, seeping into the landscape like a spreading sickness.

Not even when she looked over her shoulder and saw the darkness writhing overtop of Valary’s body.

Not even when she saw Valary attempting to drag herself away from it, blood dripping from her mouth and nose, fingers desperately clawing the ground, nails breaking from the effort to pull her body away.

Not even when she heard Valary scream. A bloodcurdling sound that iced Loren’s blood and pierced her heart with a terror that was nearly debilitating.

Two seconds later, and that scream was silenced, choked off by a darkness unlike anything Loren had ever seen, leaving nothing behind of Valary but the faint echo of the very last scream she would ever utter tearing out across the land.

And then it was just Loren. Just Loren, Singer, and her own rasping breaths as she ran like hell for the way out.

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