Page 36

Madness

I needed the hug so badly I ignored the fact Peach was chewing a sizable hole into my grey hoodie.

She’d already gnawed a hole in my sweatpants, but I didn’t care about that, either.

It was hard to care about anything when my lioness was gone, our link was dissolved, and we had no way to get to her.

That was why I wore grey—all the colour had been sucked out of my life, leaving only a blank, aching emptiness.

Why should I wear pink and red and gold sparkles when my soul was dead?

“Peach,” Misery snapped in his stern, dad voice.

She looked up, assessed him for a second, then went right back to chewing my hoodie.

Miz exhaled harshly and stalked closer to the sofa I slouched on, snatching her away.

I didn’t bother to hide dismay. My bottom lip quivered and I dropped my head forward.

That small, sassy creature was the only thing left holding me together, and to have her taken away—

“Madde,” Misery sighed, making me jump when his arm slung across my shoulders. “Don’t let her destroy your clothes; she won’t stop until you’re naked.”

I shrugged.

“Well, shit, that was supposed to make you laugh.”

“I don’t feel like laughing,” I said miserably. “There’s a void in my head where my lioness’s voice belongs and a hole in my heart.”

“You’re not the only one suffering without her, you know,” he said, sitting on the arm of the sofa. “I’m going fucking insane. The only thing keeping me together is Tor’s promise that he can track Pain.”

I grunted.

Miz sighed and returned Peach to my arms but kept his own arm slung over my shoulder.

“It’s easier to not think about it. That’s what I’ve been doing.

If I don’t acknowledge that Cat’s separated from me by the veil and a realm and nonexistent gates, she could just walk in through the front door.

” His voice grew tighter, raspier the longer he spoke, and my shoulders slumped.

“I just want her to come home.”

“She will.” Misery pinched my shoulder, right where it joined my neck, and I snarled, trying to push him away. “But you moping isn’t helping anyone.”

“Hypocrite,” Tor shouted from across the room where he, Death, Neglect, and Hunger had spread a map of the domain across a table dragged in from the dining room. “You’re a grade A moper, Miz, you have no room to talk.”

Misery fired a glare across the room, vicious enough to spear Tor where he stood. Torment gave him a long look and faced the map again.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and rose, stroking my fingers over Peach’s short fur and letting her warmth and vitality sink into me as I approached the table. Like everything else in the realm now, it was made of writhing white fog. “Have you found him yet?”

“He’s not in the realm, that’s for damn sure,” Neglect muttered, the small woman barely tall enough to see the map. “That’s not making our job any easier.”

“Here, fuckers,” Wrath strode into the room like a thundercloud.

A pink thundercloud with anger issues and a sharp tongue.

“This was all I could find. Your kitchen is shit,” she told me, thrusting a flowery porcelain bowl into my hand, then one at Misery that was hand-painted with psychedelic squirrels.

She passed out more of them, but my eyes blurred with tears as I saw what was in the bowl.

The scent hit me hard. Peaches and cream.

I sniffled, a tear rolling down my nose and into the bowl. Peach, who’d already begun to help herself to my food, didn’t seem to mind.

“Miss Peach Melba,” Misery snapped, serious enough that she froze and gave him a startled look. “No. No eating Madde’s food. Madness, eat. You need the strength.”

“When did you become such a busybody?” Tor asked, watching him with a soft expression that hurt to see. Cat looked at me like that. My bottom lip caved in, but I cradled Peach in the crook of my elbow and shoved tinned fruit into my mouth.

“I learned it from you,” Miz fired back without missing a beat.

Tor snorted. On the surface, they seemed normal.

Tor was his usual scowling, snarky self on the surface, but I saw the cracks, the truth.

None of us were sleeping. Tor had dark circles ringing his eyes, his face was rough with stubble, and he’d been wearing those clothes for days.

The peaches were probably the only thing he’d eaten today, same as me. We needed our Cat back.

I sniffled again, and lost the battle with my tears, breaking down for the third time today.

I was exhausted from crying, from hurting, from missing my girl so damn much, but I couldn’t seem to stop the tears.

No one told me to get my shit together, or that crying was unhelpful in finding Cat—or Pain, who we now knew was the other god missing.

Not counting that psycho bastard Violence, who had to be with his sister.

“Tor,” Death said urgently, drawing all our attention. But his gaze was fixed on the shell in the middle of the map, which had once belonged to Pain. It had sat dead and still for days but now it was spinning like crazy.

Tor lunged and grabbed the shell, folding his fingers around it and closing his eyes, shadows flickering around his shoulders, coiling around his arm, reaching closer and closer to his hand. When they reached his hand, he gasped.

“Blood,” he laughed, gruffly. “He’s fucking bleeding. Clever bastard.”

“Make sense, boy,” Neglect snapped. “What’s happening?”

“There’s blood on this shell,” Tor explained. “Just a drop, but enough to connect to Pain now he’s bleeding wherever the fuck he’s ended up.”

“Can you use it to track him?” Misery demanded.

Tor’s answering grin was sharp. “I already am. Miz, go get every weapon we own. This could be a trap, but if it is, we’re walking into it armed to the teeth.”

Hope wrapped itself around my neck like a noose. “Do you really think Cat will be there? Will this take us to her?”

Tor looked at the shell in his palm. “Only one way to find out.”