Page 83 of Bad Blood

“You’re asking yourself how you could have been so wrong about me,” Geoffrey said smugly. “I know all about you, Cassandra Hobbes. I know that you were investigating the Daniel Redding case. I know that you helped catchhisapprentices.” He offered me a twisted smile. “But you didn’t catch me.”

You killed Bryce—she always did get under your skin. Then the Pythia whispered in your ear. Did she play to your ego? Tell you who to kill? Was she the abyss, looking at and into you?

I took a step forward on legs that weren’t as unsteady as they’d been a moment before. “You burned those girls.” I let myself sound mesmerized, playing to his ego the way my mother had. “You strung them up, and you burned them, and you left no evidence behind.” I stared at and into him. “You need nine, but the nineyouwill choose?” My voice was low, seductive as I advanced on him. “They’ll make you legendary.”

“Enough,” Ree snapped. She stepped between Geoffrey and me. “She’s playing you,” she informed him. “And I don’t have the time or stomach to stand here and watch.”

Geoffrey’s eyes narrowed. His hands hung loosely by his sides. One minute, he was just standing there, and the next, his left hand had reached for the torch. “Let me test her,” he said. “Let me purify her, bit by bit.”

The flame flickered.You want to burn me. You want to watch me scream.

“No,” Ree said. “Your time will come—after your ninth kill and not a second before.” She removed something from her pocket—a small, round tub, no larger than a container of lip gloss. “Over time,” she told me, unscrewing the lid, “one builds up immunity to poisons.”

She dipped her finger into a colorless paste.

I thought of Beau, who’d died screaming, and of everything Judd had told me about Nightshade’s poison of choice.Incurable. Painful. Fatal.

Ree’s left hand closed around my chin. She jerked my face to the side, her grip like steel.

Too late, I tried to fight. Too late, my hands tried to block hers.

She smeared the paste down my neck.

Some poisons don’t have to be ingested. My heart thudded in my chest.Some poisons can be absorbed through the skin.

Ree let go of me and stepped back. At first, I felt nothing. And then, the world exploded into pain.

My body was on fire. Every nerve, every inch of skin—even the blood in my veins was boiling.

On the ground. Seizing. God, help me—

Someone, help me—

My fingers scraped against my throat. On some level, I was aware that I was tearing at my own flesh. On some level, I was aware that I was bleeding.

On some level, I heard the screams.

My throat closed around them. I couldn’t breathe. I was suffocating, and I didn’t care, because all there was—allIwas—was pain.

On some level, I was aware of the sound of footsteps rushing into the room.

On some level, I was aware of someone saying my name.

On some level, I was aware of arms hoisting me upward.

But all there was…all I was…

Pain.

I dreamt of dancing in the snow. My mother was beside me, her head tilted back, her tongue darting between her lips to catch a snowflake.

The scene jumped. I stood in the wings of the stage as my mother performed. My gaze fell on an old man in the audience.

Malcolm Lowell.

Without warning, my mother and I were back in the snow, dancing.

Dancing.