Page 105 of Claimed By the Mothman

Nell sat slowly. Sig remained standing. Lyle folded himself into his chair and placed his clasped hands on the desk. The apartment manager rolled his shoulders and looked up, his eyes catching and digging into Nell’s.

“Ms. Townsend, I received word this morning that the Lustrum is not yet appeased,” he said, voice calm and cool as summer rain.

Silenced filled the room, thick as incense.

Sig’s voice cut through it sharply. “You told me the bond would anchor her,” He said sharply. “That survival would be possible if she accepted.”

Mr. Lyle’s eyes flicked to him. “I said it would be possible, yes. But possibility is not certainty.”

He turned his cold eyes back to Nell. “The Lustrum selected you, Ms. Townsend, and you were meant to pass through. Mr. Samora rerouted that equation, and now the Lustrum wants resolution.”

Nell felt the word settle in her bones like frost. “What kind of resolution?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

“You must return and let the Lustrum make its choice,” the apartment manager said.

“No.” The word ripped from Sig’s throat.

Nell didn’t flinch. She couldn’t, not when everything inside her had gone still. “Or what?” she whispered.

“Or the building fractures,” Lyle said. “And I am truly sorry, Ms. Townsend, but my responsibility is and always has been to the building itself.”

The opal ring flared on her finger.

“Please know that you are not being punished,” Lyle added. “Merely reoffered.”

Merely.As if he hadn’t just suggested she be fed back to the thing that had nearly unmade her.

“I can give you until tomorrow,” he said, rising smoothly to his feet. “After that, the situation will no longer be in my hands.”

He walked to the office door and opened it without ceremony. “I imagine you have things to discuss.”

Nell stepped into the hallway on legs she barely felt. Sig followed, silent.

Behind them, the office door shut with a sound like the closing of a vault.

Chapter 21

Nell couldn’t feel her hands. All sensation had narrowed to a single point of heat—the opal ring on her finger, burning into her like a brand. The bond between her and Sig wailed, a mournful howl vibrating in her blood.

Her breath hitched. She didn’t know if she was shaking or if the world was.

“No,” Sig rasped. “No. This will not happen.No.”

He grabbed her wrist and began to run. Nell stumbled after him, legs scrambling to keep up. Sig was sprinting in long strides, his feet barely seeming to touch the floor as he raced, and her shoulder wrenched with every pull of his grip. Terror pounded in her ribs, the pure, physical panic of being dragged by something faster than her, stronger than her, not remotely human.

The stairwell blurred around them and the walls twisted. Air shrieked past her ears, a wind that shouldn’t have existed inside.

They emerged into the lobby and before she could catch her breath, Sig surged to the main doors, his hand flung out. He slammed into them with a crack that echoed like a gunshot.

Wood groaned. The frame shuddered. But the doors didn’t open.

The walls around them trembled, a ripple moving through the plaster like muscle under skin. The chandelier overhead jerked once, then sputtered.

Sig struck again, harder, his whole body a combination of motion and fury. The door remained sealed.

Nell drew in a hissing breath, panicked. She could feel it now. Not just her fear, but his. Sig’s desperation surged through the bond like a current, wild and rising, drowning her rational thought. “Sig—”

Eyes blazing, he grabbed her arm and pulled her with him toward the atrium. The side doors loomed before them, washed in sickly green emergency light. With a throaty clacking, Sig slammed into them. They didn’t budge.