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The beds snap into their spot in the wall as Hudson barks, “Give me your hand.”
He’s got one foot braced against the wall as he reaches for me, but before I can grab on to him, the room starts to spin. For about three seconds, it’s not so bad, and then it’s like a switch is flipped and it goes from zero to three hundred in no time flat.
I get picked up and slammed against the wall like I’m on one of those carnival rides, the centrifugal force holding me pinned there as the room spins and spins and spins. Faster and faster we go until the simple act of lifting my hand off the wall becomes impossible.
Next to me, Calder is laughing like she’s on a ride at Disneyland. My stomach didn’t get that memo, though, and it twists and churns as the chicken from earlier threatens to make a very unpleasant reappearance.
Just when I’m sure I’m going to turn this into a real-life version of the Vomitron, we grind to a stop.
I slide back down the wall, never more grateful in my life for my feet to be touching solid ground. But as the cell settles back into place, all twenty-four dots on the countdown clock turn red at the same time—and so do the recessed ceiling lights.
Calder stops laughing and murmurs, “Well, fuck.”
And that’s when I know.
We got the Chamber.
Hell Hath No Fury
Like a Prison Scorned
Remy reaches for my hand.
“What happens now?” I ask, but I get my answer before Remy even says a word.
Across from me, Hudson’s eyes roll back in his head, and he crumples to the ground.
I scream, then easily pull free of Remy’s hold and make a mad dash across the cell.
“Oh my God, Hudson! Hudson!” I turn to Remy, start to ask what the hell is going on. And realize that Calder and Flint are also passed out on the ground.
My blood turns cold.
“Is this what the Chamber does?” I whisper.
“It is, yeah.” He shrugs. “No worries, though. They’re fine.”
“They’re passed out. How fine could they be?” I check Hudson’s pulse to be sure.
“Better asleep than awake.” He walks back over to the chain and unrolls the beds from the wall again. “No one needs to be conscious when going through what’s happening to them right now.”
“Is it really that bad?” I ask as I smooth a hand down Hudson’s face before moving on to check on Flint, then Calder.
Remy’s right. They’re both breathing fine.
“Worse,” he answers, even as he picks up Calder and carries her to her bed.
“What can we do to help them?”
“Nothing to do but wait,” he answers, even as he tucks Calder under her sheet and blanket. “The Chamber will let them go…when it’s ready.”
I watch in silence as he carries first Hudson and then Flint to their beds, too, all without so much as breaking a sweat. Once all three of them are settled—and I’ve checked a second time to assure myself that they really are okay—I ask Remy the question that’s been on my mind since the minute I realized what was happening to everyone else.
“I don’t understand,” I say as he stretches out on his bed, a well-worn book in his hand.
“Why didn’t the Chamber take me?” I think about how Hudson, Flint, and Calder are suffering God only knows what and here I am, hanging out and feeling just fine, as guilt swamps me. It’s not right. “Why Calder? Or Flint? Or—”
“Hudson?” Remy lifts a brow. “That’s who you really want to know about, right?”
“He’s had a rough time,” I tell him. “What he has to face—”
“He’ll face or he won’t. There’s nothing either of us can do about that.”
“But there is,” I tell him. “Obviously there is. Somehow the Chamber skipped me, so maybe it could skip them one night.”
“It didn’t skip you. I kept you out.”
My eyes widen in shock. “If you can keep people out, why not the others?”
“That’s just it,” Remy tells me with a shake of his head. “I can’t keep anyone else out. Only you.”
“What do you mean, you can’t? Why not?”
“Don’t you think I’ve tried to keep Calder out before? Every time. It doesn’t work. But I knew the minute we met that I would keep you out, simply by touching your hand. I don’t know why—I just saw it, so I did it when the time came.”
“Why didn’t you say something before we got the Chamber?”
“Seemed no point in upsetting anyone else over me already knowing we were getting the Chamber tonight.” He shrugs. “And before you ask again, I have no idea how I can keep you out but no one else. There’s something about you that lets my limited magic work.”
What he’s saying makes a horrible kind of sense. It’s probably my gargoyle. She’s hidden under layers of metal, but she’s still a part of me. And the one thing she’s very good at is channeling magic.
Which doesn’t make me feel remotely less guilty.
Hudson was so afraid of the Chamber. He never said a word to me, never let on about anything but that tremor he couldn’t hide. But I know he was afraid, know he couldn’t stand the idea of facing what he’d done in his past.
There must be something more Remy can do, but his face is closed. There’s no way I’ll get anything else out of him now.
But that doesn’t mean I won’t be able to try again later…and to maybe convince him to give holding on to Hudson a bigger try if we ever hit the Chamber again.
It’s not that I’m anxious for another turn at whatever is doing this to two of the strongest guys I know. If things go the way I’m really, really hoping, we’ll never hit the Chamber again. But if we do…if we do, it’s only fair that I take a turn going through hell.
I settle onto my bed and just stare at Hudson next to me, ready to go to him if he needs me. I don’t know how long I sit there watching him. I don’t have any idea what time it is, either—they took my phone from me, and it’s not like they have a clock in here other than those horrible lit dots on the wall that count down every hour—but I’m dying to know how much longer this is going to go on. It feels like I’ve been waiting an eternity for the three of them to wake up. But all twelve lights are still lit, which means this hasn’t been going on for even an hour.
“How much longer?” I ask Remy, because if this is going to last all night, I need to prepare myself for it.
He glance at the lights on the wall, then shrugs. “It usually takes about an hour and a half, so maybe an hour more.”
“An hour and a half,” I repeat, relieved. “That’s not so bad.”
Remy snorts. “Maybe not for you, cher, but for them?” He shakes his head. “It’s like dreaming. You know how when you’re having a really elaborate dream, a ten-minute nap can feel like eight hours of sleep? That’s what it’s like in there for them right now. This shit is assaulting them from every angle, and they feel like hours are passing.”
“I’m really beginning to hate this place,” I tell him, hands clenched at my sides.
“And you haven’t even been here twenty-four hours. Think about how the rest of us feel.”
“I’m curious. If you’ve been in prison your whole life, why do you have a Cajun drawl like a native from New Orleans?” I turn my head to stare at him. He’s got one leg crossed at the knee, a book leaning against it while he’s lying down. “Have you really never been out?”
He doesn’t answer at first, but eventually he sighs and admits, “The prison guards and creatures in the Pit raised me. Most of them are from N’Awlins, so I just sort of picked it up.”
“I can’t even imagine. I—”
It’s Hudson’s turn to scream now, over and over again. It’s eerie, because he’s not actually making much noise at all. Though his mouth is fully open, stretched wide, the only thing that comes out is an agonized whisper so awful that it chills me to my bones.
I go to him then. I can’t not go to him when he sounds like that, looks like that. He’s still asleep, still totally out of it, but when I brush my fingers over his hair, he grabs on to my hand and holds it for long seconds as he screams and screams and screams.
It breaks something inside me to see him like this, and I sink onto my knees even as I bring my other hand up to cup his cheek, brush against his hair, rub over his arm and shoulder and back.
Eventually, the screaming stops, but his grip on my hand never does. So I stay with him the whole time, watching every flicker of horror cross his face. Feeling every twitch of his body, hearing every silent scream and plea.
It’s the longest ninety minutes of my life, and that’s coming from someone who’s been tied up on a human-sacrifice altar waiting for death. But being here, witnessing Hudson’s and Flint’s and Calder’s pain and shame, is by far the worst thing I’ve ever experienced. And all I’m doing is watching. I can’t imagine what it feels like for them.