Page 54 of Devoured

“Zahra, please!”Marion’s voice cracked as they dragged her away. “Don’t do this! Don’t sacrifice yourself for us!”

But I stayed. Keeping his attention on me.

His helmet remained fixed on me, those red eyes burning through the metal slits. The blade was still raised. But he wasn’t moving toward the others.

“That’s it,”I whispered. “Just look at me. I’m what you want.”

Behind me, I could hear them struggling toward the exit—Isaac’s broken leg dragging, Marion still screaming my name, Tobias and Sela supporting them both.

The Executioner tilted his head slightly, studying me. Then something burst from the wall behind me—a half-rotted corpse, its jaw unhinged, reaching for me with fingers like broken twigs. I hadn’t even seen it coming.

The Executioner’s blade came down in a blur. Not at me—past me.

Steel cleaved the thing in half.

Black ichor splattered across the floor as the creature collapsed in pieces.

The sight staggered me. The stench of rot and decay filled my nose. I doubled over and vomited everything I had left. Then kept retching until there was nothing but bile. My vision tunneled. The room spun.

The last thing I saw before darkness took me was the Executioner lowering his blade, looking down at me with that burning crimson gaze.

Then I fainted.

Chapter 18

I woke up screaming.

The sound tore from my throat before I could stop it—raw, animalistic—echoing off surfaces that weren’t walls. This wasn’t a chamber. This was hell.

Torture devices hung from hooks like Christmas ornaments designed by the devil. Tables with restraints still crusted in dried gore. Implements I couldn’t name, but my body recognized instinctively—the way prey understands teeth.

I stumbled back, bare feet sliding on something wet. Fire lanced through my lower back. The carved V Varnar had left in my flesh still burned, angry and infected. I pressed a hand against it through my torn clothes and felt warmth. Fever heat, not healing warmth.

“You’re awake,”a voice said. Deep and rough, distorted through a helmet—like someone speaking after centuries of silence. It came from everywhere and nowhere, reverberating off metal and bone. I spun until I found him, half-hidden in the shadows.

The Executioner stood beside a table clearly meant for dismantling people piece by piece. He watched me with a terrible, patient stillness.

The memory crashed back. The cafeteria. Marion screaming my name.

Take me, I’d said, stepping between him and my friends. Let them go.

And he had. He’d dragged me through shadows, through some kind of door, to this place where souls came to be processed.

“Where are they?”My voice came out hoarse, cracking. “Marion? Isaac?”

“Gone. As you wished,”he said, flat and unreadable behind the helmet.

“Are they safe?”I needed to know. Even asking felt like weakness.

He tilted his head, considering. “Safe is relative. They are not here.”

I looked around—at the bloodstained restraints, the chains dangling like dead snakes, the dark puddles I didn’t want to name. Not here was probably the best they could hope for.

“And I’m here because…?”My voice shrank.

“You offered yourself.”He answered, taking a step towards me.

“I offered myself to save them. So kill me and get this over with!”The words slipped out before I could stop them. I braced, waiting for punishment.