Page 165 of Eternal Ruin

Terror stopped Susenyos’s breathing.

“Yos?” she called, tears welling up from the pain. “What is happening?”

59.

SUSENYOS

It transpired in slow motion.

The tips of Kidan’s fingers had blackened like volcano ash, spreading toward her black veins. Kidan screamed again and it jolted Susenyos into action. He placed a hand on her forehead, trying to ease her convulsing form.

“What’s happening to me?” Her eyes were wet.

It ruined him to hear the pain in her voice.

“Try borrowing strength from the house, Kidan. Now.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, and he waited with bated breath. When she screamed again, he knew this was something dangerous.

How was it possible Kidan was infected by black rot when the floor bore no signs of it? Samson was the only person who walked around with the infection, the disease continuously feeding off his eternal energy. And Samson was only infected by touching the ground where Talaa’s dead body was. This disease didn’t travel from skin to skin.

Susenyos fumbled for his phone and called Taj, ordering him to hurry. Vampire blood would heal her. It had to.

He put Kidan’s top back on and could only hold her hand, let her squeeze her pain onto him while they waited.

He needed to be strong, but his thoughts pounded into him with the same crushing phrase.

She’s infected just like Talaa. You’re going to watch her die too.

Sweat broke out along Kidan’s temple. Her fever spiking. The inky veins were reaching into her arms, spreading faster than usual.

Taj burst through the door. “What the hell is happening—oh shit.”

Susenyos was in bed with Kidan, trying to soothe her but failing. She moaned against his chest and his heart twisted.

“Hurry!” Susenyos yelled. “Your blood.”

Taj snapped into action, cut his wrist, and placed it before her pale lips. They watched in horror as Kidan coughed back out Taj’s blood.

“She’s rejecting my… blood.”

Susenyos’s heart shattered. “Give it to her again. That’s impossible.”

Taj was pressing down on Kidan’s squirming arm, studying the veins. Her face was severe when he looked up. “Yos.”

“No,” he snapped with a slash of rage that made Kidan flinch. “Look at the ground. Black rot starts on the ground and only those that walk on it are infected. This doesn’t make sense. This isn’t—”

“It is,” Taj cut in, face hard. “We would know this infection anywhere. It is. I don’t know how she has it, but she does.”

Kidan struggled on the bed, fighting against the spreading black veins reaching her elbows. Susenyos’s mind raced with the image of her dying, the sound of war drums pounding, pounding, pounding. Taj waited for his command. But what cure was there for this?

If a cure existed, Talaa would have lived.

Turn her into a vampire.

There was only one cure. The only reason Samson hadn’t been entirely consumed.

“Yos…” Kidan’s lips were cracked. The sudden change to her yellowed skin tone from just a few minutes was terrifying.