Page 58

TWENTY-FIVE

Snap

The kick to my gut and the slam of my back into the RV sent more shock than pain through my body. I’d kept to the shadows for most of our altercations before—I’d never felt what it was like to be tossed around in the fray.

An instinct shot through me to dodge back into the darkness where our enemies couldn’t reach us. Then my gaze caught on Sorsha buckling at another blow from her attacker, his knife gleaming as he moved to stab it down into her?—

No . The protest rang through my entire being. I’d promised to protect her; I’d promised I’d keep her safe. I couldn’t let her loyalty to us bring her death.

She was mine —my peach, my Sorsha—and I refused to lose her.

I flung myself forward on a surge of alarm and defiance. My hands clamped on the man’s shoulders—and a very different instinct kicked in.

The shift into my full shadowkind form raced through me like a rough wind. Rising, lengthening, sharpening ... I yanked the man backward into my hold and clamped my gaping jaws around his head.

The second my teeth pricked his scalp, a wallop of sensation drowned out the rest of the battle. I gulped flickers of memories full of color and sound and here and there a smell or taste: grass baking in the sun in a park, a scramble up the stinging surface of a slide, a party full of other children with flames dancing over a cake, a flush of shame as a presence— Mommy —snapped angry words.

Each shred flowed into me with an underlying quiver of resistance and agony as my jaws sheared the mortal’s soul away bit by bit. That silent wail of pain was the seasoning on the feast, turning every moment I devoured more poignant. I drank it in with an answering clang of satisfaction all through my limbs.

It’d been too long. Years and years since I’d indulged like this that one time. How had I ever given it up?

More and more impressions flitted through me, now with little spasms of anguish through the man’s body. I wrenched more and more from him, tearing away at his being particle by particle, swallowing it all down. A spilling of notes from a long, thin instrument under a spotlight on a stage. A kiss and a hot fumbling in a darkened parking lot. A lacing of heavy boots while a curt voice barked commands. All mine now— mine, mine, mine .

Slivers reached me of how he must have come to stand with the Company in their silver-and-iron armor. He’d brushed up against some sort of shadowkind creature—a man had spoken to him of a grave threat in tones that both soothed and terrified him. The promise of destroying the things he thought of as monsters pealed through him like joy until I tore it away.

I ripped more and more from him as if peeling off his skin in curls. The pain that mixed with the cocktail flooded faster in turn. That was mine too. None of it belonged to him any longer, not now that I had him in my grip. I would ravage him until nothing remained but a black hole of emptiness and the vast well inside me overflowed.

His soul was dwindling. The impressions had a tang of recency to them now, a little clearer and more vivid. Standing in a room with several humans who awed him—a sense of elation as someone said, We’ll hollow them out. Hollow the danger out of those beasts and make them ours — the perfect sweetness of a summer plum, its juice dribbling down his throat —It’ll spread and claim them all. There’ll be no stopping it once we have it right —a looming mansion of gray brick with a turret rising from the righthand side, a place he was honored to protect—wind whipping past him as his legs pumped a bicycle—fading, fading, into a spiral of searing torment.

The torment I was causing. As the flow of sensations ebbed, more of my broader awareness crept back in. The physical stomach I’d nearly forgotten I had turned with a fit of nausea.

All the agony and horror reverberating through the final moments of this being’s existence—I’d brought that on him. I’d wrung it through his entire existence, from his very first memories onward, as I’d savaged my way through them.

Even then, I couldn’t will my jaws to open. I couldn’t let go of that delectable thread until it petered out completely, leaving my prey nothing but a husk.

My jaws unlocked. The man collapsed as if boneless. I contracted back into the human form that fit this world better and found myself staring at Sorsha… who was staring back at me.

She’d fallen to the ground when I’d pulled her attacker off her. Her hands had tensed where she’d braced them against the pavement, the knuckles white. There was so much white in her eyes too, gleaming starkly. Her throat worked with a thick swallow.

Any pleasure I’d gotten from the devouring shattered into a thousand icy shards. Oh, no. That wasn’t—I’d sworn I’d never again?—

And yet underneath the chill, a tiny part of me wondered what it would be like to consume her existence too, every morsel that made her the fascinating woman I’d only barely scraped the surface of. The keening hunger pealed through me. I felt my tongue flick against my sharpened teeth before I could catch it. Yes.

My gut lurched, and the impulse vanished under a fresh wave of horror. A shout reached my ears alongside a blare of sirens—flashing lights at the other end of the courtyard.

The men in their poisonous armor were racing back to their truck and wherever else they’d come from. Thorn charged past me with a bellow to Omen. “Help me push!” He glanced at us. “Snap, Sorsha, get out of the way!”

I didn’t know what he meant, but I scrambled in the other direction. Sorsha heaved herself to her feet and followed, her gaze sliding away from me. But I could still see her expression in my mind’s eye: the shimmer of the whites of her eyes, the stiffness of her features.

She’d been looking at me as if I were a monster.

With a creaking and a thud, the RV righted itself. Or rather, Thorn must have pushed it upright with Omen’s help. Ruse appeared at the window by the driver’s seat. The engine growled, and he flashed a grin, but it faltered when he glanced outside.

Thorn and Omen had dashed back around the RV. As they rushed across the cobblestones, ignoring the hollers of the uniformed workers streaming out of the flashing vehicles beyond the blazing statue, Sorsha sprinted over to join them.

Bow was swaying toward us, smoke streaming from his injuries—but even more billowing from the crumpled form he held in his broad arms. Gisele lay limp, her shadowkind essence draining away into the night air in great gusts that showed no sign of slowing.

I leapt forward and then hesitated, torn about which direction it’d help more for me to go in. Omen solved that problem an instant later by waving me toward the RV. “Get on. We’ve got to take off, now .”

I darted through the shadows to the living area, which had become a jumble of shattered window glass, leaves from the cupboards, and takeout cartons. Pickle huddled in one corner, shivering. When Sorsha dashed on board, she spotted him immediately and scooped him up. As she cuddled him against her, the others materialized on board.

“Go, now—go!” Omen yelled at Ruse.

More sirens were screeching nearby. The roar of the RV’s engine couldn’t drown them out, but it could carry us away from them. The vehicle heaved forward and tore down the street.

Sorsha’s gaze followed Thorn and Bow as they rushed Gisele’s battered form into the main bedroom. “Is there anything?—”

“We’ll do what we can, which might not be much,” Omen snapped, barging past. “Too many hands will only make more confusion.”

I guessed that applied to me too. I watched the door slam behind them and glanced down at Sorsha. Her face drawn, she slumped onto the sofa with the dragon. She was bleeding too in her human way from a cut partly visible through her slashed shirt. Her nerves had apparently calmed enough that her wound wasn’t smoking, if it even had been before, like that time on the roof. It’d been hard to make out details in the dusk—and I’d been so caught up…

I wavered, wanting to reach out to her, afraid she’d cringe away from me.

Before I’d decided what to do, Sorsha extended her hand to grasp mine. She tugged me down onto the sofa next to her and rested her head against my shoulder. “Thank you,” she said. “For— That guy would have killed me.”

Even with her saying that and with a pang of longing radiating through me to absorb even more of her warmth, I couldn’t bring myself to put my arm around her. I’d saved her, yes, like I’d meant to do, but the way I’d done it— And there’d been a piece of me that had wanted to inflict the same torment on her for my own satisfaction.

She’d looked at me like I was a monster because I was one.

That thought filled my head, blotting out everything else. I’d tried so very hard to exorcise the ferociously hungry side of myself. The one time it had happened before, I hadn’t known where the instinct would lead. I could have believed it was a mistake. Now I knew that wasn’t true.

I was a devourer. I couldn’t stop being one, no matter how long or thoroughly I denied the hunger. Sorsha was in danger while she stayed with us, yes, but not because of our enemies. Because of us.

Because of me .

I could hurt anyone around me if I was pushed the wrong way at the wrong time. Not just her but her friends, her colleagues… Maybe even my own companions. I had no idea how my power would work on a shadowkind, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t.

The windows darkened as we left the brighter streets of downtown behind. Omen and Thorn emerged from the bedroom, and Sorsha straightened up.

“She’s not well, but she seems to have stabilized there,” Omen said before she had to ask about Gisele. “We stemmed the bleeding. She hasn’t regained consciousness yet. I’m not sure if she will.”

As Sorsha muttered several colorful swear words under her breath, our leader’s gaze shifted to me. Before he’d even spoken, the cool glint in them told me he’d seen my performance of my full powers.

“This might not have been a total catastrophe, thanks to Snap. Did you get anything useful from the one you devoured?”

I’d taken in so much. My mouth opened and closed again with the rush of memory and the sickening mix of relish and guilt it stirred up. I wanted to lick my lips and also to vomit.

“I think he was someone fairly close to the important people in the Company,” I ventured. “It seemed as if he was there for meetings, hearing about some of their plans… something they’re going to do to take away our powers, maybe?”

Sorsha’s head jerked around. “That could be what the experiments are for—to figure out if they can destroy your abilities somehow.”

“There was something else they said…” It was all a jumble now, and it hadn’t totally made sense to me even as it was careening through my head. “Something they wanted to spread and ‘claim’—but maybe that wasn’t about us. I don’t know.” I paused. “I saw one building a few times that he was honored to have the chance to guard. Big with gray bricks and a turret on the right side, a lot of grass around it. I think a tall fence?”

“We didn’t see anything like that when we looked at the places connected to the shell company,” Ruse said, clearly following our conversation from where he sat behind the wheel.

“I don’t know how it fits in,” I said. “There might be more I’ll piece together. It all comes so fast.”

Omen squeezed my shoulder. “Let me know if anything else comes to you that stands out. More of it might make sense as we make additional discoveries via other avenues.” He folded his arms over his chest. “They knew we were coming. They knew what bus to look for.”

Sorsha tipped her head back against the sofa with a groan. “It was Leland—my ex, from the Fund. Ellen tried to warn me, but it was too late.”

Thorn’s expression managed to darken even more. “He told the Company our plans? I should have—He was listening at the hospital. He must have heard you tell the other woman we were making a move tonight. And then we were talking in the other room after. If he came over to the door, he might have heard some of that too.”

“I think I mentioned the lot where we’d been staying with the bus. Shit.” Sorsha’s mouth pulled tight. “From the things Leland was saying at the last meeting, he figured we were the real villains, beating up on innocent humans. He must have decided he had to protect the Company from us.”

“Mostly because he resented you caring what anyone other than him wanted with you, not out of the goodness of his heart, I’d imagine,” Ruse said in a disdainful tone.

A fiery sheen had lit in Omen’s eyes. “Mortals,” he spat out, and then raised his chin, his posture rigid. “We won’t return to the same lot, then. What else did?—”

“Sorsha’s wounded too,” I broke in. “Before you ask her any more questions, someone should see to that.”

Not me. Someone who posed less of a threat.

While Thorn sprang to inspect her and grab bandaging supplies, Omen paced, and Ruse shouted suggestions from the front, I slipped away into the shadows. The mishmash of voices from the devouring still jostled in my head, but one fragment pealed clearer than the rest.

Hollow the danger out of those beasts.

My focus curled around the words as if they formed a lifeline. Could the Company do that? Could they carve out the pieces of me that made me truly a monster?

If they could, wouldn’t it be worth the torture that came with it? It wasn’t as if I didn’t deserve to face the same agony I’d inflicted on my victims.

I pulled deeper into the darkness, stitching together a path through the impressions I’d devoured that might take me someplace where I wouldn’t be a threat to anyone.