Page 96 of The Wolfing Hour

Teeth sank into my arm, scraping bone.

I stared into the next wolf’s eyes.

Melting, whimpering, falling.

Another jockeyed forward. Then two together.

Melting. Whimpering. Falling.

When they were all dead, I rose, hobbled to the last cell on chewed feet that barely held my weight.

“Rory?”

I yanked my blood-encrusted hand to my chest and held it there to curb the temptation to reach for the lavender spike again. Because I wanted to. More than anything, I wanted to scoop up that piece of lavender and roll it between my chewed fingers, hold it to my nose, draw its calming scent into my lungs. Obliterate the odors of blood and death and chase away the demon who lived inside me.

But I didn’t deserve it.

I backed away from the lavender on throbbing hands and aching knees and crashed into my workstation. The trinkets I’d placed above it bobbled and bounced. A bottle of dried tea leaves rolled onto the floor. The small antique mirror—one of Mom’s—I’d hung at eye level swished from side to side. I used my stool to hoist myself to my feet and stilled it.

My reflection—herreflection stared back at me. The coldest fires of Hades crackled in my eyes. I was an angel from thedarkest side of the spectrum. I was a ghoul in a Halloween mask that I could never remove. I was Bloody Mary in grayscale.

Floyd had been right. I really was an evil bitch.

We protected the people we love.

“You severed my connection to my elemental magic, to my witch side. That’s why everything in here is dead.” Tears poured down my cheeks. “That’s why I can’t feel her anymore. I can’t feelme.”

My demon side seemed genuinely distressed.We protected our people.

“Look what you’ve done,” I cried. “My witch, my magic, my plants—all gone.”

You let me in.

“Do you think I don’t know that?” I took a second to catch my breath. “Please. Just go away.”

The demon ignored me. She lurked beneath my skin, like an infection.

“I said,go away!” I loosed a scream that emanated from the deepest trenches of my psyche, drew back my mutilated hand, and punched Mom’s mirror.

It flew off the wall and shattered against the hard tile floor, chunks of glass and slivers of wood from the frame and backing landing among the detritus of lifeless herbs and flowers. Fury swept through me like a firestorm in dry brush, and I snatched up the thyme planter. Upended it on top of the mirror. Siete Saguaro soil covered every reflective shard.

A snippet of conversation played cruelly in my brain:

“It is tempting to strip yourself of emotion, is it not?” Sexton asked. “To consider how best to proceed using only logic? Simple. Clean.”

“No second-guessing,” I said.

“There are no mistakes when you have no moral qualms. There is only acceptable incidental destruction.”

“Collateral damage,” I whispered.

My garden room had been collateral damage.

The next thing I knew, I was on the floor, palms and shins smarting. A sob tore out of my chest—ripped from the center of me. I cried in desperate, silent gasps, unable to catch my breath.

Numbness flowed up my legs and spread through my chest, anesthetizing me. She was still here, still in control.

You said you wanted this.