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“We need to get rid of the body,” Rachel said, cutting through the buzzing in my brain.
“Tie a few rocks to it and toss it into the ocean,” Peter muttered, faint and swaying. “The tide will drag it out to sea. That’s how Victor gets rid of all his other…” He faded off, swallowing hard.
With a soft gasp, he fell backward.
Ily and the two girls dashed toward him.
I followed silently, almost as if a tether lashed Ily and me together, binding me to her even now.
I was her animal.
Her nightmare.
Towering over Peter, I let the girls stroke his pallid cheeks and mutter worriedly to one another. Things like how they’d get him back to the castle. And how much he needed Dr Belford.
In the middle of their whispered debate, his eyes popped open again.
They locked on me.
And he smiled as if he saw an angel instead of a devil looming over him. “I see what she does now.” Almost dreamy and completely high on agony, he smiled. “You did come for us. You’re going to free us. I know it—”
And then, he passed out.
Chapter Nine
………………………….
Ily
IF THE OLD ILY COULD SEE ME NOW…if she watched me willingly leave behind her only weapon and walk over the drawbridge into Victor’s fortress, she would’ve disowned me for my stupidity.
She would’ve screeched and shouted and ordered me to run and swim and do whatever it damn well took to get as far away from here as possible.
But…
But.
I sighed heavily as I glanced at the sorry company I kept.
I’d come here alone, yet somehow, I’d grown attached.
Three jewels and one Master.
All of us dripping in pain.
Leading the way, Henri prowled on bare feet. His left arm coated in blood from where Kyle stabbed him, his t-shirt soaked with murder.
We matched, him and me.
We all did.
He might be painted in blood, but the rich scarlet matched the red paint covering me.
Stars pinpricked the black velvet sky above. The hazy whirlpool of a galaxy gleamed brightly as if studying our sad procession.
Rachel walked beside me. Her own body covered in red paint like mine. When Henri had snatched Kyle’s gun, checked the canister still had paintballs, and aimed at Rachel and Mollie, I’d leapt in front of him.
“Don’t you dare shoot them.” I’d balled my hands, fighting through debilitating pain from all my bruises. I’d studied his blood-streaked face for some reaction. But there’d been none. He was a total stranger with every emotion shuttered and every feeling hidden.
