Page 111 of Inextricably Tied

Agony shrinks back beside Flint, but Evie takes in his shadows with admiration. “Thank you.”

He’s too stunned to speak – and then his eyes catch on a tree over Evie’s shoulder. A stripe of claws dug into the trunk, jagged and rough and smeared with dried blood.

“It’s from the dream.” Harbinger tries to stand, but Agony pulls her weight against his body. They move toward the tree. Harbinger removes her bloody glove before she places her hand against it.

A low hum vibrates out from her touch. Harbinger’s brow knits before she pulls away. “It was Mila. The shifter. They thought they killed her in the cellar.”

Evie rises on wobbly legs. “Did she make it out? Did she get away?”

An ache cuts through Harbinger, her gaze slipping away from Evie’s. “I can’t tell from this.”

But they all know the answer.

Evie tries to steady herself. Flint offers his hand, but she presses into his body instead, trembling until he lifts her off the ground. She looks so small cradled against his chest that Agony has to look away.

They follow the claw marks down the trail. This forest is different in morning light, birds hopping between branches and squirrels skittering through leaves.

The smell of smoke is the same. Agony sees the dark earth from a distance. Each step feels heavier, weight pressing down through his feet. There’s the twin trees Agony and Harbinger hid behind. The path the creature chased them down. Ash dusting along the ground.

When they reach the charred earth, Flint sets Evie back on her feet. They can all hear it, whispers like steam rising in the air. Agony wonders if he imagines it, but the others hold their breath too, staring out across the ashes.

The Veil has parted here. Not enough to cross. Not enough to reverse what’s been done. Only enough for the voices of the dead to find living ears and tell stories of the man that captured them one by one. How he drove them into the wilderness. How the pack trapped them in the cabin, the girls’ entwined hands the only thing keeping them alive. Voices rise from every end met in that cellar, the pieces of the girls left behind, and the fire that took everything else.

Harbinger’s arms tighten around Agony’s neck. She buries her face in his shoulder when Evie falls to her knees in the rubble.

Her scream rips to Agony’s core: the most wounded, heart-wrenching sound he’s ever heard. It scatters birds from trees, drawing Flint closer as Evie’s hands crush into the scorched debris.

She screams until green tendrils sprout from the earth, blooming where her tears fall. Petals of every color, poppies and orchids and daisies forcing their way through the ash until Agony can’t see the ground any more. She doesn’t stop screaming until every inch of dead earth is covered in flowers, vibrant and alive, and she can’t scream any more.

FORTY

Flint

Everything passes in a blur.

Once their bodies recognize the threat is gone, Harbinger gets sick, overwhelmed with new sensations. Trying to heal through the sudden attachment and amputation of Char’s emotions, amplified by her new connection to Evie.

Flint flies them as far as he can, terrifying the grocer at the Conifer Outpost when they approach, bloody and broken. After that, they’re passed through different hands — pack members rushing to contain the blaze, sending urgent messages across the Break as the poor grocer finds some way to feed them all.

One of the Timbers arrives to escort Evie to her family, but Agony and Harbinger have a hard time letting her out of their sight. It’s all Flint can do to keep his eyes open, jaw aching and head pounding, but his thoughts revolve around the two hands in his.

They made it out.

They made it out.

It’s days before they manage to get to the OID offices, despite the non-stop phone calls. Once Harbinger manages to make it through the night without vomiting, they drive back to the building where this all started.

“You should stay out here.” Flint looks at Agony as he unbuckles his seatbelt. None of them have fully recovered, Agony’s shadows a much paler shade as they spasm and quiver. “I don’t want them trying anything with you.”

“I’m coming with you.” Agony props his chin on Flint’s shoulder, but there’s no disguising the effort it takes for him to smile. “Promise I’ll be sneaky.”

For a creature that started intent to escape by any means, the knowledge of the girls — and what Agony’s creator did to them — weighs heaviest on him.

They wait in the same conference room, but everything feels different. The fluorescent buzz is little more than background noise, a pitcher of complimentary water at the center of the table. Harbinger’s backup helmet rests on her head, currently pressed to the table as she breathes through the pain. Flint soothes a hand over her back. Dark tendrils squeeze her fingers where Agony hides in the shadows under the table.

They all flinch when Tamneth bursts in, frustration etched into his brow as armed officers flank him. “Where’s the night terror?”

“Elsewhere,” Flint answers.