Page 102 of Tethered Fates

“The police station,” Vidar announces. “They’re at the police station.”

We don’t waste time. Bran darts into the mansion and comes back with Elio on his back in the same time it takes Vidar to throw Ramy—who is slower than the rest of us—on his back.

Then, we run. We run so fast we’re nothing more than a blur.

My heart pounds against my ribs. All I can think of is Teagan, Teagan, Teagan.

If anything happens to him, it’ll be my fault. Isn’t his blood already on my hands? I should’ve done more to protect him from Summer the second I realised what he was to me.

Why did I wait so long to say ‘I love you’? Or to claim him? Or to touch him?

Teagan, Teagan, Teagan.

I reach for our bond, feel its strength, then push out all my feelings through it. I tell him I’m coming. I tell him I’m close. I tell him he’s the only person I’ll ever love. And if my heart is his, then his heart is mine.

We reach the police station to find it littered with rotting corpses dropped to the floor like puppets with their strings cut. Stinking smoke curls up from some of them, and there are scorch marks on the walls.

“What happened here?” Ramy gasps.

But neither Vidar, Luc, nor I pay any attention as we push through the station entrance to find more corpses on the ground, deafening silence and nothing else.

“They have to be here.” Frantically, I search the area. “Teagan! TEAGAN!”

There’s a whimper, more than one whimper, and I’m running towards the back to find a crowd locked behind a metal door. But none of them smells like sweet tea and warm sand. Like comfort.

“What happened here?” I demand, slamming my fist on the metal door to get their attention. “Answer me!”

“Nothing,” says a white, freckled man at the front, jumping back. “I…I don’t remember…”

“They’ve been compelled,” Bran drawls behind me, holding up a pale Elio.

“Fuck!” I scream, gripping hold of my hair and pulling.

I kick something. It’s more solid than the soft flesh of the undead.

Slowly, the air in my lungs freezing, I drop my gaze to another body. A fresh, familiar corpse with dark hair…

Chapter Thirty-Four - Teagan

Kai immediately darts in front of me, his purple fire bursting from his palms like he’s been hiding a blowtorch.

“Everyone, get back!” Kate orders.

The police scramble away, Kate standing in front of them with her baton out.

Beside me, Golden sucks in a lungful of sharp air, then whispers… “Oh my fucking god. That’s Jace.”

Startled, I look to the zombie dragging his broken leg towards us.

Golden’s right. I see it in his half-rotting, crushed face.

Jace, Golden’s big brother—a guy I stayed far away from—helped Emma create a fight club full of people no one cared about, then turned them into blood mages.

I knew some of the people Jace turned, saw them in the streets or tagging walls, saw their ‘missing persons’ posts online that barely got three likes. And I see them now, eyes vacant and moaning. Bone exposed and burnt skin decaying.

“You didn’t think I’d let good meat go to waste, did you?” Emma asks, sweet as sugar.

Apollo doesn’t give her a chance to say anything else—he lunges. But Emma smirks as she flings a whip of blood at him. He dodges, which is when more zombies begin to shamble towards us. Groaning, hands outstretched, open flesh exposing the grey bone beneath.