Page 33 of Dead Vengeance

I wonder how he knows that. Or why he thinks it. Why is Archer Gravely, of all people, leading me out of here like he knows what’s going on?

The question is in my throat. Maybe the answer will give me greater hope of survival. Or maybe it will settle this queasy feeling.

Suddenly, a hand sinks into my shoulder, strong and real—just as real as Archer’s.

But it’s not Archer.

The breath dies on my lips.

The fingers close, they wrench me back, and the culmination of five years of nightmares and daydreams all smashed together at once hit me head on as I come face to face with him.

With Jem.

With my brother, who went missing five years ago.

He says nothing. Not a word. His lips look so cold. Blue and pale. And they don’t even move.

He stares at me, and he knows me. I can tell by the look in his eyes that he recognises me. He knows who I am, and he looks so… so sad.

I feel that devastation like a knife in my gut before I register any of the rest of him. The pallor of his skin, the blood on his cheek. The…

What looks like a bullet hole freshly stamped into the top left side of his skull.

It’s half a second. One horrifying heartbeat.

Archer’s hand slips around my waist.

No!

He’s turning me, wrenching me away from him.

“Stop!”

I hear the electric doors of the hospital slide open, feel a harsh and frigid wind on my face, the sting in my eyes of sharp and sudden light all around me.

He’s gone. It’s all gone. The vision, the vines, the people, the spiders. The whole thing gone and lost.

It’s night, and I’m standing on the concrete outside the hospital, people walking around like it’s any other night. When I look back, it’s a normal hospital hallway on the other side of those glass doors. As if none of it ever happened at all.

Except for Archer. Except for that look on his face that shows he’s every bit as scared as me.

That shows it was real. Every last horrifying thing I just saw.

Including Jem.

Jem. Dead. Staring at me like that.

The horror of it piles on top of me, overwhelms me, and I burst into tears. Horrible, loud, catastrophic tears that rip out of me, that soak into Archer’s coat when he pulls me against his chest, that make my fingers dig deep into his back as he holds me tight.

twelve

A Small Dose of Truth

Archer

What the fuck have I done?

This is all my fault. I should never have gotten anyone else involved in this, let alone Liam. If only I could have stopped it. But I never could have imagined this—that this thing would be here. That it would follow me. That it would do this to him. That it could do this to him.