She’s going to kill me.
My heart drills forward like a drum.Sitri. He’ll feel it.
I take several paces back before my feet lock to the ground. He’ll never make it in time.
But she was the only one that was kind to me here. How can she?The daemon barrels with my growing panic. I fold over with the sheer pain of it as it barrels harder and harder and my vision starts to darken.
Darker, darker.
Only vaguely aware of a sound in the distance. Footsteps slapping the ground as someone runs. Something slams into the side of me and forces my head up.Sitri. But he doesn’t understand what’s going on. I claw at my throat. He flings his hand, and all at once, the magic lets off. I suck in a wheezing gasp, bowling over again as I cough and choke.
“Delyah, what the fuck are you doing? What are you doing?” He sounds angry and appalled and so damn disappointed all at the same time, and sheshrieks.
I cough so violently I vomit. Bile competes with my convulsing lungs, and I suck some in and choke some more. A whimper spills out of me as the daemon continues erupting.
“You don’t understand, Sitri. She’s not what you think she is.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ve seen it! I’ve seen it. She will destroy us. She’s sent her here. She will decimate this place,” she screeches.
“You are out of your fucking mind. Pandora.”
I lift my head, still leaning against my knees. Sitri has Delyah’s hands pulled behind her back, but she bucks and thrashes wildly.
I wipe at my mouth, hazy with the lack of air and the daemon pelting through me. I let out a strangled groan. It’s going to come out. It needs torelease.I need to get out of here.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Pan.”
I take a step back. Stumble. Gotta get out of here before…the daemon…
I back up, and the daemon pierces so sharply for a split second my limbs contort and freeze in their positions. “Listen to me Sitri. She’s not a nought. She’s—“ It barrels out of me, and I bowl forward with a grunt with the pure force of it.
One moment, Sitri’s holding back a bucking Delyah, and the next, she’s gone. Vanished. Raindrops splatter against the ground, against my arms. A couple quick thumps of something heavier. Sitri pulls his blood-drenched hands out from where they were wrapped around Delyah, mouth falling open in shock. An expression I’ve never seen him wear quite like that before.
A thwacking sound of something else hitting the ground. Legs and the severed stump of an upper abdomen, the bloody entrails spilling out.
The front of Sitri’s shirt splattered in blood. So much blood.
I look down. Not raindrops. Splatters of blood. I suck in a sharp breath, my own blood-speckled hands coming up to my mouth.
This isn’t real. I shake my head, sucking in a shrieking gasp. Back and forth. Back and forth. This isn’t real.
My emotions thicken, and the daemon responds. A chain reaction. It spills out of me, folding me in half with a whimper. Cracks like lightning against the tree right behind Sitri’s head. Placing a deep chip in the bark.
His head whips around and back, still wearing that stunned expression.
“No, I…” A sob bubbles up. I almost hit him.I’ll kill him too.Another sob. He lifts his hands, and I turn on my heel and run as fast as I can.
I killed her. This isn’t real. I killed her.
My limbs freeze, stiffen up like a board, and my body buckles. I slap to the ground, face first. The blow dazes me as my body rolls. I finally come to a still upright on my back, gasping.
When my vision returns, I find Sitri hovering over me. He prods me with his boot. “You’re not a nought,” he spits.
He bends over me, grips my jaw, and my heart drops, but I can’t move. Can’t evade him. Can’t stop this.
He squeezes me, jerks my head to face him, and stares at me as if he’s seeing me for the first time. “You were never a fucking nought.”
