My breath catches in my lungs.
"You’re insane," I whisper, tears spilling down my face. "You’ve completely lost it. Even Blue couldn't fix you, didn't he have a similar situation? He lost his womb in some kind of shooting range accident, it's public knowledge! So how the fuck am I supposed to help you?!"
My voice cracks, every word a desperate plea.
Anzo raises a gun and aims it at me. His face looks carved from ice.
Ragnar makes a low growl.
"But Moon says you can. So now I’m telling you, make it happen. Or I’ll force it out of you one way or another."
I break.
"You’re completely fucking crazy! Stop—please—whatever you’re about to do—I can’t help you!"
A shot rings out.
This feeling is strange.
Something hits me in the stomach. It doesn’t even hurt. I look down and see a growing stain on my filthy T-shirt, and I realize he has shot me in the gut.
That’s when Ragnar lets out a monstrous roar, inhuman, animalistic. His body starts thrashing and jerking in its restraints, but Anzo ignores him completely, like he trusts them to hold.
"Heal yourself, Sun! If you don’t, in a minute a fucking energy coil’s gonna open up in this room, and it’s gonna link your cages! Eliano and Mauro’s cages are in the way! Soon it’ll be just Summer and me left alive in this fucking place!"
I stare at my stomach, where dark blood is pouring out, not a trickle, a goddamn stream.
I feel dizzy. My whole body tightens like something’s ripping me apart from the inside. I want to scream too, to join Ragnar’s wild, demonic howling that now drowns everything else out.
So I do scream. I throw my head back, and that terrifying sound tears its way out of my throat. My whole body shakes. It feels like waves of ice and fire are crashing against my skin, over and over.
I’m slipping into some kind of shock.
For a moment, I’m not even here. For a moment, I’m somewhere else entirely, like I’m riding a motorcycle, the open road flashing by, and at the end of that long stretch… is that where healing waits?
Is it salvation?
Is this really the end?
What’s happening?
This has to be the end…
My end…
I’m about to leave my body for good.
Some part of me, still trapped inside my head, looks down at my stomach. And then I see something, like a thin beam of golden sunlight, rising from the wound, lighting everything around me.
Is that the energy coil breaking loose?
Will I kill the innocent around me while I die?
A soothing darkness spreads over me. I close my eyes and fall back, landing on my back. I see the metal ceiling of the cage above me. Everything feels unreal, like I’m in a movie.
Then I hear the sound of a door slamming open. The cage door.
Anzo opens it, glancing nervously over his shoulder.
