Screaming.
Wailing as if possessed.
Shooting.
Just shooting.
Die.
Fuckingdie.
It doesn’t matter if I have their eyes when I do it. I target their backs, their knees, their disgusting faces. I feel around for the blade on the ground, using that too. I steal the smiles from their revolting mouths. Steal the breath from their lungs—breath they never deserved.
Some fight me off. My hands disarm them, absorbing their strikes. The cutting blade ends up in their neck, and I twist it for pure enjoyment, to watch the blood build like a river and overflow.Die.
One of them, near the door, speaks.
“Sophie.”
The moving shadow deflects my blows, slamming me into the pure white wall.
All I can smell is blood and bleach and death.
I drive my knee into him, twist his arm, and slam my foot down on the back of his leg. He pushes me off balance with a shove to my legs, but also catches me before my skull cracks against the pavement.
Hands are suddenly enfolding my head.
“Cara mia,” he breathes. “Baby, please.”
My body succumbs to weakness, shutting down completely until all that resonates is the thunderous pounding of my pulse, mingling with the anguished screams of men. Amidst all this chaos, a voice of reason desperately whispers against my face, trembling with fear.
“Sophie,wake up.”
My eyes reopen slow—and then all at once.
Xavier.
His jaw tightens as he shuts his eyes, experiencing a fleeting rush of relief that soon vanishes. When they snap open, that moment of solace is long gone, replaced by a paralyzing dread that freezes in his gaze as he stares past me.
That’s when I see it.
White brick walls, crumbling from years of battering.
Bars. Only some of them are still erect.
The screaming hasn’t ceased.
Xavier’s hand slides out from under me as I shift on the cement, my palms pressing into warm, wet blood. Pools of it covering cold cement and I realize what I’ve done.
There are bodieseverywhere.
Some are clearly dead. Some are very much alive.
As I hear Xavier’s bellow echoing for help, his frantic plea to keep them alive at all costs sends a chill racing down my spine. I’m paralyzed, every sore muscle refusing to move, while Bo’s gentle touch on my head feels strangely out of place in the horror unfolding around us. He rushes past me, intent on reaching one of Xavier’s guards from his personal detail who lies crumpled on the ground, blood oozing from a jagged stab wound in his shoulder.
Vomit expels from me like the blood from these soldiers.
Monster.
