Chapter Thirty-Eight
Before the war, we used to play a morbid game of Would You Rather? on the nights we couldn't sleep. Four or five of us would crowd around the kitchen table of whatever apartment Sebastien happened to secure for us that month, nibbling at leftover pizzas and listening to the soft patter of rain against the grimy windows while we traded questions, each one more grim than the next.
As I struggled to pick my way down the narrow road, my vision wavered in and out of focus and I imagined I was playing out one of our more macabre hypothetical scenarios: Would you rather slowly die of silver poisoning or let Ash's pack catch you first?
How many minutes had it been since I leapt through the portal? Two? Ten? Fifteen?
In the back of my head, a niggling voice warned that they should have caught me by now. Killed me by now. With the blood oozing from the gunshot wound in my back, there was no way in hell I could have masked my trail, nowhere I could have hidden, even if I'd somehow managed to summon the strength to try.
It was almost as if they hadn't even bothered to give chase.
Because you're as good as dead, Juliet.
Fear made my heart slam against my ribcage. Darkness gathered in my periphery, tugging at the edges of my vision, luring me closer and closer to the edge. But I had to keep going, I had to get back to Theo. I have to keep him safe, I have to...
God, it hurt to breathe.
The Roaming Troll is only a couple of miles away, I told myself. I tried to focus on putting one foot in front of the other, to ignore the way my whole body seared with pain. A sharp, grinding heat that pulsed from the wound in agonizing waves. Only a few more steps. Only a few...
It was like acid in my veins. I could feel it moving, travelling, edging its way through my system with lethal precision. How long until it reached my heart? Until it completely took over?
Until it burned me alive from the inside out?
In the back of my head, I could almost hear Sebastien warning me that I need to slow my heart rate. "You need to stay calm. If you panic, your heart will beat faster and cause it to move more swiftly through your system." But it was too late for calm. Too late to consider breathing exercises and anxiety management. My heart pounded harder than it ever in my chest with a fear unlike anything I'd ever felt.
I'm going to die. Oh god, I'm going to die...
Each rattling breath sent a spasm of fiery pain through my lungs and the metallic taste of blood and silver surged up the back of my throat. The mantra that once forced me to keep going began to falter, the need to protect Theo slipping from my grasp like sand through my fingers with each second I struggled to remain conscious.
Ricardo will get him to the bar, I tried to reason. Michael will keep him safe. I can just close my eyes for a second...
I tried to shake my head. To fight off the darkness. My knees wobbled and I sank against the wrought iron fence of a nearby building, hands latching onto the cool metal like a lifeline. My body screamed with pain but I knew I couldn't let go. If I let go now – if I let myself fall – there was no way in hell I was getting back up.
Would you rather have your legs hacked off with a blunt saw or slowly bleed out on the side of a road?
Grimacing as another agonizing spasm ripped through me, I tightened my grip on the fence and tried to force another breath into my lungs. My vision swam. The darkness began to encroach further, tugging at my periphery until I could barely see the path in front of me.
My eyelids grew heavier with each blink. God, I was so tired...
"JULIET?"
I tried to frown. Something about the voice sounded wrong, or misplaced. Like I was half-dreaming it into existence. But no – there it was again, like a high-pitched echo. "Juliet, Juliet, Juliet."
All of a sudden, I was eight years old again. The taste of blood coated my gums and my heart raced frantically in my chest. Her face swam in and out of focus in front of me, eyes wide with – panic? My brows attempted to sink with confusion. No, not panic. That didn't seem right –
"Juliet!" I flinched as hands cupped my face. They were warm – too warm. No, I was too hot, burning from the inside out... "My spell won't hold them off for much longer," her voice came again, frantic with panic. "We have to move. I have to get you –"
"Theo," I rasped. The words came spilling out of my mouth before I could stop them, panic and horror scraping my insides raw. "They're coming for him, they're going to kill him –"
The cloaked figures from my nightmares converged around me all at once, eye sockets empty and unseeing, hands outstretched and beckoning. I shrank back in fear, a scream gurgling up the back of my throat, as the taste of blood erupted in my mouth.
"Theo's safe," the voice interrupted. Fingers stroked my hair, too frantic to be soothing. Like claws – "I promise he's safe, but I have to get you somewhere..."
I choked back a scream and a fresh wave of blood spilled into my mouth, coating my tongue with the acrid taste of burnt silver. The roof of my mouth began to tingle and burn almost immediately and I spat it out without thinking, liquid dribbling over my chin and splattering the woman hovering over me.
"Oh, dear," I heard her say. A moment later, I was jostled as she attempted to break my hold on the fence. I tried to protest – to curl my fingers even tighter in a panic – but I was so, so weak and a few seconds later, I found myself tumbling forward, the path rising to meet me –
A slender arm caught me around the waist. My stomach heaved and I vomited up another mouthful of blood as agony seared through me. My mother stumbled beneath my weight but held fast, her small frame bending at an awkward angle as she struggled to keep my dead weight somewhat upright. I tried to help but it was like I'd lost control of my limbs; all I could feel was fire: flames where my legs should have been, where my arms...
"The portal is here; it's right here, I promise," she murmured, her voice rough with... something. Fear? Anxiety? Whatever it was seemed stronger than anything she'd ever been able to force in front of the cameras.
I was vaguely aware of a slimy, sponge-like sensation but when I blinked, I found myself being guided down a narrow hallway, my feet stumbling down a pale, blue carpet. A very familiar carpet.
It was like the portal had launched me into a time warp and I'd landed somewhere forever ago. But when the darkness closed around me, it wasn't Henri standing in the doorway to the kitchen, his bellowing shout piercing through the roaring in my ears. It was them: gaunt, partly-rotting faces staring at me accusingly, their hands outstretched as they waited for me to come closer. To cross over.
"No," I moaned. "No, no, no..."
I closed my eyes, bracing myself for the feel of their clawed fingers on my skin.
"Open your eyes! Open your eyes!" my mother shouted. I blinked slowly, trying to force them open but it was so hard, and I was so sleepy... "Come on, where's your phone?"
My eyelids slid back down and then I was dreaming that they set the house on fire.
Sharp claws pinned me down on my bed, their bodies so much thicker and stronger than mine. Fear arced through me as I tried to fight them off. I tried to remember everything that Sebastien had taught me, but it was like all of his words had faded to a dull whisper and my body had forgotten the right way to move. To defend, to protect, to fight.
The strike of a match gleamed in the darkness. One of them tossed the match onto the floor and the hood of the creature pinning me down slid from its head. Instead of a maggot-ridden skull, I found myself staring at Niall, his face contorted with rage and his lips pulled back into a snarl. "You deserve to die, you filthy traitor," he spat as the fire rose around us. I tried to wrestle him off, to get away, to escape. My heartbeat raced and adrenaline crashed through me in a panic – but he refused to let go.
And then, all at once, he was gone. Dissipating into the billowing smoke. I was left alone in the burning room, locked to the bed by invisible restraints as the flames licked quickly along the duvet, latching onto my skin and searing me alive with a violence that tore a scream from my throat.
The flames grew hotter and more painful, melting my skin and swallowing me whole. The stench of burning flesh tainted the air, dried blood clogging my throat and strangling my screams of pain.
I woke, screaming, my voice hoarse and raw.
I couldn't move; something heavy pinned me to a tiled floor, my face mashed against the side of a bathtub. I tried to breathe but it was like my lungs had been reduced to ash: there was just... nothing. Nothing to pull the air in, nothing to push it out. I could barely manage a gasp before another agonized scream escaped me and the fire grew stronger.
Sharp pain sliced through my back.
"She's awake!" someone yelled. Something jagged dug into my spine and pure and utter agony ripped through me.
The screech that exploded from my mouth was borderline inhuman.
I tried to retreat from the pain – to move, to escape, to black out, to something – but I was too weak to do little more than hold my eyes open. I clawed uselessly at the floor, barely able to muster up the energy to curl my fingers without my whole body shaking with another ripple of agonizing fire.
I screamed again and squeezed my eyes shut.
"Wake up!" another voice, this one deep and rough, cut in. "Come on, J. Open your eyes!"
I tried to lift my eyelids, struggling against the heavy, heavy weight of darkness trying to pull me under, but I knew I was fighting a losing battle. I was so tired, so weak. So sick of fighting...
That sharp, searing knife plunged in once again.
Another screech tore through me, forcing air from my lungs in one long, agonizing cry. It tapered into a sob as I gasped for breath, struggling to withstand the absolute agony that ripped through me in long, endless pulses.
"Bullet's out," a calm, female voice announced. "I'll set up an IV."
"There's no time," the rough voice retorted. "Can you smell that?"
I sagged against the floor as an icy sensation began to spread through my body. It was almost a relief after the terrible blaze that ripped me apart earlier. The darkness crept through me, tugging at the edges of my brain, but suddenly it didn't seem so scary anymore. It seemed almost welcoming. All I wanted to do was sleep...
"Juliet!" the rough voice shouted. "Come on, J, open your eyes!"
His voice sounded so far away. I tried to frown but it was like I'd forgotten how to move my face. Why can't you just let me sleep? I wanted to ask. Why can't you just leave me alone? But then, when had he ever taken what I wanted into consideration?
It was almost like his last revenge, his last little fuck you to the girl who tormented him for years, chasing me into the afterlife with the same commanding tone and cold fury.
Why can't you just let me die?
A sharp sting reverberated through my face and I realised I'd been hit. No – slapped.
The darkness receded a fraction.
I was dimly aware of his breath grazing the shell of my ear and a hand scraping hair back from my face. His earthy scent was almost strong enough to overpower the stench of burning flesh – almost – and I hated the tiny part of me that felt almost comforted by it, like I wanted it to be the last thing I remembered before...
"Don't you dare," he growled in my ear. His voice was low and colder than I'd ever heard it, stripped of everything but an icy rage. I tried to shiver.
I heard someone's sharp intake of breath, the sound laced with disapproval. "I really don't think it's a good idea –"
"Sssh," the calm voice interrupted.
"Don't you dare do this now," Michael bit out. I could feel his words lashing against the back of my neck, shredding through the darkness clouding my head. "You have to change."
Just the thought of mustering up the will to force the change left me feeling exhausted. The little, prickly sensation I needed to draw on had disappeared; when I tried to reach down inside of me for a trigger, there was just... nothing. Nothing but ice.
Cold, numbing ice.
"I... can't..." I croaked.
"Yes," he growled, "You can."
I wanted to punch him. Anger unfurled in my gut but it was like I could only sense it from behind a barrier, like I couldn't quite touch it even as it thrummed in my veins. The darkness tugged on the back of my mind, luring me under, and I was slowly losing my grip on the will to fight it off.
God, I was just so tired...
"Damn, J, change!" Pain pinched my scalp and I realised that he'd pulled my hair. Like he was trying to physically yank me back from the brink.
But I couldn't.
I couldn't even muster up the strength to think about changing. It was like I'd forgotten how; whenever I thought back to the moments where I'd exploded into my wolf self, it felt like a distant dream. Something I'd conjured up forever ago. Like maybe I'd just imagined what it was like...
"You have to fight it," Michael insisted. "Open your eyes!"
I tried – hell, I fucking tried – but I could barely manage a flutter. I didn't want to manage much more than a flutter. I just wanted to –
"Harder, J! Try –"
Annoyance pulsed through me. I was trying.
Cream tiles swam into view. I could just about make out the blood staining the floor beside my head, like evidence left behind at a crime scene. So much blood. There were bloody towels strewn on the ground near the door and what looked like a sewing box lying on its side, needles and thread spilling out and splotched liberally with blood.
"Fuck," I heard Michael mutter before the hand in my hair yanked me back, pulling me up and around. I landed hard on my back, pain shooting up my spine and searing across my hip. My vision blurred black until a heartbeat later I found myself staring up at his face.
Surprise whispered through me. I'd expected his expression to match his voice: cold, forbidding, leached of every emotion but anger. But when my blurry gaze latched onto his amber eyes, they were blazing with fire. A stronger fire, even, than the heat of the argentiserum that swallowed my insides. His jaw was clenched and his skin was flushed, and in that moment he looked more alive than I'd ever seen him.
More angry. More determined.
More powerful.
My heart gave a slow, hard thump against my ribcage.
"I have to do this," he forced out.
I tried to frown in confusion, to interpret the meaning behind the troubled glint in his eyes.
"If I don't," he pressed, "you'll die. If I don't force this... I'll lose you."
His expression seemed to crumble, then. I tried to swallow past the metallic lump in my throat but I couldn't. It was like the years blurred together in my head and in that moment, he was my Michael again; the Michael I knew before years and wars and betrayals had ever come between us. He stared at me, his expression a little stubborn, a little lost, and a lot angry... and I knew, then, what he was going to do.
"Don't –" I rasped, but it was too late.
He'd already leaned down, angling his head as though he intended to kiss me – but instead, he sank his teeth deep into my shoulder. I cried out in pain as his teeth shredded through skin and sinew, my tainted blood spilling into his mouth. I knew he could taste it – knew it had to be burning his lips and stinging his tongue the way it had mine – but he held firm, tearing into me until I could feel it pulsing through me with every faint, stuttering heartbeat.
The need to submit.
Submit, submit, submit...
The fear that surged through me was darker, weightier, than the terror I felt at dying. Because I couldn't fight it this time. It wasn't like before – then, even when we were fucking and I could feel his frustration at my denial in every movement he made, he never tried to force it beyond my refusal – but this time... When I struggled, he just pinned me down, using my weakened state against mine.
He flattened his body against me, pressing his chest against mine and kicking my legs apart to lie between them, forcing my hips to the floor. Submit, submit, submit...
I tried to lift my hands, to dig my nails into his shoulders. To jerk my head away, to fight him off, but with each second the urge – the need – just grew stronger. Stronger and stronger until it was overpowering.
Submit, submit, SUBMIT!
In that moment, I wished I had died.
A crippling sense of defeat surged through me at the same second I hurtled over the proverbial cliff. It was like the snap! of an elastic band: a little ping of awareness that shot through my entire body or a lightbulb turning on, illuminating the silhouette of a person in my peripheral vision.
I could feel his power like a physical weight in my blood. A dark melody that called to my baser instincts, urging me to follow, to seek, to obey...
And I hated him for doing this to me.
He released me slowly, pain rippling through my shoulder as he withdrew his teeth. I hissed in pain and tried to shift away from him, to distance myself from him both physically and mentally, but I might as well have been trying to move mountains for all the strength I had left.
Pain burned deep in my gut – pain that had nothing to do with silver poisoning or gunshot wounds and everything to do with what he'd just forced on me.
I tried to flinch away when his lips brushed my ear, but he gripped my hair, holding me still as he whispered, "I'm not him." The words brought back an echo of a memory – the night I'd gone into heat, the night he'd pressed up against the wall of the storeroom and forced me to stare into his eyes as he said, "I won't let you use me as some fucked up replacement."
But hadn't he just forced me to, anyway?
Slowly, I felt him clasp my shoulders and lift me. He twisted me back onto my stomach and then pulled me up, manoeuvring my limbs like a puppet on a string, but even when I gritted my teeth in protest, I couldn't stop him. I sagged back against him as pain rippled through me beneath the icy numbness that had overtaken everything else, and my head lolled against his shoulder. I could barely keep my eyes open as he manipulated me into position, forcing my knees around his until I was kneeling over his lap with my back pressed to his front and his arms braced across my chest.
I could feel his heartbeat pounding hard against his ribcage, so much stronger and more vibrant than what was left of mine.
"This is going to hurt," he warned.
And then a sheer wall of power ripped through me. It hit every last trigger I had; even if I'd been at full strength and healthy as a horse, there was no way I could have fought against the onslaught of pure instinct that bombarded me.
My bones began to crack and burn. My wolf-teeth burst through my gums, shredding through skin and tissue like scissors through paper. My whole body shook around him, bending and shredding and jerking as my skeleton fell apart, fusing into impossible shapes.
It hurt so much worse than the silver poison. Sheer agony surged through me in one long, unending wave and I screamed. I screamed my lungs raw, my voice tapering to a howl as my nose elongated and hair burst from my skin.
Michael held me loosely, his voice low and soothing in my ear – but I couldn't hear him, not really, not over the force of his power pushing me through wave after wave of unending torture. I screamed for him to kill me, to slit my throat and put me out of my misery, but he continued to force my weak and poisoned body through the change, to see it through to the end.
In my periphery, I was dimly aware of someone crying – my mother crying – while Mia held her back, forcing her to stand on the threshold of the bathroom while Michael pushed me through the final stages of the change.
She was yelling at him to stop, and god, why couldn't he listen? Why did he have to hurt me, over and over and over?
When I finally collapsed into a frail ball, my tail curled protectively around my legs, I couldn't stop shaking. Shaking with pain. Fear. Anger.
When Michael reached for me, I tried to snap at him, but he caught my snout with his fist and forced my eyes to meet his. His expression was pained but determined as he said, "Again, J. Change."
Hours crept by.
Over and over again, he forced my body to shift and change. I flipped between forms until I was shaking so badly that my teeth had started to chatter and I could barely remember how to breathe, never mind understand what I was supposed to be. Who I was supposed to be. I became a tangled mass of agony, every last nerve ending pulled taut with pain, until all I wanted to do was curl into a ball and let death take me.
To fall into the oblivion, knowing it would finally be over.
But then I'd feel that dark, tugging sensation tearing at my instincts and I'd find myself shoved through the process all over again.
He kept pushing and pushing and pushing until I couldn't take anymore – and then he pushed harder, forcing me to change until I felt the darkness creep back over me, swallowing my vision and pulling me under.
Even if I'd somehow had the ability to summon enough energy to fight it off, I wouldn't have.
I let it take me. I let it pierce through Michael's grip on my psyche and take over with a soothing, icy numbness that obliterated everything in its path. My eyes fluttered shut and a sigh of relief rattled from my mouth.
The last thing I remembered before everything went black was a warm hand stroking my cheek and the words, "I'm not sorry," whispered softly in my ear.
I hated him for that, too.
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