Page 75 of Mortala
Please just let me go.
I promise I won’t come back.I’ll high-tail it out of here, as if flames are seconds away from engulfing me—but my fucking feet won't move and the glass won’t stop cutting!
"Sadie?"Mrs.Adams honks outside of the door.Distracting me from the burn of sliced flesh, sticky blood, and the nightmarish ghoul who has rooted me in place.The split moment she pulls my attention away only pisses it off.
I gasp when my arm twists, bending unnaturally.The monster forces it to contort as the glass turns and the broken edge plunges into my arm.My cry burst into a curdling scream as my legs give out and I drop to the shard littered floor.
"Sadie?!"Mrs.Adam's voice comes yowling through the door.
In a state of shock, air fights to fill my lungs but all I can manage is to sob silently.I can’t call for help; I can’t even move without sheer agony overrunning every sense.Maybe I’m going to be thrown in the box next to Chelsea anyway.Maybe this was how it was supposed to be, my life tethered to hers.
Appearing next to me a second or two later, Mrs.Adams frantically jerks my arm away and squeezes the angry split tissue.I can't let go of the fucking glass!My hand keeps squeezing harder and harder, afraid that if I let go, I’ll bleed out.
"M...mom, please."Choking on the plea.
Her eyes are too calm for this.Detached.Going through motions as if she's done this a hundred times—saved me.
"Oh no.Here, sweetheart, take this.It’ll slow the bleeding."Victoria hands me a handful of pills with 'TXA' stamped into the compressed tabs that I toss back without question.
As calm as can be, she stands over me with blood-soaked hands while I lose my mind, and my soul clamors out of my body.
"W...what?"I mutter.
"It should have been you."
Chills scrape up my spine—demonic claws ascending one vertebra at a time.
"Me?"
What the hell does that mean?
"You heard me.You worthless spit of human flesh.Chelsea deserved to live, she was normal.That man should have gutted you from your pelvis to your ribs instead of my daughter!"Victoria screams, then lunges at me.
BANG!
The Earth shudders under me.
Six hundred muscles react at once.Each forces my limbs to constrict, curl, and shift before dropping me back onto a knife's edge where I've balanced for days.Hoping and praying the serrated blade doesn't split me in two and I slide off both sides into a heap on the floor.
Thump, thump, thump.
My heart's going to explode.
It's an inferno here.My skin’s ashen, dry, and brittle where sweat has evaporated into the stifling air.Try as I might to lift away from the unforgiving surface, my joints cry in revolt from days of not moving.
My brain rattles inside of its bony home when the repetitive thumping mutates into a thunder, all while acceptance finally settles in my gut.
I know I'm in hell now.Right where I should be.
When I open my eyes, I'll stare at the devil himself and he'll grin because he's won.
Chapter twenty-six
‘Lias
Panichasitsgnarlyhands wrapped around my throat when I force myself into Sadie's apartment.
I know what I saw on the camera before I darted out of the rental, but rushing inside and coming face to face with it are two different things.
