Page 99 of How (Not) To Raise The Dead

“This is your fucking fault…”

Chapter 35

Malachi

Every single, small detail that I know of Eden makes so much sense now. She did have pretty little secrets in her head.

Guilt is so easily confused with grief; they smell almost exactly the same. But this wasn't just grief. This was the knowledge that she held the keys to life and death in her hand, and she chose to walk away.

On the slab, Eden curls in on herself as best as she can with the restraints still pinning her down, sobbing so hard the slab shakes.

“I didn’t mean to…” she chokes out. “I just wanted to live… I just wanted to live…”

“To walk the path between life and death…” Veraxia mutters behind us, quill scratching on her clipboard.

Fuck.

“Hold still,” I grit out, as I jam my thumbs into the release mechanism and twist, the pressure seal breaking with a hiss.

The second the hollow needles slide out, the monitors cut off, Eden’s painful memories ceasing to exist.

“Ah! God!” she cries out.

“Blaspheming? In Hell?” Veraxia scolds. “How redun⁠—”

“Shut the fuck up!” I roar.

Dark, sluggish rivulets of blood well up from the puncture sites, hot and red, streaming down her pale temples, getting caught in her eyelashes and streaking down her cheeks to mix with the snot and tears.

I toss the helmet onto the instrument tray with a deafening crash that sends a spray of sterilized tools skittering across the floor. The Wardens jump, their pincers twitching to attack and take me down.

“Undo the restraints!” I bellow, spinning on the nearest one. “Now! Get them off her!”

He hesitates, beady eyes darting to my sister.

Veraxia barely looks up, still taking notes. “Mm, no. I don’t think so. We haven’t cut the bind yet.”

“Undo them,” I hiss, “or I contact Mother and Father, and tell them exactly how you secured your promotion in the first place.”

Her quill freezes mid-scratch. “You wouldn’t dare!”

“Oh, would I not?” I challenge. “Because perhaps it’s about time the golden child gets knocked down a peg or two, and I’ll fucking do it. You know I will.”

She stares at me, her nostrils flaring, chest heaving as she weighs her dignity against her cruelty.

“Fine!” she screeches, waving a frantic hand at the guards. “Release it before he bursts a vessel! Honestly, Malachi, you’re so dramatic.”

The second the locks click, the iron cuffs fall away with a heavy clang, and I’m on her in a second.

“Easy,” I murmur, the rage evaporating. My hands hover for a split second before I slide one hand behind the damp nape of her neck and the other under her trembling knees. “I’ve got you. You’re okay. Easy now.”

I haul her up into a sitting position and she collapses into me, limp as a ragdoll, all the fight drained out of her along with the blood. Her forehead presses hard against my collarbone, smearing a thick, wet streak of red sludge across the white tunic.

“I left him,” she sobs into my neck. “Malachi, I left him in the metal. I could have tried to pull him out, but I didn’t. I just… I crawled away. I let him die.”

I hold her tighter, my jaw locking so hard I feel a molar crack. I saw the memory. I saw her crawling through the shattered glass of that wreckage. But I also saw what happened two minutes before the impact. I heard the wet, sickening smack of that prick’s palm connecting with her cheekbone. I saw him lunge for the steering wheel like a petulant child because he couldn’t handle her finally standing up to him.

That fucking Corpse-Boy. That mediocre, abusive sack of shit.