Page 207 of Somno Slave

My heart pounds violently. I pull against the restraints as the panic claws its way up my throat. “I didn’t—”

His eyebrows furrow together. “A priest? Why a priest? What do they have to do with the others?”

The accusation lands so hard my lungs stop expanding properly. For one sick flash, something wet and red flickers through my mind. A scream cut ragged from a man’s throat. Blood beneath fingernails. Strips of something pale hanging from trembling fingers.

I gag so hard my stomach cramps around it. Acid burns the back of my throat.

“No.” The word tears out of me wetly. “No, it wasn’t me. It was him. It was Deogal.”

Peter’s face changes. He’s about to say something, but gets interrupted.

“Stop.” Sean’s voice detonates through the speaker hard enough to make me flinch violently against the restraints. Static shrieks afterwards. “Just stop saying his fucking name.”

My pulse jumps so hard it hurts.

Sean shoves forward behind the glass so abruptly Mike catches at his arm on instinct. Papers scatter across the desk beside them. Coffee rocks dangerously close to the edge.

“We’ve heard enough about Deogal,” Sean spits. “Enough about your fucking obsession.”

I recoil instinctively. The restraint at my throat digs deeper.

“Sean,” Mike says sharply, reaching again, but Sean tears himself free with enough force to slam the chair backwards behind him.

“No.” His face is red now. Veins standing out hard beneath his skin. “No, I’m sick of this. I’m sick of all of us standing here pretending this is normal.”

His hand snatches the microphone off the desk so hard the wire jerks taut. Feedback screams through the room. I flinch again, breathing harder now, every sound suddenly too loud against my skull.

“You’ve been deteriorating for weeks, Rheda.” His voice shakes with something uglier than anger now. “Weeks. You stopped sleeping. You started talking to empty fucking rooms. You’d sit in observation for hours staring at that chair like somebody was sitting there.”

My stomach folds violently.

“No,” I whisper instantly. “No, that’s not true.”

Sean laughs once, sharp and disbelieving. It makes my skin crawl. “You really believe it, don’t you?”

His gaze snaps back to the others. “This is why this must end.”

“I’m not lying,” I choke out. “You saw him. All of you saw him.”

My heart pounds so loudly the room spins. Because suddenly I can hear myself. Hear the way I sound. Breathless. Desperate. Half-hysterical.

Insane.

“He was here!” I rush. “He is real!”

Sean slams his palm flat against the desk so hard the sound cracks through the speaker. “There was nobody there!”

The scream punches straight through my chest.

My body jerks violently against the restraints before I can stop it. Metal bites deep into my wrists. Pain sparks hot up both arms but panic is already flooding me too fast to care.

“No.”

I’m shaking now. Actually shaking. My teeth knock together hard enough to hurt. “No, no, no, Sean, stop—”

“Enough.” Mike’s voice breaks badly. “Enough, man.”

But Sean’s eyes stay locked on me like he’s looking at something rotten. “You butchered four people.”