Page 128 of Gravehouse

I shove her out of the way and keep running.

The wind slips beneath my clothes, drying the sweat along my ribs.

A hard weight cracks across the side of my head. My knees collapse before I find a weapon, a face, even a breath, and everything goes black.

Pain pulses hot and uneven as my body sways with the water. Am I in water?

The yacht. Memories.

Darkness takes me again.

I’m screaming before my eyes open. Fire sears both wrists. Metal cuts into skin and bone, the cold links pulling tight with every twitch. I’m hanging with my toes grazing concrete, shoulders wrenched beside my ears, my own weight tightening the restraints for whoever put me here.

I blink through crusted blood. The room swims. Gray walls, no windows, a single buzzing fluorescent bar overhead.

Emeric sits three feet away in a metal folding chair, one ankle crossed over his knee, the Codex open on his lap. He thumbs a page as if he’s browsing a wine list.

“There she is.” His mouth curves into the specific smile I used to mistake for warmth. “Look at my little contamination.”

My stomach drops through the floor.

“We must fix that.” He taps the open page with one finger, tilting it so I can see the header:Book Four: Emergency Protocols for Emotional Contamination.The words blur, sharpen, then blur again as my head throbs where I was struck.

Blood pools against my teeth. I spit it at his shoes.

“Fuck you.”

Emeric laughs, genuine and delighted, as he did when I nailed a field test back when I thought he hung the goddamn moon. He snaps the Codex shut and sets it on the floor beside his chair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

“That fire. That’s exactly the contamination talking, Ivanya. You used to be so clean.” He studies my face, most likely deciding where to cut. “Disciplined and mine.”

“I was never yours.”

“Page forty-seven disagrees.” He stands, brushing dust from his thighs, and crosses to a panel on the wall. His fingers hover over a dial. “Thankfully, I prepared for this day. Kind of anticipated it, really. I mean, you were my greatest weapon, but even the great can be weak when it comes to love.”

He turns the dial.

“So just a few small adjustments, and you’ll be fixed.”

The sound screams through my ears, a high-frequency that drills into the center of my skull.

I clamp my jaw shut, but it doesn’t help. The sound climbs, threading through bone, sinuses, and the soft tissue behind my eyes.

Chains rattle as my body jerks. I can’t cover my ears or do a single fucking thing except hang here while the sound peels me open layer by layer.

Emeric returns to his chair, crossing his ankle over his knee, watching me with way too much patience that I know he's capable of.

Everything goes dark.

I come back braced for the burn in my wrists and the strain in my shoulders. My feet meet concrete, dragging a sob of relief from my throat before leather digs into my ankles.

Straps bind my thighs and waist. One band crushes my chest against the wall, my legs spread and pinned. My arms stay trapped at my sides, both wrists buckled.

I test one restraint. It doesn’t give. The room tips with my head, and the walls become every safehouse, training room, and cell I’ve ever been inside. Nonna’s hands pull me into a dough-floured hug. Jord cracks jokes over the comms. Punk wears thatstupid grin. Their faces lose their names, thinning into smoke until numbness comes easy.

A violent jerk of my head clears them.Stay here, Ivy.

Emeric sits in his chair with the Codex open, calmly turning another page. The fluorescent bar hums. My own breath comes too loud in my ears.