Page 78 of Hellbound

“Only for a little bit. I came back better. Stronger.”

Marian winced as her section of scaffolding trembled. The black cancers at each junction shuddered and sprouted more slow-growing bars that wove through the air like vines. All while she struggled to wrap her mind around what she’d learned.

Verinne had killed a Gifted and brought him back, and he’d returned imbued with the Remnant. Had she known this would happen? How was that possible?

“She wanted you alive, you know,” Roman rose and looked disapprovingly down at a struggling Tori. “I said you lacked the vision to be useful, but my lady knows best, I guess.”

The whole room pitched upward again, and the floor floated up to meet them so hard, it slammed into Tori and ejected her from the scaffolding. She collapsed on a patch of intact carpet with a yelp.

“Tori!” Marian bellowed as she dropped to the new floor.

The room pitched sharply right, sending Marian toppling into the bed. The frame folded in on itself as she landed, the mattress sinking beneath her until she suddenly found herself chest deep in a substance that was wood and fabric and metal coils pureed together into something akin to quicksand that swallowed her up to her chest.

Through her panting and grunting, she heard laughter. Shrill, childlike laughter. A sound that transported her instantly back in time to an asphalt playground. Back on her skinned knees in front of the cajoling boys that shoved that gangly girl down repeatedly until she cried.

Marian gripped the edge of the bed frame and dragged herself out of the incomprehensible mire. The bedside table splintered in slow-motion while the digital alarm clock showed Marian the same time she’d seen before Roman arrived.

Tori was on the opposite tower of scaffolding, swatting at Roman as he gripped her by the front of her hoodie and hauled her to eye level.

A single thought boomed in Marian’s mind as Roman closed his hand around Tori’s shrieking face.

“It’s funny,” he crooned. “I said I’d bring you to her. She thinks you could be like me. I think she’s wrong. And I really, really want to know what it feels like when you die in my hands.”

Marian erupted in senseless shouting as Tori kicked and flailed in Roman’s arms. Power unlike anything she’d ever felt rolled through the air. A crackle and snap at Marian’s wrist changed the charge into something explosive.

An errant wind gathered at her back, her hoodie billowing around her as Roman was thrown to the floor. Tori ripped free of him and bolted across the room to Marian’s side, dragging her the last few inches free of the bed.

Roman collapsed on the carpet that served as Tori and Marian’s ground, his dark locks pointing every direction as if he’d been electrocuted. He clambered to his feet.

“What the fuck was that?” He spat, his lightless eyes wide. He snarled, giving Marian a glimpse of too many elongated teeth. “What did you do?”

“I have no idea,” Marian replied with a trembling breath.

A deep growl rolled out of him. “You’re lying.”

“She isn’t,” Tori announced next to Marian, now so close that she could feel the other woman’s warmth.

And Marian had no idea how to do it again. She seized the opportunity to run while Roman shoved his hair out of his face, his features twisted in turmoil. She grabbed Tori by the arm and sprinted for the window. They’d break it if they had to.

An invisible force gripped Marian around the middle and yanked her and Tori backward. They spun around to find Roman stalking toward them, his shoulders hunched and eyes glowing empty white. He reached for them, his hand twisting in a grasping motion. Tori’s jaw fell open and her body buckled, falling to her knees with a horrible choking sound.

Marian screamed. Roman was killing Tori.

No.

Shadows appeared out of nowhere and circled her rapidly. A torrent of darkness cocooned her, filling her vision before falling away, leaving her with a familiar presence. She lowered her eyes at the mass in her hand and forgot how to breathe. Her fingers tightened around a slender, icy hilt.

The knife.

Tori bent over, coughing loudly as Roman released whatever hold he’d had on her.

But Marian’s world narrowed down to the piece of Hell pulsing in her grasp.

A sobering prick of her scar made Marian look back up to Roman’s face, twisted in surprise as his body convulsed. Crick, crack, snap—bones broke and mended, becoming something else, something human, but wrong. Bony ridges burst through his bangs like horns. Viscous black bubbled beneath his skin, slithering up his arms and throat. The sound of flesh ripping signaled the emergence of four new flesh appendages unfolding from his frame, each tipped in long fingers. Serrated, chitinous fingers.

Every limb, a weapon. Their many joints bent and curled toward Marian and Tori as he reached for them.

Marian brought the knife down in a tactless parry when he sliced them. Black static crackled when the Remnant met the blade. Another lashed after it, but Marian was ready. She sliced at an armored finger.