Page 54 of The October Trials

“Don’t,” Sloane whispers. “Please don’t.”

But he doesn’t listen, of course.

The stream hits Sloane’s face, her hair, her chest. She tries to turn away, but the gun at her head keeps her still. Some of it gets in her mouth, and she gags, choking, spitting.

Bile surges up my throat.

This is beyond degradation.

Beyond humiliation.

This is evil.

The guard finishes and steps back, tucking himself away.

Ew. Ew. Fucking Ew.

Sloane is sobbing again, her entire body shaking, urine dripping from her hair and soaking into her clothes.

And then something inside her snaps.

She moves so fast I almost don’t see it.

Her hand shoots out, grabbing the wrist of the guard with the gun. She twists, yanking the weapon from his grip, and suddenly she’s standing, the gun in her hands, waving it wildly around the room.

“Stay back!” she screams. “Stay the fuck back!”

Archon raises an eyebrow, looking almost impressed.

“Sloane,” I whisper. “Put the gun down. You’re going to get yourself—”

“Shut up!” She swings the barrel toward me. “This is your fault! All of this is your fault!”

“Sloane—”

“Shut up, shut up! Christian is dead because of you!” She sobs on the last few words, pain echoing out of her in waves. “Dead.”

My jaw clenches. “Christian is dead because you cared more about him than your own life. What happened to you, Sloane? To us?”

“I don’t know who I am anymore. Not without him,” she weeps.

Shit. She’s going off the deep end.

Before I can respond, movement catches my eye across the room. A twitch. Faint. Barely there. Then Dimitri’s body jerks upright into a sitting position.

“Oh my God,” I breathe. He’s not dead. His—his entire chest is charred, burned and blistered, like he crawled straight out of the Pet Sematary.

Dimitri’s eyes snap open, and they’re wild, feral. A roar tears from his throat that sounds like a wild hyena. It’s like the second he realizes he’s not a corpse lying on the ground anymore, he jumps up and charges.

All fucking hell breaks loose.

The other guards rush toward him, but he’s already moving, grabbing one by the throat and slamming him into the wall with inhuman strength. One shoots him in the chest, but that does nothing to slow him down.

Did he die and come back with freaking superpowers?!

What the— A piercing scream rips through the chaos.

I spin just in time to see Sloane’s face twist into pure, broken terror. The gun is still in her hands, shaking so hard the barrel jumps. For one split second our eyes lock. I realize she’s already gone, even before she turns the muzzle under her own chin.