Chapter 141
JESSICA
I need them to submit to me.
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The metal bars hold the worst of them–no, the best–the farthest gone, the already half–born again, their skulls too wide, teeth all wrong, milk–sour drool and wrists rubbed raw from how long they’ve tried to fuck the air. One’s moaning. Another’s biting the floor.
But some are loose. Some are crawling.
I feel it before I see it: Logan.
He’s just sitting, knees up, elbows slung over them, blood drying on his temple. When his gaze hits mine, I stop crawling.
“Logan,” I whisper.
My knees burn. My wrists are shaking.
Logan’s eyes never leave mine.
I’m breathing through my mouth. Can’t close it. There’s heat in the pit of my back like something’s been summoned and it’s crawling toward the womb.
“Logan,” I whisper again, this time not soft.
He twitches.
Yes. Yes. That’s it.
I feel one of them sniff the back of my ankle. Another hisses, fists balled like a pup denied milk. But Logan- Logan is watching.
“Get up,” I say.
“You’re not real,” he whispers, but his body doesn’t back away. His shoulder leans like it’s nosing a den.
I lurch upright on my knees and he fucking groans. “I’m real, Logan. This is me. We have to-”
“No!”
“No!”
He’s panting now. Fingers clawing at the cement. Shit.
“I’m real, Logan. I’m the only thing real down here. Look at me.”
He can’t stop. His mouth’s open. Drool–or spit–or something worse–slack at the hinge, shoulders buckling
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Chapter 141
like they want to break into paws.
His jaw snaps once, twice, like he’s testing it for fangs.
“Jess…?”
“You’re not supposed to be here,” he gasps, and that second I realized he’s entirely back.
“Crawl to me,” I tell him, and I don’t care that my voice cracks like old wood.
His groan is low. Almost canine. He’s close but still it’s so hard to fucking reach him.
“Jess,” Logan whimpers. “I can’t–I can’t stop-”
“Shh…it’s okay, we can figure this out.”
Shit. Theo will notice if I wait too long. If I don’t move. If I don’t submit the right way.
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Logan’s still trembling, breath hot on the skin above my knee, one hand twitching against the floor like it wants to dig, claw, nest, breed. He’s half–changed, half–ruined–ripe. His hips keep twitching forward like they want to mount something, anything, but his eyes are locked on me and I know he’s waiting.
I need to let the others go.
“I’ll unlock them,” I say, looking at the others.
I crawl past him.
He follows, dragging low like a beta on leash, one hand still sliding up my calf, keeping contact like it’s the only thing anchoring him to this plane. Behind us, the crawlers groan, scenting movement. One snarls and pisses against the bar. Another starts chewing its own fingers.
I stop at the first cage.
“Do you want to go out?” I ask.
She bares her teeth.
Logan pants behind me, hand between his own legs now, stroking without looking down.
“Open them,” Logan growls.
“I am.”
“No. Unlock them.”
And I know what he means.
I slide back to the girl–cage. The latch is simple. Rusted. Wants a handprint and a promise. I press my bloodied hand against it.
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Chapter 141
Click.
The girl doesn’t bolt.
She kneels,
:
She crawls out like a good fucking thing, head bowed, teeth showing, nostrils flared.
She smells Logan.
He growls.
“Not yet,” I whisper.
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“We need to move,” Logan says, voice half–gone. “They’ll smell it. Outside. The way’s open, Jess, I saw it, it’s down the hall where the stone bleeds.”
“How many do we take?”
“As many as we can leash.”
The moment the first door drops, they start to shift. The feral ones don’t wait–bone cracking, tendon snapping, legs bowing like they’ve remembered how to hunt.
I unlock three more cages and already the air’s full of fur, of musk, of screams that end in howls. Their bodies swell past the limits of skin and scream and scar. One boy’s jaw splits sideways before it reforms, teeth triple- rowed. Another girl climbs the wall, shredding her fingers to ribbons before they grow back–clawed.
“Go,” I say, “go, go–run—”
Some obey. Some snarl. Some sniff my thighs like they think I’m the door itself. Logan kicks the bars open before I do. He’s not shifting. Not yet. Not with me here. His chest is heaving, veins high in his throat, his hands still clawless but itching like his skin doesn’t want to hold his shape.
“Jess,” he says, “we gotta move-”
He’s looking back at the hallway like he can already see it. The exit. Where the air changes. Where it stops smelling like meat and starts smelling like outside. The way is real. It’s here.
But I don’t move.
Because I remember Riot.
“Jess,” Logan barks. Actual bark this time. His voice is going–he’s going.
“Go,” I say, too fast.
“I’m not leaving without you-”
“Take them. Run. You have to run now.”
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Chapter 141
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I shove him. He snarls but doesn’t fight. Behind him, the hallway floods with them–the half–shifted, the full- shifted, the ruined. One stumbles past with legs bowed like a deer, still bleeding from the mouth. Another crawls on four limbs, eyes rolling white. But they’re going. They’re heading toward the air. The blood–warm stone that pulses at the end like a heartbeat.
“I’ll find you,” Logan growls, fingers tight on my arm. “I’ll come back for you.”
“No,” I whisper. “I’m not done.”
His gaze shatters–half–man, half–beast–but he obeys. One last look, one deep inhale against my neck like he’s memorizing the scent. Then he runs. They all run.
I turn back.
The cages are empty.
Except one.
Riot.
And the corridor behind me drips black with silence.
I crawl toward it. Alone again. I’ll bring him out. I’ll bring him through. I promised that to him when I dragged him into this plan of mine.
He might be the evil who unleashes hell on me but I am not a person who goes back in her words.
I press my palm to the rust–bitten gate and it swings inward like it knew I’d come. The stink is worse here- old blood and older breath, like something holy’s been rotting in the corners too long and it wants out the way a body wants to birth itself inside out.
No.
I freeze.
My palm hovers just above the threshold, and my throat closes, dry–click, like prey scenting the impossible.
He’s here.
He’s already here.
Theo
My head jerks up–I don’t mean to–but the moment I do, my stomach drops.
He’s already inside the cage.
Sitting. Calm. Cross–legged like he’s been there for hours. And in front of him–Riot. On his side. Still, Breathing in stutters. And Theo’s claws are resting–not tight, not cruel, just resting–right at the pulse of
Riot’s neck.
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Chapter 141
I don’t even breathe. My eyes widen, flick back and forth: claws, Riot’s chest, Theo’s gaze.
“Hello, Jessica.”
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9:36 Thu, Sep 4
Chapter 142
Chapter 142
JESSICA
