“This is your opportunity to slay the devil.” Ink stepped to the side and revealed my worst. Fucking. Nightmare.
Slither.
“Jesus,” I breathed, my mind too fucked to make sense of what I saw in front of me—a man’s beaten body hanging from a ceiling.
Slither stirred, the chains rattling above him, and I yelped as I scurried back, flattening my body against the wall behind me. My heart drummed, spliced with the ringing in my ears, making it impossible to think straight. With his head hanging down, bloody saliva dripped and hung from his mouth like thick, disgusting strings.
It was impossible to ignore the pungent smell of piss, sweat, and death filling the room from floor to ceiling. It was a familiar scent, an odor I associated with this very room. Only this time it wasn’t my blood. It wasn’t my urine…or my looming death.
“Neon?”
It was weird. I heard Ink calling my name, but I was too numb to respond. I couldn’t take my eyes off the man in front of me—or rather thethingthat resembled a man.
“Neon, baby? It’s okay.”
No, it wasn’t. None of this was okay. How could he say it was okay?
Blood covered Slither’s chest, and smears of red streaked across his abdomen. His body looked like ploughed land, the skin on the side of his face burned. Jesus. He was me. This was me hanging from the fucking ceiling all over again.
I started shaking my head, disbelief crowding me against the wall.
This wasn’t happening.This can’t be happening.
“I can’t.” I struggled to find the words—any words, “This isn’t…Jesus.” Fear wrapped around my chest, squeezing the breath out of me, a sudden surge of adrenaline spurring me to run, to escape. But Ink was right next to me a split second later.
“He can’t hurt you, Neon.” His warm breath breezed across the sticky skin of my neck, sweat beading on my flesh. “He can’t touch you.”
“Ink, what is this?”
He took my arm and pulled me close, settling in behind me with his arms tightly wrapped around my waist. “This is you taking back what he stole from you.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “You’ve had him all this time.”
Ink didn’t respond. He just kept his arms around me, not moving.
I glanced down and noticed the IV attached to his foot, the pressure in my lungs begging for me to take a breath. “You’re keeping him alive.” It wasn’t a question. Ink’s nursing background gave him all the knowledge he needed to keep Slither alive as long as possible.
I turned to face Ink. “Why? Why are you keeping him alive?”
“Because he doesn’t deserve to die quickly.” The hardened look on his face and the black rims that rounded his irises were signs of how hate manifested in him. How his need for revenge consumed him.
“How did you…why?”
“When Onyx and I found him with Wraith, I knew Onyx would plant lead in his skull. I couldn’t let that happen, not when I’ve been dreaming of killing him ever since I found your lifeless body on the fucking sidewalk.”
I closed my eyes when he said those words, flashes zapping through my head, images of Ink’s face, of two arms carrying me. Memories from before that moment started knocking at my skull, scraping against bone, clawing its way in, wanting to torture me further. It was like a fucking battlefield inside my mind, trying to keep them from haunting me.
I felt the tears wet my cheeks before I realized I was crying, my chest aching like it had been hacked open. “What have you done, Ink?” I whispered, tasting the saltiness of my torment. “What the fuck have you done?”
“If it ain’t…the blue-haired pixie.”
A whimper rushed from my mouth at the sound of his voice, every hair on my body raised. My breath hitched from the cold as ice spread down my spine, settling like glass in my stomach. Every voice inside my head warned me not to turn around, but I did…slowly.
“Purple.” His voice was strained. “I like it. But I prefer the blue.” The half-smile on his face was demonic as he watched me, one eye swollen shut.
Ink’s hand touched my arm, a subtle way of not letting me forget he was there.
“Let me guess.” Slither took a labored breath. “Pretty boy brought you here to finish his dirty work.”