Page 28 of Fate of the Fallen

She—the only other person I believed to be locked away in this dungeon—had been quiet. I hadn’t heard from her since the brief speech she gave when I awoke here, groggy and just coming down from a fit of rage.

Honestly, I was grateful she’d made herself scarce until now. There was something about her strange voice and cryptic messages that made being stuck down here just a little bit creepier. I had to remind myself she couldn’t leave her cell any more than I could leave mine. Only then was I able to fall asleep last night. Otherwise, I might have stared past the bars, into the dark, narrow corridor half expecting her to come for me.

I could only guess what she might look like, but you couldn’t convince me there wasn’t a real-life monster residing in the cell beside mine.

“Ohhhh … something’s happening,” she crooned, practically singing the words before a sinister laugh hit the air. “Can you feel it? Can you feel the thinning?” she asked.

The meaning behind nearly everything she said was always vague, open for interpretation. However, tonight, I was positive she spoke of the magic. It was what bound us here and, she was right … Icouldfeel it weakening.

“My guess? The clan’s working on something big, something that’s pulling on the spell placed on these bars,” she explained. With those words, I heard those dry, rough hands of hers slowly caressing the very bars she spoke of.

“If we try, there might be a chance of escaping,” she suggested, that same hint of a smile I always sensed mingling within her statement.

I said nothing, just focused on trying to block it all out—her voice, the dark thoughts that continuously rested on the outer fringes of my mind.

“You’re a tough one to crack, aren’t you?” she commented when I failed to respond. “Don’t tell me you’re still trying to fight your nature, Nicholas. Still pretending you’re not exactly what you are.”

A sharp pain in the back of my head brought my lids slamming down, cutting off my line of sight from the bars of my cell. With the stabbing sensation, an image rushed in.

I saw it clear, vivid—a gruesome scene that brought more pleasure than I would ever admit. Walls slathered in blood, a floor covered in more of the same, and in the center of the room … a body.

Or what was left of one.

Covered in sheer white, blood-stained fabric, Evie lay lifeless, a blank stare fixed on me. Behind that stare, only terror, the last emotion she experienced before death took her.

BeforeItook her.

I squeezed my eyes tight and tried to shake it off, but there was no turning this off. When I opened them again, my gaze landed on my arms. Every vein had gone dark again, filling with the venom that fed the beast.

In her cell, the wicked one laughed—a dark sound I wished I could forget, but knew I never would.

“Just let it in, Nicholas. Just let … it … in.”

I wasn’t sure how, but she knew. Without seeing me, she knew I was losing this fight. Knew there was no contending with what could only be described as the deepest primal urge I believed to exist on the planet.

“Help!”

The desperate plea flew from my mouth without thinking, a final effort to signal someone that things weren’t right. If I could just yell loud enough for guards to come down and see the state I was in, see that the thinning magic was no longer enough … maybe they could stop me.

I was aware that, if this cell could no longer hold me, there was only one other option, but that was better—better than being free and dangerous, better than having to live with the damage I knew I was capable of doing.

“Help!” I called out again, the depth of my voice reverberating off the walls.

“Help me! Please! Pleeeease!” the witch said mockingly, letting out another one of those menacing laughs again right after. “No one’s coming, Nicholas,” she teased, adding, “It’s just you and me.”

Another image flickered and, this time, I staggered backwards until my shoulders touched the wall. The scene hadn’t changed, but I wasn’t satisfied just to see her lying there. I’d begun to feast on Evie’s flesh, tearing the softness of it from her bones, feeling the warmth of her slick blood draining down my throat.

I panted, feeling a strange sense of calm fill me as I allowed the fantasy to play out instead of forcing it from my thoughts. I was completely incapable of denying myself such a simple pleasure—the joy of just … imagining it.

My tense limbs relaxed, breathing slowed. The feeling equated to what I imagined an addict must feel giving in to their vice after years of resisting it.

“That’s it,” the witch whispered. “Let it in. It’s who you are.”

No, she was wrong. These thoughts, thesefeelings, weren’t natural. Theyweren’twho I was. While the urges were purely instinct, I was still aware they were terrible.

Disgusting.

I snapped back to reality with a gasp as my eyes widened. Next, a surge of determination filled me. I was suddenly less content to revel in the idea of succumbing to the darkness. As easy as it would have been—assatisfyingas it would have been—I had to fight it. The defiance that rocked me to my core caused me to act out of character, doing the one thing I swore I wouldn’t.