Page 116 of Poison Sun

“You’re a supernatural. You’ll survive,” he says with an amused smirk. “I’ll be right behind you.”

The Hudson River is so dirty that I don’t think even a supernatural could survive it. This might be another attempt of his to kill me.

But it’s either that, or facing the horde of shadow souls making their way toward us.

So, I take a deep breath, run across the platform, and leap over the fence.

Instead of soaring over it, I smack into an invisible wall and fall back to the ground.

Pain radiates through me, and I use my elbows to help sit up, catching my breath.

“What the hell was that?” Lucas says, by my side in an instant.

I stare up at where I tried to jump, blinking back into focus.

“It was like a force field.” I rub my forehead where it hit the barrier, quickly realizing what happened. “The duskberry.”

“The what?”

“Duskberry,” I repeat, but the confusion splattered over his face shows he has no idea what I’m talking about. “Long story short—I was tricked into eating a fae fruit when I got here. It put a spell on me so I can’t leave Manhattan.”

Lucas curses and glances out at the water.

He’s going to jump without me. Why wouldn’t he? He wants me dead. There’s no reason for him to stay here when the shadow souls are out to finish the job of killing me themselves.

“Get up.” He pulls me to my feet and glances at the small green lawn beyond the benches, which leads to another lookout point. “We’ll go that way. I’m not sure how we’ll get off the island from there, but we’ll improvise.”

“Why are you helping me?” I ask him.

“Because I was never going to kill you.” He sighs, exasperated. “I just wanted to get you on my side, so you’d fight with us in the war. Now, are you coming, or not?”

After what happened in the amphitheater, I don’t believe he doesn’t want to kill me. But he’s not abandoning me, and that’s really all I can hope for right now.

So, I scramble to my feet and hurry with him to the benches.

We don’t even make it onto the grass before we see them.

Shadow souls. Coming from all directions. It’s like they all appeared at once, and they’re surrounding us, so our only way out would be into the river.

Which, clearly, isn’t an option.

Come on, magic, I think, reaching as far for it as I can. Come back.

No luck.

Maybe I blew a fuse when I electrocuted Lucas. Or maybe the poison is finishing its job.

Either way, burning the shadow souls isn’t an option.

So, I curse and hold up my dagger, ready to strike.

Lucas is doing the same.

We stand with our backs toward each other, knees bent, bracing for attack.

Surprisingly, it doesn’t come. The shadow souls simply inch toward us, their ghoulish eyes hollow and hungry, like dark angels in the night.

“What are they doing?” Lucas asks, sounding as surprised as I feel.

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