Page 83 of The Reaper's Vice

I shake my head, silent sobs scraping against the inside of my chest wall. “I don’t know, Magoo. I don’t know.”

But I do know. I know all too well.

“Huh.” Her seizing ceases, and her eyes begin to droop. “They’re so… they’re sobeautiful.”

Her chest rises one last time and then never again. I look down at her lifeless form, unable to believe what’s happening. It takes me a long while to realize the halls are filled with screaming. Even longer to notice that they’re mine.

They took her. They took her. They took her.

“Someone restrain her! Now!”

40

SERAPHINA

“CACOPHONY”

I blink,my gaze coming into focus and landing square on the smile spread across Maggie's face. I’m back in my apartment, my vision hyper focused on the grinning girl in front of me.

“Do you see now?”

“See what?” I whisper, the blood draining from my face as I look upon my best friend.

“Silly Nina. Do you really not understand?” Her lips push out in a deep pout, her cobalt eyes glimmering with mirth as she plops down next to me on our mustard couch.

“I—you—” I shake my head, blinking rapidly as if to clear the sight of Maggie from my vision. “How can you be dead? Ilivewith you. Italkto you, I?—”

“But has anyoneelseseen me? Spoken to me?” She takes my hand in her palm. And it's so warm, so real, I’m sure someone is playing a horrible, horrible prank on me. “Come on, Nina.Think.”

“I don’t want to!” I stand from the couch, pointing an accusatory finger her way. “You… you’re playing a trick. You’re alive. You have to be. What the fuck was thepointof all this—all thissufferingif you’re not?”

“Nina, relax?—”

“I can’t!” I press my palms to my eyes as my headache rages. When I pull my hands away, the room is swimming, tilting, dripping. Maggie’s eyes grow to the size of her head until she’s just one giant, singular eyeball, and I let loose another scream as I stumble backward, slamming into the coffee table and sending the lamp crashing to the floor. “Magoo… what’s happening to me?”

“You’re remembering.” She takes a tentative step toward me. “It’s okay, Nina. Let it happen.”

“No!” I shake my head violently as images swarm my mind—things I’ve buried so deep over the years, I didn’t know they could ever resurface.

I take a misplaced step back, and suddenly, I’m falling, careening toward the ground. There’s a loudsmackas my head hits the floorboards, and everything goes black.

“Don’t fight, girl. Everything will be fine.”

I struggle wildly against the restraints on my ankles and wrists, a warm river of blood pouring down my arms. Two sets of hands hold down my left arm, smacking the inside of my elbow several times before inserting a needle deep into the vein. An animalistic snarl leaves my mouth as a man in a golden bird mask steps up to my head, beady black eyes staring down at me as I continue to fight.

“It will be easier if you don’t fight. This is the design.”

“Fuck you!” I hiss, closing my eyes as the walls begin to drip. “I’m going to kill you. I’ll kill you all!”

“Save that anger for someone who gives a damn,girl.” The man reaches over to the table and grabs a large sheet filled with squares of happy yellow smiley faces. He folds the rectangle and folds it in half, repeating the motion until the massive sheet is folded into a bite-sized square. “Open up.”

The back of my head slams on the table with force as I try to avoid it, but eventually, the man pushes the paper past my lips and teeth. Immediately, the substance dissolves on my tongue, and though I want to spit it out, the bird-masked man holds his palm over my mouth and nose, making that an impossibility.

I stare at him with murder in my gaze, every muscle in my body quaking with the need to wrap my hands around his fat neck and squeeze, squeeze, s q

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