Page 85 of The Reaper's Vice

“Please, please, please,” it croaks in a voice that doesn't belong to it. “Please. I’ll do anything. I’ll do?—”

“Seraphina!”

I blink up at Maggie, trying and failing to raise a hand to place on her soft cheek. Somewhere in the distance, a voice is calling to me—urging me to wake from something I don’t understand.

The air around me shudders, going in and out of focus as I stare into the baby blues of my best friend's eyes. Eyes I don’t want to lose. Eyes I don’t want to forget now that she’s?—

She’s dead.

“Hold on, ma’am! Just hold on. I’m going to get you help!”

I groan, trying to open my eyes and finding they’re crusted together. My throat is dry—so, so dry. But my lips are sewn together, and I can’t se e m t o

O p en

M

Y

M

Ou

t

H

T

o S

p

e

A

k

Blinding light flares under my closed lids, forcing me to open my eyes. A man bathed in a beautiful dark aura kneels over me, his beautiful face twisted in a way it shouldn’t be.

Not natural. Not the design.

I reach out as the world spins around me, blinding me with color and taste and smell and touch and?—

“Someone restrain her!”

The ground beneath my feet fractures as I fall to my knees, a great scream leaving my chest, shredding my throat on its way to the heavens above. I can’t open my eyes, yet I can’t look away. Can't look away from Maggie—my dear, sweet Magoo.

What have they done to you?I wail, my hands reaching toward her broken, lifeless body. Bruises pepper her porcelain skin like constellations, her arms and legs twisted in unnatural angles, the bones protruding from several places along her extremities. Her skull has been smashed like a melon—her beautiful brains spread out along the clearing for the crows to feast upon. And feast upon her they do.

“Worms,”they whisper.“Tasty, juicy worms. Ripe for the picking.”

“Please!”My eyes are wild as I clutch at the pant legs of the Reaper standing to my left.“Please don’t! I’ll do anything! I’ll do—I’ll do anything you want—just make it stop!

“Please, please, please,”Madam cackles, the sound far too much like the crows crowding Maggie's dead body.“Please. I’ll do anything!What the fuck would you do, girl? She’s gone.Dead,like I told you she’d be. You shouldn’t have messed with the design, Seraphina.Thisis what happens when you do.”

“Why?” I rake my fingernails down my face as the crows pick at my best friend. “Why?”

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