Page 84 of Land of Shadow

“No.” Clay holds his hand out. “This one’s mine. I want to make it pretty fucking obvious that this is just the beginning.”

Gina flips the knife and catches it by the blade, then hands it to him.

He steps to me as I try to pull away despite the pain. Grabbing a handful of my hair, he yanks me forward. “This is going to hurt.” He glowers down at me. “A lot.”

“Please don’t.” I look into his eyes, searching for some sort of humanity. There’s nothing. Just determination.

“Your sister did this to you. Not me.” He plunges the knife into my stomach.

I scream at the searing pain, my knees giving out. He pulls it up, slicing through vital organs, gutting me as the rest of the room cheers.

I can’t hold myself up at all. My wrists take the brunt of my weight. He wrenches my head back, his hateful gaze on mine. “This is for what you’ve done.”

Something pops loudly behind him. My vision is blurred, my mind going sluggish and cold.

Then he’s gone. I don’t see anything. Not Clay. Not the angry crowd behind him. But I hear them. They’re screaming. Gunshots fire in a raucous explosion, and I could swear I smell gunpowder over the scent of my blood.

The pain in my gut is a fire, one that burns through my lungs and sears my insides. It’s a mortal wound. I can’t see my intestines spilling out, but I know they must be. For some reason that horrifies me more than dying, affects me more than the excruciating pain.

I don’t know how long it goes on, but the screaming eventually stops. Or maybe my hearing finally goes, bleeding out of me like my heart’s blood. In that moment, I want it to be over. I want to die and escape the burning agony.

Vertigo hits, my world going upside down, and then someone is speaking to me. A voice I know. It says my name, but it’s as if it’s coming down a long, padded hallway. A muffled sort of salutation. Is it Death come to greet me?

“Georgia!” He says my name again.

“Death?” I ask, though I don’t know if I actually say it out loud. “Just let me die. Let me die. Take me with you. Please.” I beg him over and over.

“Drink,” he commands.

Something hot against my lips.

“Fucking drink, Georgia!” Death shakes me.

I try to do what Death tells me, but I only manage a small swallow. “It hurts.Take me with you. End it.”

My mind goes blank, nothing but a silent wall of black infinity. Am I dead? Did he take me?

“Georgia!” Death howls at me.

The burning in my gut returns, and I scream, my body awakening to molten agony.

Valen. He’s moving in a blur, his hands all over my bloody abdomen. Another jolt of pain—worse than anything the knife had done—wracks my body.

He looks up, his fangs long, then tears into his own wrist and smears his blood into my gaping wounds. The burning increases, my body dipped in acid, my organs turned to paste.

I scream until there’s nothing left. Until finally, blessedly, I’m lost in nothingness, a dream I hope to never wake from.

* * *

“Wake the fuck up.”

“Aang!” Evie scolds.

“What?” he snaps. “She’s lying here like Sleeping Beauty surrounded by dozens of corpses! I need a goddamn explanation!”

“Guys?” I open my eyes.

“Hell.” Wyatt scrubs a hand down his face. “We thought?—”

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