Page 32 of Cinder's Adventure: Get Me To the Wedding!

With a grunt, the other Cinder plunged the sword upward. It cut through the beast’s flesh. The monster howled. She slashed the blade down through its abdomen, flaying it open. Blood sprayed across her hands, her legs, pooling in the muddy muck beneath them.

With a keening wail, the Jabberwock collapsed, eyes roving madly from side to side before rolling back into its head as its body convulsed one final time.

Which is when the man with the ax went mad.

The other Cinder had just dropped the sword when the large man started swinging his ax, and everywhere he swung, gore and death followed. First, the jester. Then, the girl in red. Next, the man in the top hat.

Cinder’s gut sank with every passing moment. She felt like she was watching it all through a nightmare, her feet stuck in the mud, unable to move, barely able to breathe.

Which is when the man turned on her.

Well—theotherher.

“Why are you wasting your time here?”

Gasping, Cinder swiveled her head. Iko was perched on top of a pumpkin, legs crossed, white bunny ears flopped over her braids. She was watching the events unfolding across the pumpkin patch with distaste. “This is like one of those tragic net dramas where everyone dies at the end.” She turned to Cinder. “We don’t have time for this. You aresolate. Come on!”

Hopping down from the pumpkin, she leaped through the patch’s gate.

Dazed, Cinder stumbled after her.

She glanced back once, in time to see the man picking up the sword and aiming the blade at the other Cinder’s heart.

With a shudder, she turned away, wishing she would wake up from this nightmare, and followed Iko through the gate.

Proceed to Chapter 48.

Chapter 37

“That is enough of that,” Cinder growled, as the Jabberwock flung its neck back, trying to buck her off. She held fast, and this time, she took a long, deep breath to calm her thoughts—then reached out, searching for the waves of bioelectricity that shimmered off all living things. Over generations, Lunars like her had developed the ability to control and manipulate this force, and while she’d never attempted to use it on ananimalbefore… there was a first time for everything.

The energy spooling off the Jabberwock was frenetic, like a brewing thunderstorm. As soon as Cinder seized control of it with her mind, she felt a spark between them—a literal spark that seemed to zip through her wiring up into her brain. It startled her, but she did not release her control.

Miraculously, the monster began to calm. Its writhing muscles stilled beneath her. Its screeches died out. Its shuddering breaths slowed.

“That’s better,” Cinder murmured, straining from the effort of managing such frantic energy. “No need to eat anyone today. Let’s all pause and—”

A distant sound interrupted her. Something like a throbbing hum, a whir, a low whistle, coming from the sky.

It was a sound Cinder had heard many times before, but that couldn’t be right.

How could it behere?

And yet, when she peered through the shroud of mist that hung over the pumpkin patch, she saw a row of descending lights. As those lights neared, they revealed the hulking metal form they were attached to, and there was no mistaking the shape of Thorne’s beloved spaceship—the Rampion.

Dropping right toward them.

Cinder wasn’t sure if the ship’s distraction prompted her to lose control of the Jabberwock, or if the monster’s fear lent it enough strength to shirk off her manipulation, but the next moment, she was being hurled from its back.

Cinder’s body smacked an overgrown pumpkin. Its flesh gave slightly as she slid down into the muck mottled with braided vines.

The Rampion landed in the center of the field. A dozen jack-o’-lantern faces contorted into looks of panic moments before they were squashed beneath the landing gear.

The Jabberwock snarled—first at the ship, and then at Cinder. A hungry gleam returned to its eye as it began sloshing through the mud in Cinder’s direction, its dripping tongue smearing drool along a mouth full of fangs.

Behind it, the ship’s entry ramp opened, descending with a hiss and a thud. Two figures appeared in the glowing lights.

“I promise to show you the whole world,” rang out Thorne’s voice, “and you want to see the saddest pumpkin patch of all time?”

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