Page 83 of The Reveal
Vinca is coming.
A dying woman used her last breath to tell me so, and I don’t have to know all the ins and outs of this gruesome monster world to understand that means something.
Almost certainly something bad.
A lot like what’s already happening inside me, because I can feel all my organs again, and not in a good way. It’s more that I’m beginning to feel like I might actually be falling apart from the inside out.
I don’t want to think about that.
Augie’s medallion is so hot that I ought to worry about it scorching my skin and raising welts, but I find I like the reminder. Of him. Of me.
Of the fact that if it hurts, I’m still alive.
Though I’m beginning to wonder if I’m getting off this mountain tonight. Or if that vision was leading me to my own high-country grave.
My medallion burns even hotter and my head starts to feel fuzzy again. I’m having trouble tracking the conversation between the three of them as they stand there, carefully equidistant, as if the harmony they represent can only exist if each of them maintains their own distinct space.
I think that’s pretty funny, but when I have the urge to laugh out loud it comes on so fast that I suspect I’m actually hysterical. That’s no good.
No one wants to be the laughing maniac in the middle of a crime scene.
Though I’m not sure this will ever be a crime scene, since I very much doubt anyone here is going to call in whoever or whatever qualifies as the creepy police. For awful things that happen on mountaintops because ofthe full moon and ancient death goddesses and all the rest of this shit that I’ve accepted on one level—that level being that I have no choice and am plagued by terrible visions—but haven’t really thought through.
I also think that I’m losing my shit.
“Here’s the thing,” Ty is saying in that growl of his. “I don’t think the situation is contained.”
“That’s easily enough done.” Ariel inclines his head at Ty. In an exaggerated fashion. “Isn’t that what your bitten minions are for?”
“I’m not talking about cleanup.” Ty jerks his chin at me. “I’m pretty sure that bitch left a little parting gift when she went.”
All three of them turn to look at me then. I can feel Maddox’s gaze on the side of my face.
I respond to all this scrutiny by going very, very still. Like any wise creature would when she suddenly looks out and sees the equivalent of three terrifying birds of prey peering down at her from ... not that far away.
“I don’t need any more gifts,” I protest. “I can barely deal with the visions.”
I decide that it’s imperative that I prove I’m fine, and fast.
Nothing happened tonight, not to me. Despite the fact that I’m wet and tired, headachy, and almost certainly covered in sacrificial blood, I’m basically at the top of my game. Reports of my own death have been greatly exaggerated, no matter that my insides currently feel pureed, and I just need to show them this. I need them all to know that I amperfectly fine.
I shift forward and slap my hand on the ground, the very same hand that the woman grabbed, thinking I’ll just vault on up to standing—
And despite all the warnings since I woke up, the grays and the spins and all the terrible pain, I’m completely unprepared for the agony that shoots through me, somehow bright and hot and dark and sick all at once—
I hear Ariel, very clearly, as he says—and loudly—“Fuck this.”
But then everything swirls around, and it doesn’t mess with any gray. It goes black once again, sucking me in fast and hard and deep.
Too fast and too hard to do anything but let it kill me.
Maybe this time for real.
20.
I wake up surrounded by warmth and softness, like I’m stretched out on a happy cloud, safe and sweet in a way I haven’t felt since I was very young. Too young to know better. Too young to understand what life was going to do to me, like it or not, even before the Reveal.
At first I don’t even open my eyes.
