Page 30 of Surviving Hallow Hill
Ten
The collars aresimple to remove. Sure, they cry about it during, but in comparison to what comes after, it’s simple. Days start to slip by in the Hallow, and we’re no closer to escaping than when we started. I used to find solace in routine. I could kill people day in and day out. Fight for my life like every day was my last.
It’s different here. It’s being thrown in a cage and knowing you can get out.
But only at the highest cost.
We search for an escape. We find nothing. Nothing but more violence to our peers. We fight for survival. It’s become as much a routine in here as it was out in the real world. I don’t want to fight, if only because when I look into the eyes of those I kill, I see that they’re just as much victims of Hyde as we are. Broken and lost souls just trying to make sense of the world we were thrown into. I don’t like it. I have rules about souls I reap.
Had.
Past tense, because ever since I got pulled into the fold of Hallow Hill Academy, I’ve lost what makes me innatelyme.
I hardly even feel like a Sekar anymore. Not broken like Sia, but not full Sekar either. I’m something... different. Something I feel deep in my bones since leaving that lab with a sheet covering my body and scars already healing.
Still I reap.
Because the rules of the Hallow are clear.
One team can leave. Not a mixture of teams. Which is what we currently have.
I won’t sacrifice my men for my life. I won’t.
The academy—Dr. Fucking Hyde—he can kiss my supernatural ass. Because I won’t hurt them.
Even if Nightmare Doll over there is looking at me and Sia like it would be easy to pick the flesh from our bones and devour us whole just so she can walk her skinwalking ass right out of here with no regrets.
Her big glassy eyes don’t even blink as she studies me.
“You and Kira, you’re beautiful,” she whispers like the turning point in a scary fucking movie. She’s one eye twitch away from doing a spine-breaking backbend and spider-walking her creepy self on over here. Scary movie shit, right there.
“Thanks,” I say with a tensing of my lips that can’t even be close to a smile.
“He’d never let us kill you two.” Amrose tilts her head just slightly at me, and her words surprise me.
More so than usual.
Kira seems more used to the woman’s creepy factor. Kira just smiles happily.
“What do you mean?” Styx grunts, glaring at her a bit harder than normal. She makes everyone uncomfortable, but I can feel that Styx has a special place in his body that hates every bit of her.
She says she saved his life, and I think he hates that. He hates being indebted to her, hates the threat she poses to our little group. Our family.
The eerie smile against her perfect lips pulls up at the edges. “Like with the beautiful headmistress. He likes power, sure, but he loves pretty little trinkets. And you and me, we’re like a shrine to the Doctor. He won’t ever let us go. He’ll never let us die when we’re practically the last of our kind. Rare supernaturals are hard to come by, no matter what you may think.”
“Why put us on opposing teams then?” I ask genuinely before a hard pain stabs through my mind. The memories of what’s hiding in my mind slash out at me once more.
I push through the agony and focus. For days, my skin has not felt like my own. Like something beneath the surface is crawling, fighting to get out. I try to keep that shit locked up tight so that no one notices. But I think she does.
She’s smarter than she looks.
Deadlier, too.
“Probably so he can have the joy of putting all our broken pieces back together again,” she says on such a romantic breath that it sends a spiral of uneasy nerves down my spine.
I’m still holding her sickly sweet gaze when Styx’s muttering cuts into my thoughts. “Pieces... the things. The dead walkers. They crawledupto us.”
“Yeah.” Sia lifts his hands impatiently. He’d love to shake the intelligence right out of Styx and work the puzzle himself. I can see it in the hard way his shoulders are held right now. Just rattle that puppy dog neck until all the words come out the way the Sekar wants. “What!” Sia demands when all of two seconds pass in contemplative silence.
