Page 157 of Every Shade of Shadow

Ava sees my expression. “What is it?”

“The music…it cut out.”

All three of us go silent, listening, but there’s nothing.

“Maybe it’s just Leo fucking ar—”

Lily doesn’t get the rest of her sentence out as a cacophony of screams can be heard down the hall.

They don’t stop.

No, they seem to grow in volume, more terrible and sinister by the second.

“Fuck,” says Lily.

“Come on,” I tell them, racing back out through the door and running as fast as I can down the hall, Ava and Lily trailing behind me.

The screams grow in volume, almost unbearable—a maelstrom of pain and anguish.

I burst through the doors, coming into the ballroom first.

At first, I cannot make out quite what is going on, but a light sweeps across the room and the real horror becomes clear.

There are bodies strewn across the dance floor. Too many to count.

The light sweeps further across the room to reveal more, swathes of black that can only be blood across the walls and floor, the tables and bar. That’s what I smell in the air, almost losing my stomach right then and there as I try to fathom what I’m looking at it.

It’s a massacre.

Straight ahead, I see a Loki mask broken in two. Not far from it, Leo is on his back, his torso torn to shreds, a giant hole through it, his head connected to his body only by a fleshy rope of muscle.

I shorten my strides, the view mixing terror and dread as I get closer to his body.

I jump when Leo’s head moves, blood gushing out of his mouth as he coughs. His eyes still, and turn glassy.

“Leo?” Lily’s voice is so faint as be almost imperceivable, the wet sound of vomit hitting the floor I have to assume is Ava.

But another sound draws my attention.

Just ten yards from where I’m standing the Headmistress plunges her arm right through someone’s gut. She sneers, everything up to her shoulder a blackened blade. There’s a sickening crunch as she twists her arm, the body sliding slack to the floor.

Fuck.

I have should seen this coming, should have done something…

The Headmistress turns towards me, blood and gristle dripping from the shadow blade that has become her arm.

“Move!” Damien’s stentorian voice rumbles.

I turn to see him ushering Lily and Ava through a portal, waving me over.

We need to fight, not flee, but I react only to his voice, running for the portal and reaching for his hand, the portal swallowing me fast.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

We gather in a room I don’t recognize, shadows flickering over the curved stone walls from the few candles the Professor has lit. I’m jittery as I look around at the others. Lily wrings her hands nervously, gaze darting between each of us. Ava is stony, composed, but I see the tension there.

Damien is the calmest of all, surveying the room with a steady gaze, but he seems to be looking past us, towards something we cannot see. “She is still there,” he says.

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