Page 92 of The World Undone

Levi’s nostrils flared as he fought the urge to fuck over the whole mission. For a moment, I thought he would. But after a few deep, sporadic breaths, he abandoned the fight altogether. He dropped to his knees next to Evelyn, searching for signs of life I knew wouldn’t be there.

Still, I couldn’t bring myself to look. I knew once I did, that her death would be finite.

Any hope I’d had about a possible reconciliation, gone.

“You must be her,” Xavier said again, his focus on Dec and Dec alone, either oblivious to our turmoil or completely ambivalent about it. “You look a little different from how they described, but I can sense the magic in you. Strong. So much stronger than I thought it’d be. We knew you’d come to us eventually. Power is drawn to power.”

Did he think she was Max? Dec caught my eyes briefly and gave me an almost imperceptible head shake.

Right. Let him think that.

“The stone,” Declan stood taller, her blade still dangling from her fingers, though I knew firsthand it could be in his neck in an instant if she needed it to be, “where is it?” She tilted her head to the side, studying him, her body slipping into an almost casual stance that I knew was only for show. “I don’t sense it here.”

Xavier’s brow arched, his mouth curving into a slimy fish hook of a smirk as he tossed Evelyn’s heart on the bed—as if it was nothing. “So it’s as we guessed. You can sense it, then? You’re right though. It’s not here.”

To my absolute fucking horror, Amalia pounced on the bloody muscle, her teeth and fingers fighting for purchase over the surface area as she devoured it in a few rabid bites.

I couldn’t hold back the burning surge up my throat any longer. The wet sounds of her feverishly eating a piece of my mother completely obliterated the last thread of control I had left.

I vomited a puddle at my feet, gagging and coughing until everything in my stomach was out.

Xavier groaned. “Disgusting. You’re lucky I have cleaners coming tomorrow.”

“Her heart? Was that fucking necessary?” Dec barked out, some of her cool mask dissolving into a rage I’d only seen a few times before.

When she shifted like she was going to walk over to me, to see if I was okay, I held up my shaky hand to stop her.

Stay on mission. We had one chance here. I wouldn’t be the reason we failed it.

She fought with herself for a moment, her instinct to help me at war with our goal.

Levi was whispering something I couldn’t quite hear or understand, his hands hovering over where I was certain our mother’s corpse now lay.

Xavier merely watched us, attempting to appear bored and in charge, but I could sense the pulse of excitement in his posture. He thought he had us. He thought this was it. That he finally had Max.

People grew reckless, greedy when they assumed that they’d won.

Declan was right. We could get more out of him.

We could salvage this mission, make it worth—something. It had to be. We couldn’t just go back empty handed. Not after?—

“The woman,” I nodded towards Amalia, not entirely able to bring myself to look at her, to see the splotches of my mother’s blood left on her sheets, or dribbling down her chin, “what happened to her?”

Xavier’s nose curled as he watched Amalia. She preened under his gaze, momentarily satiated by the snack, though I knew from firsthand experience that her hunger was nowhere near met.

The hunger never abated. It only grew worse, compounding on itself until more and more of her time would be spent in these rabid states.

He shrugged, disgust still baked into every line of his face as he glanced down at me. He turned his attention back to Dec. Apparently she was the only one of us worthy of being spoken to. “Some are too weak to hold the kind of power we wield. Two of the lesser council members died almost instantly. Since Amalia held on, I thought she would eventually follow my fate, that she would pull through from the transfusions. Clearly,” he glanced at his girlfriend, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes as he watched her try to break through her chains with a renewed fervor, “I was mistaken. She isn’t strong enough.”

“The stone,” Declan said again, “where is it?”

“Impatient and arrogant, just as I’ve heard. We’ve been waiting for you. If you play nicely, we can take you to it. I think you’ll like what we have to offer.” Xavier laughed, the bark devoid of any real humor.

He took a step closer to her and she tensed in response.

I reached for the steady flow of fire, sensing that something in the room had shifted.

“You’re—” his jaw hardened as he took a deep breath, his expression melting into rage. “You’re not her.”

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