Page 3 of Savage Hunt

“You killed us, Tate.” Mike licked his cracking lips with a forked tongue. “You did this to us.”

Josh laughed at my horror-stricken expression. “We were in that warehouse because of you. It’s your fault.”

Van shook his head, and maggots fell out of his filthy, strawberry-blond hair. “We’re like this because of you.”

“All your fault.” Shelly dropped to her hands and knees and scuttled forward like a sub-demon. “You stole our lives. And now it’s time to pay the piper.”

I fell back on my palms, rice bouncing across the floor as I ripped my knees from the piles. Mrs. Miller’s punishment couldn’t be worse than this. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry.” Jayla advanced on me, the knife raised in her little hand. “I know it’s my fault, but I can’t fix it. I’d do anything to fix it. Anything.” My voice cracked, and tears spilled down my cold cheeks.

As the five of them surrounded me, Jayla front and center, their hatred suffocated me.

I deserved it, though.

“Would you die to fix this?” Jayla crawled over me, curls hanging around her face and brushing mine. “Would you let me stab your heart if it would bring us back to life?”

My breath caught. “That’s not how it works, Jayla bear. You’re already gone. There’s no bringing you back.”

Wickedness streaked her irises like lightning bolts. “But what if I could come back? What if we all could come back if you died.”

This wasn’t right. None of this was.

Jayla would never want to kill anyone, even me. She also didn’t know about demons and Fane. Neither did the twins or Van and Shelly.

As Jayla’s grin ominously stretched across her face, the realization hit me like a sledgehammer.

This wasn’t real.

None of this was real.

I wasn’t eleven years old in the Miller’s home, and Jayla and my friends hadn’t returned from the grave to haunt me.

Instead, I was strapped to a table in a torture room at Heldrok where Venna dosed me with Madness Elixir again. Fane was somewhere in the Underworld prison too.

“You aren’t Jayla.” As I shoved her off, the Miller’s kitchen blurred, and the five of them vanished…

With a gasp, my eyelids snapped open to the cold, grimy torture room, restraints cutting into my arms and legs. Sweat dripped over my face, and my chest heaved while blood thundered in my ears.

Venna appeared above me, her long, silvery hair brushing my shoulder. “You came out of that too fast.” She frowned and examined the bottle. “I gave you a double dose too.”

My head turned to the side, and I heaved, the dry retches reverberating through the room. Nothing came out, though. I couldn’t remember the last time I had food or water.

I collapsed back against the hard table, panting. Blood oozed out of my cracked lips. How long would this go on? I didn’t break easily, but I wouldn’t stay sane for much longer.

Venna grabbed my jaw and studied me, a smile stretching her lips. “You have so much guilt flowing through your veins. I’m surprised you haven’t crumbled from the weight of it.”

“Go to hell,” I croaked out, my eyes rolling in my head from exhaustion.

Her laugh made my flesh crawl. “Guilt. I can work with that.”

Chapter

Two

Screams boomed down the narrow corridor as two guards dragged me back to my cramped cell, walls of hewn stone stretching for miles. After being tortured for hours, I couldn’t stand, let alone fight, so the dux demons didn’t bother shackling my feet.

The big one on the left released my arm to unlock the barred door, and I dropped to my knee while the other one kept me from completely collapsing. They released the cuffs around my wrists and tossed me inside, my cheek scraping the rough ground.

“I don’t see the reason for the extra security on this one, Tajeed.” The guard sneered while the yellow lights cast a sallow glow over his scaly green skin. “Prisoner 487331 is nothing more than a weakling shifter. The dampening sigil prevents her from fully changing anyway.”

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