Page 160 of The Girl Who Inherits the Dead

The mass murderer, almost immediately, slamming against her chest and leaving her gasping.

The woman bleeding from her eyes, a spare second later, as unforgiving as a wave in the sea, sending sparks behind her eyes.

And another, and another, until she’s choking on it, coughing around it in her throat, clinging onto the rune box, as if it can support her body weight. Her fingertips dig into the metal, nails scratching and breaking, before a scream echoes down the hallway.

A scream and glass shards erupt outwards from the demon’s cell, before she crashes through it, shoulder first, panting.

Maison shifts, so he’s between Delina and her, though his knee sends a knife of pain up his entire leg.

Ambra stares at them, her chest heaving and eyes glowing, before her face splits into a wide grin and she rips the leads off her head, stomping on them.

“Stop panicking, half-demon,” she spits out, and her voice is raw. “And get me out of here.”

Fear so strong it’s almost pain, Gurlien brushes by her, to the pre-teen wight’s room.

“She’s still here,” Gurlien says, and the demon watches him like a beetle. “Guys, she didn’t get out—”

Ambra closes her hand and jerks, and the glass shatters to the Wights cell, showering Gurlien with shards, and he flinches back, but none of them strike him.

It’d be a miracle if Delina didn’t catch a split-second shield around him, fast and fluent.

Maison inhales at the casual display of power.

With nary a glance behind her, Ambra pushes past Gurlien, stepping among the glass and emerging with the pre-teen.

Stella’s blinking, dazed, but upright. Her head’s spinning so hard Delina can taste the dizziness, and her stomach roils.

“Here,” Ambra says, then shoves her at Gurlien, who scrambles against the sudden weight to catch her. “Now let’s go.”

The wight blinks up at Gurlien, then over to the group, to Maison and Delina and Chloe, then opens her mouth and screams.

Screams, screeching, high pitched, before she vanishes, as sudden as anything else.

And all of the sudden, the lights slam off, and an alarm blares through the hallway, before getting flooded with red lights, strobing.

The demon recoils back, clapping her hands over her ears.

“Shit,” Maison mumbles, but Chloe’s already at the wall, sketching her runes, her hands glowing. “We’re going loud.”

“Yes, this is the definition of loud, thank you, Maison,” Gurlien says. “Okay, she’s out, we have an hour to go get your mom.” He clicks on his stopwatch, pale.

Another scream ricochets down the hallway, piercing, and Delina grabs the death from the room nearest to her, pulling it to her, and it surges with power in her hands.

Like nothing she’s ever felt before.

Ambra flinches back, her eyes wide, at that, before gaping in horror at Maison. Like he’s to blame for letting Delina grasp the death, somehow.

“And…here.” Remote, Chloe splits open the brick, revealing a staircase down, the red lights strobing.

“That’s the wrong way,” Ambra says, surging up to Chloe between one blink and the next. “We’re underground, you need to go up, that’s just to more traps.”

“And we’re here to rescue my mother,” Maison says, staring at the staircase with trepidation. “We’ll have a way out in an hour, first we get her.”

“You’re insane,” the demon says, flat. “No human is worth the traps in here.”

Maison squares his shoulders down at her, despite the pain in his knee, and Ambra has the temerity to roll her eyes, before they fall on Delina.

For a split second, hunger echoes through her, so sharp it’s pain Delina can feel, before she shakes her head, and starts down the staircase.

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