Page 16 of The Girl Who Should Be Dead

She shakes her head, as fast as she could without blacking out. “If he’s had connection with demons, he could deliver me to them.”

“His girlfriend is a Necromancer, he doesn’t want anything to do with demons like that,” Gurlien interjects, and Ambra gapes at him. “What.”

“He’s…fucking his necromancer?” she manages out, and it’s almost distracting enough to erase the pain from her mind. “Intentionally?”

Gurlien just stares at her, blankly. “What did you…what did you think they were?”

She doesn’t have a proper answer for that. “He’s bonded to her, I didn’t think…” she squeezes her eyes shut, to try to get a grip on her reactions, still horribly out of reach after the leash. “He’s even more insane than I thought.”

There. A trace of a smile on his face, like he couldn’t help it, before he squashes that down. “When we aren’t in the middle of a crisis, I will tell you that story, and it is more insane than you think it is,” he says, fully serious, and suddenly, desperately, she wants to know it. “But we should call him.”

“No,” Ambra says, though now the curiosity of the story wars with the practicality of needing to stay away from the Half Demon. “I don’t trust…”

If he’s Half Demon, it means he’s half human, too, which gives him more than enough power to fully control her.

To distract herself, she rewets the towel before placing it cool against her neck, a welcome distraction from the still burning abrasion.

“Plus, I think if given a chance, he’d absolutely just rather live somewhere and do his art rather than any combat,” Gurlien says, and it’s some sort of bid for her attention,for some reason. “And now with his mom out, I don’t think he’d ever do anything for the College ever again.”

She squints at him, at the shape of his lips forming words, at the pull of his skin on his face, as if it could give her more meaning. As if the moment slows down, as if the shaky pulse in her neck quiets its speeding, and—

Her head snaps back, the leash yanking tight, faster than she can yell out.

And.

And each time it does, each time it chokes, she gets the split second of warning. Of where the rest of the world flashes to white, where she can struggle and dig in. Where all sound slams away, a fuzz of static filling her mind instead. Where she can claw at the leash, drag her fingertips and nails into the skin, maybe get some purchase from it, and—

“Shit!”

A hand on her wrist, as the world explodes around her.

5

No matter what Ambra does, she always loses consciousness at first, and she’s never sure if it’s for a split second or if it’s for an eternity, but she stumbles, her feet sliding on slick tile, until the leash around her straightens her, pulling her upright.

And Gurlien falls onto the tile in front of her, a sudden body weight not against her, clattering to the floor.

She gapes at him, she wants to, before her head snaps back again, ripping her eyes away from him and up to the room at large.

Warm lights.

Oppressive humidity, burrowing into her skin and weighing down her lungs.

Her arms prickle and the leash turns her around, to stare right at Johnsin, leaving Gurlien on the floor, scrabbling to get up.

Johnsin, with his black hair with streaks of gray in it, prematurely light. Or dyed, she never found out. He’s younger than he looks, but cultivates a facade of handsome wisdom. Of someone who should be wealthy.

Johnsin, who lives in Florida, and would have been in the same time zone as the base and the fastest one to move.

Johnsin, who’s holding a knife, casually, his other hand fisted around the leash.

Ambra tries to speak, tries to open the body’s mouth and force words out, but her jaw doesn’t move.

Because Johnsin is always the one with the most iron hand of control on the small things of her. He couldn’t control her magic too well, so he never tried, but her body…he definitely controlled that.

The dread floods through her again, lighting her gut on fire.

And he looks past her, to where she can hear Gurlien pull himself to standing, and Johnsin’s dashing eyebrows furrow. “Gurlien Banks? Is that you?”

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