Page 56 of Insatiable

Losing someone we care about has always been a probability in the Inferno Games. I guess neither of us thought it would really happen. Once again, they don’t know who murdered him. It wasn’t caught on camera. It’s almost as if the murderer knows the labyrinth and where the cameras are, but how could he… or she? I don’t know who it is, but the list of suspects is getting smaller and smaller.

I shake Juliette gently as Quinn appears on the screen. She still looks like crap, but she isn’t dead yet. I’m holding onto hope that she’ll make it despite how bad she looks.

We both watch, Jules holding my arm as though if she let go, she’d fly away.

Dade appears, swooping in to where Quinn and Tate are. I’m surprised the games makers haven’t dragged him out, but I’msure they’ll punish him enough when he eventually does come back out. He’s crazy to think otherwise.

It looks like he and Quinn are arguing, but both are whispering so quietly that I can’t hear what they are saying despite the volume being way up on my Hell Cell.

I glance at the stats to the side of the screen. Tomas’s death has brought the count down to six. Just one more, and it’s over—they’ll be through to the next circle. Do they even realize how close they are? Dade’s impulsive move to go after Quinn might have been the biggest mistake of all. She’s covered in blood, but she’s still holding on, and Tate is right there with her. If he’d only waited, they could have made it. Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if they all end up thrown out of the games.

Frustration bubbles inside me as I watch Quinn embrace Dade. His massive black wings unfurl, wrapping around them both, and then Tate too. The screen goes dark, swallowed by the vastness of those wings.

“What’s he doing?” Jules asks, leaning in so close she’s practically in my lap.

Whatever it is they are doing, it goes on for ages, until Dade’s wings contract and then flap until he’s in the air.

“He’s flying Quinn out of the Earthery!” Jules says, her voice an octave higher than usual.

I stare at the screen incredulous. “That’s not Quinn he’s holding. He’s flying Tate out!”

27

CAPTURED IN CHARCOAL

JULIETTE

“What the fuck is going on?” My voice shakes, but I don’t care. Nothing makes sense, nothing feels real, and the weight of it is crushing me. I know Rowena doesn’t have the answers any more than I do, but I can’t seem to get a grip on anything.

Tomas might have been a leech, but he was always there. Even when he wasn’t, I always thought he’d find a way back to me. I guess deep down I hoped he’d change someday, that we’d get our happily ever after. Hell, even when he died, I still believed that maybe, somehow, we’d be reunited in heaven. I snort at the absurdity of that thought now. Heaven? Yeah, right? Well, we did end up together in the end, didn’t we? But it wasn’t some fairy tale reunion—it was Hell, and in Hell, he actually changed. He really changed. But now he’s gone. Truly gone for good this time.

No happily ever after. Just a bittersweet end to our messy, twisted love story, and then a brutal, final end to his life. His existence. My heart is a tangled, soggy mess, and I don’t know what to do with it. This grief is different—messier, uglier than anything I’ve ever felt. I ended it with him for good the othernight, and I was happy with that decision. I was ready to move on. And still... it stings.

I could’ve told him I loved him one last time. I could’ve said goodbye in a way that didn’t involve sex. But no, everything with Tomas was always about sex. Ha. It was how we connected, how we fell apart, how we said goodbye. I sigh as Rowena drags herself out of bed.

“Where are you going?” I ask between hiccupping sobs.

“I’m going to get you a tissue before you soak my bed sheets through and then I’m going to find Dade.”

That’s what I need. A plan. A sense of purpose, so I don’t have to think about Tomas. I follow her to the bathroom where she passes me a pulled off piece of toilet paper.

“Come on. We have to keep going,” Rowena says soothingly as I blow noisily into the tissue.

The noise is deafening as we step onto the circular balcony, the chaos below swelling like a tidal wave crashing against the stone walls of the atrium. I grip the balustrade tightly, my knuckles white as I peer down at the mass of people. They’re jumping up and down, screaming like this is some kind of celebration, as though my heart and soul hasn’t just been beheaded by a fucking monster.

Hate ignites in my veins, burning for them, for Hell, for every damned thing in this place. I want to scream at them, make them see the raw gaping wound inside me, but all I can do is swallow it down.

“Why are we going down this way?” I ask, eyeing the rounded sets of stairs that spiral below us like some twisted carnival ride. “We should have used the platform at the back.”

“Dade isn’t going to use the platform. Look.” Ro’s voice is barely audible over the roar of the crowd, but she points downward, two floors beneath us, to the elevator doors.

Sure enough, they open, and Dade bursts through them in a flash, Tate in his arms, his wings spreading wide as he bowls over the guards yet again. They scramble to their feet, only to be knocked down like dominoes, barely able to catch their breath before he takes to the air. The crowd goes wild, swarming like insects, desperate to be near him, to touch him.

He’s magnificent. A dark, beautiful demon in flight, wings cutting through the air like scythes. As he passes us, the wind from his wings stirs the air around us, brushing my face with the same icy sharpness of his presence. For a brief moment, I forget the rage tearing me apart—he’s something otherworldly, a force beyond all of this madness. But then the reality crashes back in, heavier than before.

“Come on!” Ro grabs my hand, pulling me toward the stairs with urgency. We race up, my legs burning as we spiral around to the second set. By the time we reach Dade’s floor, my chest heaves with each breath. I’ve never been in his room before, but I know exactly where it is—Quinn has described it enough times.

The door is open, as if he’s waiting for us.

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