Page 20 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

The gun kicks in her hand, abrading her palm, and power swirls in the room, dark.

An intake of breath, and Chloe snaps her eyes open, just in time to see black blood pouring from a wound in the demon's arm, vicious. He staggers back, a stunned expression flickering across his face as he stares down at the physical injury.

“What?” he asks, and his voice wobbles. Like he can’t believe this is happening. Gingerly, he dabs his free hand against the blood, his brows drawing together before he teleports to her, his face carefully blank, and—

A hand closes on her elbow, fast, and she rockets into black.

6

Chloe doesn’t so much wake up as she gets forcefully shoved into consciousness, her eyes burning.

For a split second, she’s cozy warm, her favorite blanket pulled up to her neck, her pillow underneath her head. The cabin creaks, like it always does in the wind in the winter, and there’s the faint smell that it’s going to snow outside, barely sifting through her window. She’s repaired that window so many times, alchemy and normal means, but even if she wards it to keep the warmth inside, the fresh scents from outside always leaks into her room.

Her room.

Her eyes pop open, and the familiar sight of the wooden cross beams above her bed meets her. Her favorite jacket—she left it behind—is sloppily hung on the edge of her chair, and…

And all the wards, all the alchemy she’s put into the cabin, is unraveled.

The cabin.

The cabin they evacuated in the middle of the night, back when the college tried to lure out Maison with his mom, before they crossed the county to get her, breaking into Toronto…

…And Maison had said the protections he put around the cabin were taken down.

There’s the sudden moment of terror she knows too well. That she’s going to be stuck here, be handcuffed and a bag over her head, manhandled and thrown back into the prison.

Which prison she couldn’t quite tell, but one of them.

They all end up being somewhat of the same.

Chloe bites back a curse, kicking off her favorite blanket. She’s wearing the entire outfit she got for going underground, sticky to her skin with blood, wholly unsuitable for sleeping—

The sleep spell.

The demon.

Her research.

Her breath hitching, she jerks her head around, searching for the familiar nylon of her backpack, but it’s gone.

In the mirror over her closet door, the blood on her front is black, viciously so, and she gingerly dabs at it with her fingertips.

Because she shot him.

“Oh fuck,” Chloe murmurs, then stills herself, listening.

The cabin is silent, but that never meant anything, Chloe had thoroughly soundproofed it between rooms when she and Gurlien first moved in. Just the creak of the building on a whole made its way in.

Gingerly, Chloe swings her feet over the side of her bed, and someone—the demon?—had removed her shoes, lining them neatly next to the little carpet Chloe thrifted once.

Her skin crawls, and she shudders, the blood cold down her front.

She needs to get out of here, get away from any surveillance on the cabin, needs to…

Needs to get her research back.

Chloe exhales, and her eyes burn again, then she pats her pockets for her phone.

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