Page 4 of Mastering Mayhem

Ash looked at me, tilting her head and silently reminding me I had to let her go to save her.

I backed away, dragging myself across the floor and willing the Underworld to let me remain. My soul released her, the agony that followed unbearable. A rift opened above me. My essence flowed toward it.

“Come on, Em. Take it back.” Ash fanned the light toward her sister’s face.

I could not fight the pull. My arms dissipated into smoke and flowed into the rift. My legs followed, the disintegration inching its way toward my torso until darkness closed in around me.

2

EMBER

Iwanted the pain to stop. My entire body ached and burned. The sensation of a million electrified needles jabbing into my nerves and joints made me both swelter and shiver…convulse…in agony.

My pain tolerance had always been higher than most. My level four could be another person’s nine, so I normally considered the discomfort scale from one to ten at the doctor’s office useless.

Not this time. No, not now.

On a scale of one to ten, mydiscomfortwas a thirty-plus.

I’d felt fine a minute ago. At least, I’d thought I did. Honestly, I couldn’t remember much after Mayhem put on the ridiculously expensive clothes and my credit card got rejected.

If you can’t pay, you have to stay.

How did I end up on the floor? Did George…?

And why did my nose feel like I’d inhaled a tablespoon of crushed red pepper?

I tried to blow a puff of air through my nostrils, but my body disobeyed the command from my foggy brain and did the opposite instead. I snorted. Then I coughed, wheezing in more and more pepper until my throat burned and my lungs expanded and contracted as if I were hyperventilating.

“Oh, thank the goddess.” That was Ash’s voice, but either my eyes wouldn’t open or I’d gone blind from the pain.

“Come on, Em,” she said in a motherly tone. “Breathe it all in.”

“Pain…” I rasped.

“I know it hurts, but you have to.” A sob choked off her last words. “Mayhem needs you.”

Mayhem…

I sucked in another breath. Razorblades sliced into my lungs. My heart did this weirdthud…thud-thud-thudthing. Mayhem needed me. George… He’d trapped my demon with the ouroboros bracelet.

Nobody trappedmy demon.

Another breath raked through my lungs, and I licked my chapped lips. Bits of skin clung to my tongue, making my stomach turn. A warm cloth pressed against my eyes, Ash’s gentle hand wiping away the crust holding them closed.

One opened halfway, the inner corner still matted with gunk. My vision swam. Miles held the cloth, not my sister. He swiped my right eye again, and it opened fully.

Light pierced my pupil like a white-hot needle, and I fought the urge to squeeze my lid shut and sleep. Mayhem needed me. I couldn’t let him down.

“Another breath, Em. You have to take it all.” Ash held a jar beneath my nose. What spicy potion had she mixed up to bring me into consciousness? Whatever it was, I hoped to never experience it again.

I might as well have sucked a ghost pepper through each nostril, and oh, man… Hot in was hot out. I was not looking forward to my first trip to the bathroom.

Miles wiped my left eye, and I pried it open.

“There she is.” He smiled, but he couldn’t mask the concern carving crevasses into his forehead.

I blinked the fogginess from my vision as Ash returned the jar to her bag. “Why does it feel like someone hit me with a Hummer, backed over me, and plowed into me again?”

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