Page 56 of Visions of Darkness

I forced myself to take a few bites to appease the counselors observing the room, but I was barely able to swallow around the bile that kept rising in my throat.

Sickness grew, and a foreboding filled the space.

An omen that hung in the air.

It was then that I felt it—the corruption beating against me.

In me.

Through me.

The breath wheezed from my lungs in a bout of panic, and a shiver raced across my flesh and tumbled down my spine.

Freezing cold and smothering at the same time.

As if its presence had sucked the oxygen from the room.

Jenny chattered on, as if time hadn’t sped up and brought me closer to my end, immune to the obliterating wickedness that curled through the cafeteria.

Penetrating.

Bounding.

Infesting.

Gathering my courage, I turned to look over my shoulder.

Evil glared back.

It was the same man who’d been in my room two nights ago. Wearing blue scrubs, his frame squatty and thick, his dusty-blond hair sheared close to his head.

For a moment, we were locked, my gaze held prisoner by the man who was plotting my demise.

He finally jerked himself free of the bloodlust and forced himself to turn back to his work. He shook out a garbage liner and replaced it in the bin. He tied off the full trash bag he’d removed and slung it over his shoulder.

“Hello? What are you looking at?”

Jenny waved a hand in my face, and I whipped back around. “Nothing.”

“Nothing? You’ve been in some kind of trance for, like, the last five minutes.”

Her attention jumped around the cafeteria. Dawning bloomed in her features when she saw the monster who was already heading back through the swinging door that led to the kitchen.

“That guy’s a creep, am I right?” She exaggerated a shiver.

I didn’t need to exaggerate mine.

For a second, I considered telling her. But what was she going to do? There wasn’t anything anyone could do.

Ellis’s words echoed in my ear:Believe in yourself, brave girl.

But how could I stop this?

Not when the Ghorl controlling that man’s mind had already decided for me.

“Yeah, seems like it.” I shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal, when it was everything.

We finished dinner, then returned to our room.

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