Page 33 of All Hallows Trick

“We never planned for you, but you turned out beautifully. Look at you, in complete control of yourself only a day after genesis.”

“You don’t get to speak a single fucking word to her,” Tor growled, bristling with fury and protectiveness.

I didn’t…

Her…?

Hurt crept into my voice when I asked Carmilla,“Youwere the one who did this? You made the subjects?”

There was nothing but kindness in her eyes. “No.” I began to exhale, but it choked off when she added, “Only Nightmare calls them that. You’re not subjects. You’re nothing so ordinary. You’re my children.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CAT

Ishook my head like I could knock Poppy’s words out of my ears, like I could unhear them.My children.She was behind this whole sick experiment, splicing human with animal and fuck knows what else.

“What iswrongwith you?” I demanded when the shock wore off. I’d been terrified outside but now looking her in the eye, it wasragethat filled me, not fear. I took a step closer, but my eyes were on Madde, silently begging for the dark velvet of his violence to fill me. He didn’t disappoint, shadows swelling inside me, brushing their soft edges against my soul, gentle to me but brutal to anyone else.

We’ll tear her to pieces, my lioness. We’ll make her screams rattle the treetops. Together.

My next inhale was ragged, but I curled my free hand into a fist and held tight to Miz, facing down the monster who made the serum.

Poppy seemed to realise my question was rhetorical because she didn’t answer. She watched me with the softness and care that made my chest hurt. I should have known better. Byron. Phil. Darya. I couldn’t trust anyone. Not Poppy, not a single person on this cursed island.

“Why do you have all that blood?” I asked, trying to form my thoughts into a coherent shape. There were so many it made me sick.“In the next room, on all those shelves. Why all the vials?”

I knew why. Nightmare had tasked her with creating an army of terrors capable of harming a death god. But I wanted to hear her say it.

“The serum is my breakthrough,” Poppy responded, struggling against the grip Tor had on her. His eyes widened, shock flashing through coffee brown, when she slipped out of his and Madde’s hold. “My miracle, my greatest invention, capable of taking an ordinary person and turning them into a marvel.”

“Into a monster,” I snapped, trying not to choke on the scent of this place; blood and chemicals. “Thosemarvelsmurdered people andate them,Poppy. What about Caroline? What about the florist in the village? Innocent people were ripped apart in the most horrific way. For what? Science? Your precious breakthrough?”

“I wanted to see what they were capable of,” she replied in that same soft tone, not matching my anger. Which just made me angrier. “We couldn’t test them when they were caged down here, but when they were let loose…” Her tone was dreamy, affectionate. I thought of all the scars on my brother’s body, the injection marks.

“You tortured them, you psycho bitch,” I snarled, lunging forward another step. “My brother is traumatised because of you.” He hid it well, but I saw it. “You injected them, shot them up with your experimental serum, and forced them to change at a molecular level all because you wantedfucking childrenand Nightmare wanted an army. And the worst part is you don’t think you’ve done anything wrong. It’s not a miracle or a breakthrough, it’s inhumane.”

A deep well of sadness filled her eyes behind her glasses. “You don’t see the gift you’ve been given yet—”

“The gift?” My voice dropped lower. “I hurt my husband so badly he was knocked out all fucking night. My men are in pain because of you. What was in those vials, because I know it wasn’t only blood?”

“A perfect blend of serum and blood, with a drop of goddess blood. How did your genesis happen? Did you drink it?”

Goddess blood…? Nightmare’s? Rage made my gut clench. “I found a vial of my blood in a fucked up lab, and you think I drank it? I tried to destroy it!”

Her eyes flashed with intrigue. “How?”

“I shattered the vial.”

“Fascinating,” she breathed.

“Horrifying,” I snapped, jerking forward another step, Miz squeezing my hand in comfort or warning, I couldn’t tell which. “I wasterrified.How did you get my blood? I never gave you it.”

“But you gave a sample when you enrolled at Ford.”

I rocked back. Every single student. Poppy had every single student’s blood. She could make monsters of us all. “Undo it,” I breathed. “Your fucked up serum did this to me, so you can undo it.”

A furrow formed in her dark red brows. “Undo it? But you’re perfect. There’s nothing to undo, Cat.”

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