Page 77 of Wilde and Deadly

“Rue?!” His chair clattered back as he stood, heart hammering. “What the fuck is she doing there?!”

No one answered him. He barely heard anything beyond the blood rushing in his ears. He reached for his gun, ready to move—ready to go?—

Something was wrong.

His vision blurred, then snapped back too sharp. A moment of clarity, then—wrong again. The room lurched, a half-second delay between what he saw and what his body felt. His pulse slammed too hard, too fast, like he’d run a sprint, except he hadn’t moved.

A creeping, foreign sensation crawled under his skin, burrowing deep.

Move!His brain screamed the command, but his limbs weren’t listening.

Breath hitched. Too shallow.

Fingers tingled. His hands wouldn’t grip.

His skin burned, then went icy cold.

His first thought wasBenji.

That slimy little shit—it had to be him.

Some kind of set-up. Some kind of betrayal. Some?—

But—

Benji was seizing.

His back arched violently, his entire body convulsing as foam bubbled from his lips. The pizza box slid from his limp fingers.

Not Benji.

It was the goddamn pizza.

Fuck.

He tried to reach for his phone, for his comms, but his muscles weren’t cooperating.

His knees buckled.

His stomach wrenched, twisting violently—painful, raw.

He gagged, choked—couldn’t stop it, didn’t try. He had to get it out.

But his lungs—his fucking lungs?—

They weren’t working.

His world blurred.

The last thing he saw before everything went black was Benji's body jerking violently beside him, his own heartbeat slowing in his ears.

nineteen

The steady beepof the heart monitor was the only sound in the room.

It should have been reassuring. Proof that Elliot was alive. Breathing. Recovering.

But to Davey, it was a taunt.

---