Page 98 of Her Psycho Beasts

I know she’s removed it when the air gets slightly cooler. The darkness behind us pulses from further back, but it’s still in pursuit. Eugene crows a third time as I round a corner, my shoes skidding a little.

“Eugene is marking our position,” I growl over my shoulder. “We need to lose him.”

“We don’t have a choice!” Savage calls, kissing Eugene on the head. “Go, go, go!” he urges.

Eugene tilts his head back and crows a fourth time.

“I have half a mind to turn around and fight this out,”Scythe says into our minds.

“You know we can’t,”I say quickly back.

Aurelia pipes,“Maybe I can?—”

“No!” all three of us shout in unison.

Her body is hot against mine and I know she’s not happy as she trains her eagle eyes into the shadows beyond. “This could be a labyrinth for all we know.”

“That’s exactly what this is!” I dart left. And the fucker has led us right into it.

“Jump!” Aurelia screams.

I only manage it just in time, seeing the metallic glint of upturned spikes at the last second.

“Fucker!” Savage cries as he and Scythe soar through the air on my telekinesis.

“You’re welcome,” I cry back.

“I didn’t need it!” Savage retorts with great, unnecessary attitude.

He probably didn’t, but it was better to be sure. Aurelia pats my neck absently, and I forgo the urge to nuzzle her neck. Sprinting into the dark is the dumbest thing I’ve possibly ever done, but in between Eugene’s cawing, the roiling, poisoned dark behind us surges forward in clear pursuit.

“There’s something wrong up ahead,”Scythe says.“Slow down.”

I do as he advises, my senses on alert for any anomaly.

That dark, mad chuckle echoes off the walls, seemingly coming from all directions. At that point, I come to a crossroads.

“Left!” Aurelia cries.

“No, right!” Scythe calls.

But I’m too fast round the bend to the left, surging forward on sprinting feet. No turning back now.

“Fuck!” Savage says as the darkness presses in on our heels “Scythe, can’t you squeeze his heart?—”

Scythe calls, “Lyle, watch?—”

The stone beneath me gives way, and I roar as I leap for the next stone. But that too falls, disappearing into the sudden open dark beneath.

Aurelia and I plummet. I get my telekinesis under us just in time, catching Savage and Scythe as they lose their footing behind me.

But the shadow is above us, laughing in a way that makes all the hairs on my body stand on end. He follows us down, pressing in.

I have no choice but to go down.

“It’s okay!” Aurelia cries. “There’s another level down there!”

That’s enough permission for me, so I send us shooting down something like twenty feet. Aurelia’s screams echo around us until my feet hit stone. I absorb the velocity in a crouch before looking left and right and deciding right is as good as anydirection. I drop Savage and Scythe two meters from the new floor and they land on their feet with grunts.

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