Page 58 of Gluttony
Shit. Taking a giant leap, Tony shoved Bailey out of the way, and then went for the humanoid mass. He powered up until heat emanated in the air, casting a shimmering mirage of blue around him, and then he dove at its midsection. The moment he connected, the thing screeched in agony. Tony tried to grab hold of it, but anytime his hand connected, it slipped beneath him like a thousand worms wriggling and sliding. The creature recalibrated itself to adjust for the pieces Tony had burned or pulled off. It reformed and reshaped, but most importantly, it fled.
Tony’s fire must have kept him safe from the toxin, because he felt no ill effects on his hands as he fired. Faster than Tony could grasp, every last bit of vine and root slithered away, camouflaging itself in the local greenery. When the last leaf and root had gone, Tony rolled and crawled across the grass to Bailey. Sitting on her ass, with her hands loosely hanging at the side, she looked stunned, and he couldn’t tell if it was just emotionally, or literally. Had she been poisoned by the neurotoxin? Her gun had left her hands and lay a few feet from her.
“Babe, are you okay?” he asked, searching for signs. He clutched her face between his hands and turned her to look at him.
Blinking, her pupils contracted. “It was alive. The plant was alive.”
“I know. It’s gone.”
“I mean, I’ve seen some shit, but that was next level cray. You’re not doing your prank thing, are you? Like, are you sure we didn’t stumble onto a movie set?”
“That’s what I had thought,” he mumbled. “It’s not a prank.”
He glanced around the clearing. Two dead bodies—mummified corpses were all that remained. It was gone.
“I can’t sense it anymore. It’s not feeding.”
After a quick squeeze to Bailey’s shoulder, Tony pushed up to a knee, and then stood. He turned around and found Daisy standing over the two Faithful. She held her sword in one hand, and Bailey’s firearm in the other.
There was something about the scene that gave Tony pause. He studied his eldest sibling without her mask. Her long silver hair was tied messily at her nape, bits escaped and flowing. She had a delicate face accentuated by strong bone structure. Fine white scars laced over one side of her face. She had the same wide lips as the rest of them, a trait he’d learned had come from their biological mother. Those lips had probably never smiled, not since she was seven and he was three and she used to tickle him in the stomach to make him forget about the fact they were locked in a room. Daisy didn’t like sorrow, and back then, her way to get rid of it was to make the person happy. Now, she killed them.
Out of her white death-dealer’s uniform, she appeared almost normal.
A pang hit him squarely in the chest. Maybe she’d never had the chance to learn to smile. For all Tony knew, the woman had been raised as a robot, conditioned to do the Syndicate’s bidding and little else. Sinners from the Hildegard Sisterhood came to mind. Like his mother Mary, they were stolen as little girls from their childhood homes or orphanages, and taught to be ruthless seductress assassins, so when they grew to adulthood they knew nothing of love and affection. It was use your body to infiltrate. Kill or be killed. It was fortunate Mary had met Flint and turned their life around.
But Mary had been at least ten years younger than Daisy was now. Could Daisy still turn her life around?
He wasn’t sure. Sloan had tried to give her a chance, and the woman had kidnapped and tortured Max. Max had insisted Daisy held back her full wrath, and in the end there was a note pinned to Max’s chest, outlining how to save him from the poison he’d been injected with.
The only thing Tony knew was that his sister was confused.
“Daisy,” he ventured.
She looked over, eyes blank. Unlike last time they’d crossed paths, she didn’t correct him and tell her to call her Despair. That was progress, he guessed.
“Come home. Let’s talk about this.”
“I have to find it,” she rasped, voice flat. “This is my fault.”
He paused, unsure what to say. When no one spoke, he added, “What the hell was that thing?”
She shook her head. “It only wants to be free, but I have angered it now. I have betrayed it by coming here to destroy it. It was so sad in the cage. It was like us.”
“It’s taking lives.”
“It is what we made it.” A tiny frown pushed Daisy’s straight brows together. Her voice lowered. “It is my fate.”
Tony eyed the fallen piece of withered plant arm, severed by the sword. “You said neurotoxin. What did you mean?”
“It can excrete a toxin that paralyzes prey before it eats.” She rubbed her raw and puckered neck. “My body is fighting it as we speak.”
That’s why her tone was still husky. A normal person without regeneration and advanced healing would have choked on the poison.
Concern for Bailey’s safety wrapped around his heart. She should have gone when he’d told her too. If that vine had hit her skin, she could be dead. A full body panic, like he’d never known before, engulfed him. Already he couldn’t comprehend a life without Bailey. He could completely understand why Wyatt was so overprotective of Misha.
“You sensed it,” Daisy accused. “You must help me find it.”
He raised a brow.Must?
