Page 72 of Seducing Jenny
“What?” My heart lurched. “How?”
“You were there, Tiger. At her funeral on Credo’s island. Her ghost was released when the fire took her and somehow, she’s taken over Jade’s body.” His voice was tight and angry. “Before Jade attacked me, she said things Petal used to say to me.”
Surge started to spasm, and his eyes fluttered back, like he was having a seizure.
“Justice is going to kill you all!” Jade shouted, before she started laughing. It was a maniacal sound of madness, and it was chilling.
“Ignore her,” Mal advised.
Discord shouted out, “I need the anticonvulsant—”
Mal had already grabbed it from the countertop, so he applied it to Surge’s shaking temple. The little man’s body calmed.
I knelt there, paralyzed by helplessness. Surge was barely clinging to life. Discord and Mal worked frantically to stabilize him. And behind me, Jenny…still in Jade’s body, continued to cackle like a demon.
“What in the fuck?” Longshot bellowed as he burst in, Rhonda with him. The strigella slithered up his arm, alert.
I’d learned during our preparation for Illiapol that he had some medical training from his time in the war, so I did the most useful thing I could think to do. I stepped away from Surge to give Longshot room to work.
I ended up next to Jade, slumped in the chair. Her blood-caked face smirked as her head lulled to the side. “If you help me out of these chains, then we can have a party.”
“Why did you do this?” I hissed.
“A girl has her reasons.”
I grabbed her shoulders and shouted, “Tell me!”
She started to laugh diabolically again. “Untie me and I’ll do whatever you want.”
The feral look in her eyes was nothing like Jenny. The woman I loved wasn’t in there at all. I could have died weeping for her, were it not for an unusual sight that stole my attention.
Longshot’s strigella, Rhonda, snaked off his arm. She carefully evaded the blood on the floor for as long as she could, until it was unavoidable. Her mirror scales propelled her upward toward Jade, so half her body was off the floor. I had never seenRhonda leave Longshot’s arm or neck. They were like a matched set, so much so that I hardly ever noticed her anymore. But as she slithered toward Jade, I just watched, trying to sort out everything that had gone wrong.
Until Rhonda bit Jade’s leg.
Jade screamed. She thrashed, but the chains held her legs tight to the chair. Instinctively, I lunged forward to stop Rhonda, but before I could she retracted and zipped back to Longshot faster than I’d ever see her move.
“That thing bit me!” Jade screeched. “What the fuck!”
From the floor, Mal asked, “What is she talking about—”
“Rhonda bit Petal!” I shouted.
“I’m not Petal!” Jade screamed, thrashing harder.
Longshot, carrying Surge from the floor to the exam table, demanded, “Get the antivenom!”
Mal scrambled to the injector set, rifling through it. “It’s not here!”
“Fuck,” Longshot barked, before he asked Surge, “How are you?”
“Don’t know.” Surge’s weak voice cracked.
Jade’s leg began to swell against the chains and sweat covered her body. She started to convulse.
Terrified at what was happening, I shouted, “Longshot!”
“Surge, where is your antivenom?” he asked the magician.
