Page 14 of Consume
The word came out exactly as it was meant to. I gasped.
“Iron,” I whispered. “Of course. It’s sitting on my tongue and forcing the ghosts off of it. Why didn’t I think of that earlier?”
Poh gazed at me, her expression empty, and when I tried to catch her eye, she quickly looked away.
I glanced down at my body, covered with my black, metal-spiked corset, leather pants, and scales. “It’s not forcing the ghosts completely away, though, is it? The scales are still there.”
“Either way,” Josh said, his voice like an echo down a long tunnel even though he was right behind me. “The iron in your mouth will help with communication.”
“Not really. I speak Saelis too.” Before any of us could react to that, Poh took my elbow, and with her chameleon invisibility, we rounded the shrubs and started down the hill.
“What have I been saying?” I asked. “Poh,what have I been saying?”
“Not now,” she hissed. “We’re going. The guards will hear us.”
Rustedballs. She was right. We were hurtling downhill into the unknown as if time had skipped forward. We’d been over two hundred feet away seconds ago, but now, only twenty feet away and nearly upon the guards in front of the house. How had that happened?
Never mind. I had to stay focused on what we were about to do.
Sweat poured down my face. My nerves trembled with anticipation, but not because I was about to break into someone’s home. I wanted more than anything to see Ellison and Mase again, to hold them tight and refuse to ever let them go. That, and I was well aware I was putting my baby in danger. But I was doing that just by existing, by not knowing myself well enough to get rid of the hundreds of ghosts inside me. If I did absolutely nothing about the situation we were in, that put her in greater danger than if I didsomething. Throwing myself at the Byrians’ house was reckless and stupid, but it just might save her life if she had a doctor as an aunt and a dad who would fall in love with her at first glance.
Poh and I quieted our steps the closer we drew to the glass-like pond between the curving staircases and the guards placed along its edge. Their shaded eyes skipped right over us as they scanned the area. We kept to the concrete rather than shuffle through the vibrant green, pristine lawn.
On tiptoes, my breath held, we crossed right in front of the first guard. I kept my gaze on him as we passed by, searching for any signs that he detected us, but I was also keenly aware of where I placed my feet. One misstep could bring this all to an end before it began.
When we were halfway up one side of the curving steps, one of the front doors opened, and another guard slipped outside. Poh and I kept moving, our footsteps as silent as we could make them.
The guards by the door spoke in low voices, and I strained to hear them. We were almost upon them.
“She said...hospital,” the guard who’d just come out told the other two. “Watch...”
The two guards nodded, and the third started back inside.
Poh tightened her grip on my arm, and we sped our pace to follow him. Now was our chance. But one of the remaining guards stepped toward us. Poh dodged to the side, and I shoved into her, out of his way just in time. He turned, frowning, ticking his gaze over the empty-looking air. He must’ve felt the flutter of our paths almost crossing. I clutched my ice pick necklace in case he decided to investigate further, but Poh pulled me along roughly.
The front door was already closing. The one guard in front of it was already shifting his stance to stand in the middle of the porch.
Poh sidestepped him and pressed one hand to the door to slow it enough so we could slide in. She squeezed through, her grip on me tightening.
The guard on the outside nearest me turned his head to look right into my eyes. I swallowed my gasp, willed my thrashing heart to still so he wouldn’t hear it. Time slowed as I crept past him, then sped up again when I lifted a foot into the entryway. The door had just inches to go before it closed.
Poh yanked my arm. Her other hand held the door open.
My knee knocked against it as I zipped the rest of the way in. The guard standing just inside the door, directly to our right, closed the door, peering down at it, likely wondering what that knocking sound had been and why the door had seemed harder to close than normal. He opened it once again, and he and the guard outside shared a look I couldn’t read behind their shades.
“Did you hear something?” the guard inside asked.
“Normal house sounds,” the one on the porch said, a trickle of doubt in his voice. “Normal for this house anyway. Holler if you need us.”
Poh and I waited, my breaths shallow, sweat tracking down my temple.
The guard closed the door again and backed away from it, flipping his sunglasses to the top of his head. He scanned the entryway, sweeping his gaze right over us, as a trail of goose bumps swept up his neck from below his jacket collar. He glanced right, toward a pair of closed double doors about ten feet away. Swallowing thickly, he hurried across the entryway to another set of double doors and rushed through them. As soon as he closed them, they burst open again with a loud bang.
I jumped and whirled as the doors opposite creaked open slowly, the noise like ice slithering down my back. Beyond, darkness crowded closer as if spying the house’s two unwelcomed guests.
Our stuttered breaths billowed out in front of Poh and me. Extreme cold emanated from the walls and high-polished marble floor, leaching the warmth of Wix’s sun from my skin. The vents above us didn’t rumble with air conditioning, though, or stir the air enough to open and close doors.
Poh flicked her wide eyes toward me, a question written in their yellow depths, and I nodded, my heart dipping to my knees.
