Page 250 of The Night Shift
The stink hits me a second later. Burnt meat.
“Oh, you felt that, did you?” She sounds delighted. “That was your prefrontal cortex. I just burnt a tiny part of it. It’s the part that controls judgment and restraint. The thing that tells most people not to stalk someone. Or kill for fun.”
Another jab.
I shriek. The sound comes out mangled and wet. My tongue curls in on itself. My jaw slams shut, then cracks open again, like my face is trying to reject me.
Her nail presses into the exposed tissue at the edge of my scalp. My vision swims. I think I see her — blood-slick gloves, eyes blown wide with purpose. Then it goes again. Black. Thenblinding. At one point I smell something acrid and sharp andwrong.
Is it…is it in my head?
Myhead?
“This is the most intimate thing I’ve ever done,” Holly murmurs, I think. “Aren’t you glad I’m doing it to you? Does that make you feel special, Cami?”
I’m shaking so violently my teeth chatter against one another. My face is soaked in tears, bile, and blood. I am not human. I am a thing now.
And then — it stops. Everything stops. The pressure. The heat. The sound. All gone.
I’m left gasping, barely tethered to reality. My mind feels like it’s leaking out of me, drop by drop.
Somewhere far away, I hear her peel off bloody gloves.
Something steps in front of me.
I blink slowly, sluggishly. A face swims into view. Beautiful. Unscarred. Unholy.
It tilts like a child examining a bug. It leans closer. Crouching so we’re eye level. It says something. I don’t know what.
It walks away. Walks back. I feel the cold edge of something press against my cheek. It's rounded. Wrong. Not a blade.
A spoon.
A rusted, dented spoon.
My body knows before my mind catches up.
“You said you watched me that night, didn’t you?” A voice says. “You watched and did nothing.”
No.
“I wonder if you would’ve done the same to Audrey. Or Aanya. If it happened to me, who else could it happen to? Would you still watch and do nothing? You’re as bad as that man, Camille.”
The face kneels in front of me. Calm and clinical.
“But I promise you, you’re gonna die worse.”
The spoon moves. My head thrashes. Something’s against my jaw, pressing hard into the hinge like it’s being dislocated. Holding me in place. I try to scream but it’s all hoarse breath and foam.
Then something presses in.
It’s slow. The dull edge tugs at the skin first. Then the socket. Then —
A wet, sliding pop.
The pressure is unreal. Blinding. I feel something tear behind my eye. Nerve or a memory, I can’t tell.
I see flashes. Light. A hallway. A woman’s face. Her green dress. The sound of her laughter turning into something else. I remember.
