Page 51 of Memories Like Fangs
Raw.
Piercing.
I blinked, fighting to adjust my eyesight. I tried to sit up, but my body felt like it was made of stone. My limbs weren’t working how they should, as if my brain had somehow forgotten how to control the weight of my own body. My fingers twitched. What little movement I could do felt like it started seconds after mybrain had sent the request and was like moving through cement. The air was thick with scorched magic and blood, and it all felt so wrong as it curdled in my struggling chest. I groaned, low and pained—the only thing I could do.
Then, footsteps echoed all around me. There were flashes of movement in the corners of my vision. It was then that I realized the screaming hadn’t stopped or slowed.
It hadmultiplied.
“ISIDORA! JOURNEE!” Rhois’s cry cut through the Vault, sharp and slashing.
“Quinn! Quinn, are you okay?!” Nat shouted from the edge of the circle.
“Fucking hell, Teddy! Sweetheart, please, stay with me!” Everett’s voice cracked.
“Quinn, get up!” Cole yelled.
“Quinn! Shit! Should we do something?Quinn!” Cody yelled from beside his brother.
“Oh, fuck—fuck,I can’t. Oh, shit, I-I-I don’t know what to do.” Simone wailed between sobs.
The spell.
The ritual.
The witches.
They were down.
All of them.
The witches were strewn all over the floor on the outside of the circle like marionettes whose strings had been cut. Izzy was sprawled with her arms wide and her eyes rolled back in her head. Journee wasn’t moving at all beside her. Teddy groaned weakly, twitching periodically as if he had been shocked. Talli’s mouth hung open like she’d paused mid-sentence. Maisie was collapsed with her hands reaching for the center of the circle and still glowing faintly from her magic before everything shattered. Smears of blood trailed from all of their noses.
Rhois was on her knees between her partners. She lifted their heads onto her lap before ripping her wrists open with her sharp red nails. She hissed. Blood dripped down from her wrists in steady trickles before she forced them to Izzy’s and Journee’s lips.
Next to her, Everett cradled Teddy like he was made of porcelain. His fangs flashed. Then, there was the wet crunch as he bit into his wrist and shoved it against Teddy’s parted lips. With his bottom lip painted red, he begged. “C’mon, baby, drink. Please. I need you todrink.”
Between Maisie and Talli, Simone’s gaze ping-ponged between them with her hands stretched. Her eyes were wide. She looked like she was going to puke. Or, scream. Or, both. She was panicking. I couldseeit in the tremble of her hands, her lips moving quickly in a whisper of a wordless prayer. When she spoke, her voice was so high that it broke. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, I-I-I don’t know what to do! Maisie or Talli, w-who do I-I?—?”
She froze for a heartbeat. Then, she decisively held her hand up toward the ceiling. Some of the snowflakes up there shook for a moment before melting and combining into a long tendril made of water. Simone swirled her hands above Talli’s forehead. The watery tendril flew down under her hands. There, it glowed a bright aquamarine.
“Come on, come on, come on,” she muttered as she worked. “Please work. Please hurry.”
I tried to get up again. Something ripped through my chest like lightning. My body ached in a way I couldn’t describe. It was as if I’d been torn apart, parts of me dipped in acid, stitched back together using a rope made of fire, and yet put together all wrong. I had never experienced pain like this before. My hands shook violently beneath me. My chest heaved. The ceiling, the Archive’s tree, and the floor wouldn’t stop spinning.
Gods, this fucking pain.
It was pure agony, but it wasn’t mine. No, I knew this was from Byrd and the bond. Despite the thread of the bond now feeling slack again and vacant on the other end, her wounds remained open and bleeding through me. The pain persisted still, like it had been carved into me. These wounds—No,herwounds—I couldn’t?—
I gritted my teeth.Quinn, no. Not now. Not yet. Deal with it later.
You are needed.
Focus. Prioritize. Move.
What can you do and control in this moment?
I looked back around the Vault. Talli had Simone. Teddy was being taken care of by Everett. Isidora and Journee had Rhois. But, Maisie?—
