Page 4 of Infernium

Another glance back at the exit and I bit my lip, the urge to leave calling to me like an uncorked bottle of wine in the desert. Technically, the pregnancy hadn’t yet been confirmed.I’d taken an at-home pregnancy test about a week before, but it had come back negative—because, I suspected, I wasn’t technically pregnant with ahumanchild.

Of course, I’d lied when I made the OB/GYN appointment. How could I have explained that I’dknownI was pregnant simply because an ancient curse had been lifted?

No. No matter what, I needed to know for sure. I’d had doubts over the last few weeks. Doubts about if Nightshade had even been real. Whether Jericho had been real, or merely part of a really elaborate and fucked-up mental state.

I wanted confirmation that the baby inside of me existed.

Hands wringing my shirt, I followed after the woman who sashayed her hips in a pair of slim-fitting scrubs. The youth on her face put her in her early twenties, maybe not much younger than me, and I wondered if she’d ever had kids.

As we made our way down the corridor, passing pictures of hands holding tiny feet, palms resting on rounded stomachs, an abstract of pregnant women in a circle holding hands, I couldn’t help feeling completely unrelatable, an outsider to the human race. As though I’d peeled back a curtain for a world not meant to be seen. Despite all the images we passed being designed to calm and empower, those were the last things I felt as we approached the exam room.

The blonde led me to room seven and gestured me inside. I’d taken one step in that direction, when a high-pitched ringing rattled inside my skull, and I halted in place, slamming my hands over my ears. Eyes screwed shut, I opened my jaw as the agonizing noise shot from my brain to my freaking teeth. Not a random sound, but a scream. A high-pitched scream trapped inside my head. Dizziness swept over me, and when I opened my eyes, the hallway wobbled. I lowered my hands, staring at the wall, where the paint peeled in long, curling strips from the ceiling to the floor.

What the hell?

The screaming withered.

“Miss Ravenshaw?” The voice arrived in sharp focus, and I turned to see the blonde staring back at me. Brows raised with impatience, lips curved to an unconvincing smile, she gestured into the room.

I glanced back at the walls, their surface perfectly intact, and frowned. Had I hallucinated the peeling paint?

Shaking it off, I stepped inside the room and made my way toward the type of chair that was both familiar and terrifying.

Doctor Shein wasn’t my usual doc. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to make the appointment with my long-time doc. There’d have been too many questions of the personal variety that I wasn’t ready to explore with someone who’d first examined my inner machinery at sixteen years old. No history with Doctor Shein made the visit slightly less harrowing.

Only slightly.

Stomach gurgling from the overpowering scent of disinfectant, I hesitantly slid up onto the chair, ignoring the godforsaken stirrups. Wordless, Blondie pressed a gentle palm to my chest, urging me back onto the pillow behind me.

The sound from before reached my ears again, and when I turned toward the wall, I could see the paint curling back, just as before. Dark shadows poured out of the exposed strips, and a creeping horror tickled the back of my neck as I watched them slide over the floor.

What the—?

I double blinked at the shadows crawling toward me like eerie and supernatural animals closing in, and I squeezed my eyes shut, counting to ten. When I opened them again, only stagnant shadows cast by the light filtering through the shades stretched across the too-white floor tiles.

The touch of cold hands against my stomach snapped my attention back to the nurse, who’d lifted my shirt up to my chest. Eyes alight with what I surmised to be fascination, she ran her hands over my belly in a way that didn’t feel medical.

“What are you …” Muscles in my arms turned to lead weights at my sides when I tried to push myself up on the exam bed, and wouldn’t move. Panic swelled at the back of my throat. “Hey. Hey!”

Her palms roamed higher, and she slid her ice-cold hand over my neck. A sickness stirred in my gut when I felt her fingers squeeze. Hard. Harder.

“Stop! Please! Stop!” Hands plastered to my sides, I mentally begged my muscles to push her away, but they wouldn’t move at my command.

Eyes riveted on my lips, she lowered her head, as if to kiss me. Through her parted lips, a black curling smoke seeped out, like a serpent snaking its way toward me. The smoke prodded my clamped lips, and I shook my head, but in spite of my efforts to fight, it breached the barrier, and the taste of burnt ash filled my mouth. Thick as honey, it oozed down the back of my throat, pulsing as it made its way into my belly. I tried to scream, but choked and gagged instead. My body convulsed.

Still standing over me, the nurse chuckled. “How does it taste, Miss Ravenshaw?” she hissed in a strange voice.

The edges of the room closed in on me. Narrower and narrower.

Until, at last, everything turned black.

“Miss Ravenshaw?” A soft voice pierced the darkness.

I opened my eyes to find myself standing in the hallway, just outside the exam room, and staring at the wall, as before.

Blondie still stood at the door, her brows winged up with concern. “Are you all right?”

Was I?

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