Page 96 of Run Like the Devil

“Do you remember what I did to you before? Because I’ll make that look like foreplay if you touch me again,” I said to Guardian.

It hesitated, pausing as if thinking.

I let out a hollow laugh. “That’s right. You remember me.”

“Stop fighting,” Cain said. “This is all done. There is no point in fighting against what cannot be changed. It will only hurt you more.”

“Funny story,” I said and looked up at Cain. “You’re far from the first who has said that to me. The thing is, no matter how much easier my life might be if I just gave in, I can never quite bring myself to do so. It just isn’t in me.”

“So what will you do?” He asked me like an adult asking a toddler who was threatening to run away, like someone who knew the other person was bluffing.

“I think I’ll fight,” I said before using the little bit of control I’d regained to lift my head and slam into his forehead.

The action seemed to startle Guardian, who pulled back into the fog. Cain yanked backward, holding his head as he got to his feet.

“If you had simply accepted things,” Cain said, the first signs of anger bleeding through his voice, “The Guardian could have taken you before the drugs wore off, before you had to even feel what would happen to you. Because you chose to fight, because you worked to rid yourself of the effects, you will now have to suffer through it all, will have to feel every moment of it! I tried to save you that agony.”

“Yeah, well, I’m going to go ahead and return that gift. A quick and easy death has never been what I wanted.”

I reached for my wrist, my hand wrapping around the handle of the dagger, the one I’d been unwilling to draw for so long. The weight of it, the feeling still made me sick, made my hand shake, but I refused to give in.

A horrible sound rushed through the trees, shaking them all, full of rage.

Ah, good old Yazmor. I smiled at the way it made me feel, the reminder that the same man who could let out that terrifying sound could smile so sweetly at me.

“It sounds like they’re shaking off those drugs, too, and if you think my temper is bad, well, I seem like a sweet pup compared to them.”

Cain stared toward where the sound had come from, pressing his lips together. After a moment, he shook his head. “It will take them time to get here, and when they do, it will be too late. The Guardian will take his payment and grant me my way to the Plains.” Cain stood up straighter, his body shifting before my eyes to take on a form I’d never seen before.

He was like a dark angel, large wings spreading out behind him covered in black feathers. His eyes glowed red as they locked on me.

Except he didn’t touch me. Instead, something slammed against my back, knocking me forward. My body still wasn’t operating all that well still, so I couldn’t right myself before I hit the ground.

Guardian wrapped a tentacle around my leg, much as it had before, but it didn’t yank me. It was almost like it wanted me to feel helpless, wanted me to know exactly how little power and control I had.

I knew octopus were assholes, but I hadn’t realized they could be sadists, too.

“I never wanted you to suffer,” Cain said, his voice deeper and darker than before. “This wasn’t my choice—it was yours. If you had only behaved, if you had only given in, you would not have had to suffer at all.”

“The easy path has never been my way,” I said as I swiped my blade toward Guardian, though it avoided my strikes.

Did it know what the blade was?

Would the blade even work if Guardian wasn’t ever alive?

Well, a sharp edge is a sharp edge and that stick sure had managed.

I kicked at another tentacle when it reached for me, just as the fog seemed to thin around us.

Which gave me my first actual look at the beast that had plagued me since I’d arrived here.

I’d assumed it would be something like a squid or octopus, but fuck had I been wrong. Instead, the center of the creature resembled a spider, with ten legs—assuming I could still count right—and four tentacles that came off its back. It had jaws with rows of teeth, and it snapped them toward me in threat.

“Talk about a face only a mother would love,” I muttered before I grabbed a stick beside me. I snapped it, but when I tried to pull the same trick as the last time, it swung another tentacle at me to knock the sick away.

“Just accept it,” Cain said, the excitement in his voice almost vibrating. “It will be over faster if you just accept it.”

“Loch doesn’t accept shit.” Hale’s voice made me jerk my gaze over, though I hardly recognized the man there.

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