The Raven King (The Raven Boys #4)(99)

Ronan’s breath hitched as the two of them stumbled back through the pine trees around the picnic area. The others were circling them, but Ronan couldn’t focus on what they were doing.

“Fight back,” Adam growled at Ronan, thin, desperate, an animal dragged by the neck. At the same time that his voice protested, though, his body jammed Ronan’s back against a trunk of a pine tree. “Hit me. Knock me down!”

The demon. The demon had taken his hands.

Every beat of Ronan’s heart was an articulated part in a collapsing train. He grabbed Adam’s wrists. They felt frail, snappable, cold. The choice was death or hurting Adam, which wasn’t much of a choice at all.

Adam suddenly lost his grip, stumbling to his knees before clambering quickly back up. Henry leapt back as Adam snatched for his face in a way that was terrifying in its wrongness. No human would fight in such a way, but the thing that had his hands and his eyes was not human.

“Stop me!” Adam begged.

Gansey grabbed for Adam’s fingers, but Adam pulled them free easily. Instead, he snarled fingers into Ronan’s ear, ripping at it, and his other hand hooked into Ronan’s jaw, tearing the other way. His eyes stared hard to his left, waiting for intruders to stop him.

“Stop me —”

Pain was a torn piece of paper. Ronan thought about how much it hurt, and then he allowed himself one deeper measure of pain, and he ripped himself free of Adam’s grip. In that moment of opportunity, Blue darted forward and got a handful of Adam’s hair. Instantly Adam whirled on her, and with razor-fast precision, he tore her stitches open.

Blue exhaled in shock as the blood began to drip blackly over her eyelid again. Gansey dragged her back before Adam could scratch again.

“Just hit me,” Adam said miserably. “Don’t let me do this.”

It seemed it should have been simple: There were four of them, one of Adam. But none of them wanted to hurt Adam Parrish, no matter how violent he had become. And the demon operating Adam’s limbs had a superpower: It did not care about the limitations of the human they belonged to. It did not care about pain. It did not care about longevity. So Adam’s knuckles careened past Ronan and smashed into the trunk of a pine tree without the slightest hesitation, even as Adam gasped. Everyone’s breath puffed white all around them, looking like dust clouds.

“It’s going to break his f*cking hands,” Ronan said.

Blue snatched one of Adam’s wrists. There was a terrible pop as Adam swung around in the opposite direction and snatched her switchblade out of the loose pocket of her sweater. The blade snicked out.

He had their full attention.

His rolling eyes, controlled by the demon, focused on Ronan.

But Adam – the real Adam – was also paying attention. He heaved his body away from the group, crashing himself against the picnic bench, then crashing again, trying to jar the arm that held the knife. As he successfully pinned it under his own weight, though, his other hand clawed up. Quick as a cat, it scratch-scratch-scratched at his own face. Blood beaded instantly. It was digging harder. Punishing.

“No,” Gansey said. He could not bear it. He ran at Adam. As he slid to him, snatching that angry hand, Henry skidded right on his heels. So when Adam lifted the switchblade over Gansey, Henry was there to catch Adam’s wrist in his hands, pressing his entire weight against the strength of Adam’s right arm. Adam’s eyes darted furiously, weighing his next move. The demon’s next move.

All Adam cared about was his autonomy.

As Adam jerked his wrist in Henry’s grasp – “Stop, you idiot, you’re going to break it!” – and knocked his fist back against Gansey’s teeth – “You’re OK, Adam, we know it’s not you!” – Ronan wrapped his arms around Adam, pinning Adam’s upper arms against him.

He was contained.

“Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit,” Ronan said into Adam’s hearing ear, and Adam’s body sagged against Ronan, chest heaving. His hands still jerked and strained to violence. He gasped, “You *,” but Ronan could hear how near tears he was.

“Let’s tie his hands while we figure this out,” Blue said. “Could you – oh, you’re so clever, thank you.”

This was because the Orphan Girl had already anticipated how this might end and fetched a long red ribbon of unknown origin. Blue accepted it and then squeezed between Henry and Gansey. “Give me some room – put his wrists together.”

“No, President,” Henry said out of breath, “cross them like this. Haven’t you seen any cop dramas?”

Blue braided Adam’s fingers together, which took some doing as they still had a mind of their own, and then tied his still bucking wrists together. She wrapped the length of them with the ribbon and tied it. Adam’s shoulders still twitched, but he couldn’t unlink his fingers once they were braided together and tied.

Finally it was quiet.

With a great sigh, she stepped back. Gansey touched her bloody forehead with care and then looked at Henry’s knuckles, which had somehow got abraded in the scuffle.

Adam’s hands had stopped jerking as the demon realized that they were well secured. His head rested miserably on Ronan’s shoulder, everything shaking, standing only because Ronan did not allow him to sink. The fresh horror of it kept rising in him. The permanence of it, the corruption of Adam Parrish, the deadness of Glendower.