The Culling Trials 3 (Shadowspell Academy #3)(9)

I brought my knife down hard on the biter’s head, driving the blade all the way into the hilt, but it didn’t let go. It shook its head and its broken body began to shift into something else—

House of Claw. Get out of there, Wild! Pete’s voice came through loud and clear.

“Yeah, trying!” I yelled as I pulled the knife out and tried a different angle, jamming the blade into the zombie’s head sideways, through the jaw bone. The mouth went slack on the one side, and I yanked free, blood running down my arm, my fingers numb on that side.

I backed up and reached up with my good hand. I opened my mouth to ask for help when a zombie shuffling toward me stopped me in my tracks. Instead of trying to get away, I took a step forward.

“No.” I struggled to breathe around what I was seeing, the world dipping and curving like I’d held my breath for too long and was about to pass out.

My brother stepped through the crowd, his body not as rotted as the others, as if he’d only just been killed, as if he’d died protecting me as he’d promised to do if it was asked of him. The line of his jaw, the brush of his hair, the hands that had boosted me into the apple trees how many times? It was all so familiar, so unmistakably him.

This could not be happening. This had to be an illusion.

Didn’t it?

“Tommy.” I could barely say his name as he pushed his way through the crowd, and then he was rushing me, pushing me back against the mausoleum with so much force he knocked the wind out of me. I tried to grab at him, to see his face. I had to see his eyes. I couldn’t believe this was where he’d been kept. And now he was fighting me.

“Tommy!” I bellowed his name, pain wrapping around my heart as I fought him.

The necromancer had done this to Tommy, had set my own brother against me. I drove my fist into his side, felt the ribs crack, but it didn’t slow him. Not for a damn second.

His hand came up lightning fast, his fingers wrapping around my neck, squeezing.

I kicked as he lifted me, stronger than he’d ever been. Weirdly, I could only wonder if he’d been this strong as a living Shade, or if this was the strength of the undead. My brother was undead.

And he was going to kill me.

“Tommy.” I whispered his name, choked on tears. I didn’t want to die. But I couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t bring myself to destroy him.

I tried pulling his fingers off my neck, snapped one of them backward and he didn’t so much as blink. Staring into his face, his rheumy eyes, I knew then there was nothing left of my brother in this body. This was not the boy that I’d adored, the one I’d looked up to and wanted to be like. Not the brother who’d shown me how to wrangle cows, ride horses. Not the brother who’d taught me how to track and survive out in the woods.

It was only his body, not his spirit.

“I’m sorry.” I mouthed the words rather than spoke them as I lifted a foot and kicked him in the hip, throwing him off balance. We went to the ground and I rolled, driving my elbow into his, snapping the bone. His fingers still clung to me, but I pried them off, one broken finger at a time, gasping for breath.

Orin, Ethan, and Wally were shouting at me to get up, to hurry, but it all seemed so far away. Even the other undead seemed to be waiting to see how this played out between me and Tommy. No, not Tommy. This was not my brother, not anymore.

I spun as another body rushed through the horde. Green eyes, dark hair, and the scent of home. The other half of my childhood, this one alive and desperate. Desperate to watch my back, at all costs.

“Rory—” No words, there were no words, just his name, as Rory thrust himself into peril and rushed over to me. He dragged me back to the mausoleum. He bent and cupped his hands to give me a boost, same as I’d done for Wally and Ethan.

“What about—”

“Go. I’ll be fine!” he yelled over the din, fear heavy in his voice.

Like in the trees, I knew it wasn’t fear for himself, but fear for me. Fear he’d lose me as he’d lost my brother. Maybe fear that I’d end up like Tommy—

I choked back a sob and took the boost, balancing a hand on his muscular shoulder. I scrambled to hold onto the edge, Ethan helping me up the rest of the way.

I spun on my belly in time to see Rory disappear under a wave of the undead.

“Who was that?” Orin leaned over the edge.

“NO!” My scream echoed through my head. Through my heart. My middle had already been ripped open by seeing Tommy as one of them, by having to fight my own brother. To lose Rory too…that was beyond unfair.

A flash of his dark clothes was all I could see as he was rolled under the zombies, like an undercurrent in an ocean of the undead had taken hold of him and swept him away from me. I stood and bolted to the other side of the roof, looking for him, searching the masses with my eyes, frantic to see him one more time.

“RORY!” His name ripped out of me as I frantically searched for him.

Gone, he was gone. This time, I couldn’t even see a shred of fabric.

I was no fool. There would be no diving in after him, no saving him from these creatures. He wouldn’t want me to throw my own life away when we both knew he was done. That he couldn’t be saved.

He’d put his life on the line for me, just like he’d said he would.

I bent at the waist, my entire body shaking. Memories and images cascaded through my head—the first time we’d gone skinny dipping in the river as kids, the two of us grinning at each other as we hid from Tommy, that cheeky ass smile of his, the feeling of his strength pooling around me and protecting me the night he’d hidden me from the assassin.