Within These Wicked Walls(44)

“Don’t make me break you again. I’ll do it if I have to.”

Her grip tightened, and I had to force myself not to wince.

She shifted her body to block me as the hyena padded slowly out of the room we’d just been in. But I barely saw it, barely had time to feel fear or determination before Saba opened the door across the hall from us and threw me inside.

“Saba, stop it! Let me out!” No light came through, save for the meager bit beneath the door. My hand landed on a wall, and I followed it to another wall, to … another wall. All the while the hyena’s presence felt weaker and weaker, less and less, until I could barely sense even one stroke. “Saba!”

The last wall led me to a door, but by then it was too late. Locked. I banged on it with my good hand. “Saba!” I jiggled the knob, kicking the door as I did. I reached in my pocket for my knife, cursing myself for not snatching it off the floor before running out of my room.

I screamed out my frustration, then lowered myself to the ground to search for something to help me. There had to be something I could use to pick the lock. What kind of person had empty closets in their house?

And then I realized, I couldn’t feel the hyena’s presence at all.

I had failed.





CHAPTER 18


Somewhere in the fog I heard my name. Felt a shaking, like an uneven cart. Something touching me, soft yet hard.

I groaned, an unnatural grogginess making it difficult to open my eyes. When I finally managed, even the indirectness of sun rays on the ceiling made my head hurt. Someone sat over me … their head on fire.

I blinked and my name came out of the fog. Blinked again, and the fiery creature transformed into a hysterical Emma, her red hair glinting golden highlights in the sun.

“Andromeda, bleawait unt!”

“Where are we?” I tried, my words slurring.

“Tongath vabee! Blea, you habbu eat!”

“What?” I fought to sit up, and felt her hands on my shoulders, assisting me. Immediately the room began to spin.

I lifted my hand to grab my aching head, the sharp smell of some herb invading my sinuses, clearing my mind. I opened my eyes wide to make them focus.

My bed. My room. Wait, it was coming back to me … the Waking. Saba breaking like clay.

Oh God. The hyena.

I leapt to my feet, my knees buckling, and caught myself with both hands. A small spot of red began to spread on my bandaged hand, and I watched it without being able to feel it.

“Andromeda,” Emma said, helping me sit up. She patted my cheeks, searching my face for signs of sanity, I was sure. “Are you all right?”

I didn’t remember ever getting out of that closet. But then again … I looked at my sliced fingers, which were individually bandaged and wrapped. I could barely feel them. I felt lethargic. The aftershock of a sleep aid, or some kind of painkiller, I was sure of it. I’d never consented to that, and it put my nerves on edge.

My guess was Saba. Which was sweet, considering what I’d done to her. And even so, she’d saved my life last night. Or stopped me from saving—

“Oh God,” I murmured. “Tom.”

“Yes, Tom.” Emma nodded, her relieved smile quickly dissolving to tears. “Please, help me find him, Andromeda. I think he’s vanished.”

“Vanished…” Memories were flooding back to me now, and that one slapped me right down my spine, making me tremble. The image of him lying mangled on the floor, his empty eyes staring at heaven, was scarred in my mind. No, he hadn’t vanished. And, unless Saba had cleared away the body, like she’d cleared away the evidence of our struggle last night, I knew in which room his body would still be lying.

I pushed myself up, slowly, Emma at my side. I was still dressed from last night, so that would do. Remembering my knife, I looked for it briefly on the floor before spotting it sitting neatly on the side table as if it had never been used last night. Careful not to use my left hand too much, I strapped my knife on my waist without bothering to hide it.

I looked at her, but had no strength to manage a smile. “Let’s go find him.”

Emma hooked her arm through mine to help me down the stairs. As much as my head was still throbbing, movement was helping my body adjust, as if working the drug out of my body. By the time we reached the bottom of the stairs I had enough autonomy to grab her shoulder.

“Let’s split up,” I said, and her eyes widened in horror. “It’ll take hours if we don’t.”

“This house scares me,” she whimpered.

How could I tell her that the image she might see if she went with me would scare her more?

“Open the windows, let the sun in as you go to make you feel better,” I said. “Half an hour we’ll meet back here.”

She nodded, and rushed in the direction where I knew she’d find nothing. I went the opposite way, to the room where it happened.

It looked off. I tried to think back to how it looked last night, and every day before. Yes. The large tapestry had fallen off the wall and was lying in the middle of the floor. No … not fallen. It was arranged like a rug.

I pushed the small table on top aside with my shoulder and good hand, and then stepped off and threw the woven thing aside. Instantly, I recoiled.

Tom was where I had left him, but he wasn’t. His body had sunk partway into the floor, as if resting in a shallow pool—only glimpses of his thigh, his hand, his face, surfacing. Except the medium wasn’t water, it was solid stone and cracked hardwood, and his body was like a fossil, petrified within. His skin was grey with death or hardening, his expression frozen in that blank stare to God.