The idea that Bethany’s father would even think of holding something like that over her head was disgusting. As much as I wanted access to the lab in the basement, I wasn’t about to press her to take that kind of risk for me. She had someone else to think about, someone to take care of. I, of all people, could understand that.
If I’d had a mother, I would have done anything to protect her.
“It’s okay, Bethany.” I caught her eyes; she looked away. “You do what you need to do. We’ll go.”
Don’t think this means I’m giving up, I told Zev silently as I nudged Skylar toward the door. There’s more than one way to decapitate a hellhound, and as it so happens, I know them all.
Zev didn’t respond, and something about the silence felt unnatural. Wrong. One second he was there, and the next, my mind felt … empty. If our chupacabras served as a two-way radio between my mind and his, it felt like he’d just hung up. A small sliver of panic rose up inside of me, and for the second time, I went looking for him.
I started the way I had before, by thinking about the parasite that had burrowed deep inside of me. I felt it, and a second later, I felt Zev’s. Felt Zev—
And then I was in. I saw the world through his eyes.
Saw men in masks.
Saw needles, scalpels, concrete walls.
Saw blood.
I came back into my own body a second later, my skin an odd fit for my soul, like a shoe crammed onto the wrong foot or a sweater two sizes too large. Was this what Zev had felt like after he’d taken over my body in Eddie’s car?
“Kali? Are we going?” Skylar was still standing next to Bethany, who’d wrapped her arms around her torso, like she’d been tasked with holding her own entrails in. “You said we should go. But then you didn’t go.”
“We should go,” I said roughly, turning my back on them both. No matter where I looked, all I could see was the men in the masks, the concrete cell. It was clear now—too clear—how Chimera Biomedical knew that there were people out there like me, why Zev had asked me to stay out of it.
They had him.
I could talk to him and he could talk to me. I could enter his mind, and he’d spent time in mine, but physically, he was trapped. His body was locked up somewhere—in some kind of cell.
Some kind of cage.
Every nightmare I’d ever had about being caught, cut into pieces, studied like a rat in a maze—that was Zev’s reality. Suddenly, the fact that Bethany couldn’t help me didn’t seem like as much of a roadblock because, come hell or high water, I was going to find a way in.
I had to.
There was one person in this world—that I knew of for sure—who was like me. One. A person who’d haunted my dreams, taken over my body, protected me, even when I didn’t want protection.
And that person, that one person, was somebody’s specimen.
Before, I’d wanted to know what Chimera knew. Now, I wanted them gone.
“Kali?” This time, Bethany was the one who said my name, and the tone in her voice reminded me of the way she’d sounded talking to her mom.
She thinks I’ve lost it. Maybe she’s right. My hands were fisted, my steely fingernails digging into the flesh of my palms. It didn’t hurt. I didn’t even feel it, but I could smell the beads of blood as they dribbled down the insides of my hands.
“I’m fine,” I said, because that was exactly what you said when you really, really weren’t. “I should go.”
I was halfway past Bethany and headed for the front door when she grabbed my arm. I wrenched out of her grasp and resisted the reflex to send the heel of my palm crashing into her throat.
Throat. Blood.
Chimera had Zev, Bethany wanted to help me, but couldn’t, and all I could think about was how much I wanted this all to be over and how very, very thirsty I was.
“I’m going,” I said, more for Skylar’s benefit than Beth’s. “Don’t worry about me. Don’t follow.”
I didn’t give them a chance to react. I just took off out the front door, darting across the lawn—
Twenty hours and forty-two minutes.
I’d find a way to take down Chimera. But first, I needed to hunt.
18
Closer. Closer. You’re getting closer. This way, Kali. This way.
If the hunt-lust had been a hum under my skin before, it was a full-blown song now: sweet, melodic, unearthly.
I wanted to hunt. The thing inside me wanted to feed. No room in my mind for anything else, I wove in and out of the shadows, my inner compass set toward something that reeked of sulfur—something sleek and quiet, something wrong.
Normally, I scanned the papers for reports on preternatural activity. I liked going in knowing what brand of beastie I’d be fighting, but at the moment, I didn’t care what the instinct was driving me toward.
All I cared about was making it dead.
The trail ended a mile, maybe two, away from Bethany’s house, at a water park that was closed and abandoned for the winter. Getting in was easy enough, and soon, I was prowling the length of the park, surrounded by bright colors, mammoth slides, and empty, waterless pools.
On the horizon, across a sprawling parking lot, I could see the outline of a Ferris wheel—the fair coming to call and pick up the seasonal slack, while Water World stood empty, save for the shadows, the slides, and me.
I paused, tilting my head to the side, letting the sights and sounds, the smells wash over my senses, each one heightened almost to the point of pain.
Peeling paint.
Wet concrete.
A nearly inaudible hiss.
I whirled around, but saw nothing except the barest hint of shadow. I smelled something cold and wet and rotting.
I bent down to unsheathe my knife. I was close now, very close. The question was—close to what?
Beads of sweat rose on my skin, not because I was nervous—I wasn’t—and not because I was hot. It was adrenaline, plain and simple, and when I caught a glimpse of myself in a fun house–style mirror—installed, no doubt, to entertain the masses while they waited in hot summer lines—my brown eyes were glowing with an unholy sheen.
You’re close now. So very close.
I could almost picture myself here on a human day, standing in line for the Silver Bullet and stealing peeks at myself in the long line of mirrors, each a distortion, none an exact reflection of this body.
None of them the real me.
Somewhere, overhead, there was a creak—rusted metal, giving under the weight of something … something….
I looked up.
For a split second, there was nothing but the metal staircase, winding its way up to the top of the Silver Bullet, but then I heard the telltale sound of scales scraping against metal—a light swoosh, a tongue flickering out to taste the stale and humid air.
Whatever it was, my prey was tasting for me.
I averted my eyes a second before the creature came into view. It swung down from the rafters, its tail—the width of an oak tree, the length of my legs—wrapping around the creaking, rusted stairs.
Basilisk, I realized, a second too late. Its snakelike body gave way to a triangular head with slit nostrils, a nearly human mouth, and eyes the exact color and cut of a ruby.
Knowledge of how to kill the thing flooded my brain. I might have been failing history, but this was the kind of pop quiz I was built for. To kill a basilisk, I’d have to drive my blade into its brain—easier said than done, given that my point of entry was a soft spot inside the creature’s mouth, and the fact that I’d die if I looked a basilisk straight in the eyes.
Moving swiftly, I turned my attention to the line of mirrors. In the right person’s hand, anything was a weapon, and with prey I couldn’t physically look at, I needed to get creative. Knife in one hand, I drove my elbow into the closest mirror as hard as I could—again and again and again.
The glass shattered, needle-sharp shards digging into the flesh of my arm. Using the tip of my knife, I pried larger shards loose from the mirror’s frame—one for each hand.
I slipped my knife hilt-first into my waistband at the small of my back, then tightened my grip on my makeshift blades. The rough edges of the glass dug into the flesh of my palms. Blood ran down my wrists like rain on a windshield.