Vin pinches his lips together briefly, appearing to think it over. “Well, I mean, it’s less appealing than my solution, but it’s something to think about. Let me sleep on it?”

“You’re not seeing another sunset.”

“I’ll bet you anything I see one more than you.”

The room explodes into action around me. Marlow releases my hair as I frantically saw at the rope holding my left arm down. I feel like weeping at the end, my weak and sore muscles in my still-healing arm aching and crying out against the abusively odd angles I’m asking my hand to work at. I cut my skin again, deeply. Blood oozes over the ropes down onto the seat, seeping hot and sticky into the fabric of my jeans. Finally I cut the rope hard enough to get my arm free.

I look up to find Vin and his Guard fighting the men that came in with Marlow, Andy included. Andy has jumped in to fight Ryan, a fact I’m almost happy about because I think it’s less likely he’ll actually kill him. Andy might hurt him for show, and that pisses me off something awful—I’m not even promising I won’t seek revenge for it—but at least I don’t feel like he’s going to die right this second.

It’s when I feel Marlow’s hand on my chin, forcing my head back roughly, that I realize I’m the one in real danger.

He doesn’t say a word to me. He stares down at me gasping for breath and fighting to free myself, a cold glint in his eyes and a stone’s grasp on my face. I only have a second to think about it, a moment to react, and even as I do I know it won’t be enough.

I spin the knife in my hand, pointing the blade out and down. I want to go for his neck or his eye, do him like a zombie on the streets, but I don’t have the time or the reach. His arms are blocking me and I have to make do with what I’ve got.

I slash my small blade across his stomach, sinking it as deep as I can. He gasps, his hand falling away from my face as he doubles over in pain and surprise. Both will wear off too soon.

He’s stumbled back too far for me to be able to make another stab at him so I don’t bother. I can’t reach my bigger, sharper knife I strapped to my ankle, so I do the only thing I can: I start hacking at the other rope on my right hand and hope I can get free before he recovers.

I never stood a chance. Maybe not ever. Maybe not since the day my parents died and I ran and ran and ran. I’ve been running for years. Hiding from the monsters that want to destroy me, that won’t quit until I’m lying on the ground in a pool of my own blood and the stars are going black in the night sky for the last time. Maybe I was never meant to be more than a memory in the mind of a bright, beautiful boy. Just some words on a wall. Hidden music echoing in the darkness.

As Marlow lifts his head, his eyes landing on mine and promising me the end I’ve always known was coming, I’m surprised to find myself calm. I’m not ready to die, not by a long shot, but if it has to happen at least I got to live—even if it was just for a little while, a brief flash of lightning in the eye of a terrible storm. It was still brilliant and it was mine.

Marlow disappears from view. He falls to the ground in a blur of color and slices of silver. He cries out in rage and pain, a terrible howl that echoes through the whole room. Men stop fighting, putting distance between each other to look at the madness still brewing at my feet.

It goes on forever, but when it’s over, when the crazy finally stills and the room is deathly silent, we all stare in amazement.

Marlow is dead. More than dead, he’s nearly disappeared. His body is riddled with stab wounds and bite marks, his blood running across the floor in wild, dark torrents as his vacant eyes stare up at the ceiling. His mouth still hangs open in an expression of shock and pain. It happened so fast. Too fast to follow and too fast to understand.

And there in the center of it, coated in blood, red tissue dripping from his chin like the juice of a watermelon from a starving man’s maw, is Andy.

Chapter Thirteen

“The f—” Vin begins, his face a mask of shock and confusion.

Ryan is at my side immediately. He takes my borrowed, craptastic knife from my hand and uses it to quickly cut the ropes still holding me down. When I’m free, my eyes still fixated on the mess at my feet, he runs his hands over me. I hear him hiss when he finds the cuts on the inside of my wrist.

I shake my head weakly, dragging my eyes to his. “It’s nothing. It happened while I was cutting myself free.”

“What about your leg? It’s wet with blood. How bad is it?”

“The blood’s from my wrist, it’s fine.”

Ryan lifts my arm into the air, hovering my bleeding hand above my head as he rips the sleeve off his shirt to apply pressure to my cut.

“It’s not fine for your wrist to be bleeding like this. You might have nicked the artery.”

“I’m still doing better than he is,” I mutter, looking around Ryan at Marlow.

Andy is sitting on top of him. His eyes are closed and his hands are pressed into the open wounds he dug into the man’s body. I can hear a hum coming from his motionless mouth—a mouth still dripping with blood and tissue. He’s not even a little bit worried about the men surrounding him, staring at him, and he shouldn’t be. No one is moving. So far, Ryan and I are the only ones who have really spoken since it happened.

That won’t last.

“Vin!” I shout.

His eyes snap to mine for the briefest of seconds, but it’s all he needs. He’s back in control of himself. He scans the room, his eyes lingering on Andy for one long moment, then he’s all action.

“You’re leaving,” Vin tells Marlow’s men.

“Is he…” one of the men begins before becoming lost. “Is Andy…?”

“A cannibal, yes. And if you don’t want to become the second course to his dinner, you’ll get your ass out of here now. Let this be a warning to you all. The Hive is not welcome here. This is my house, aligned with the cannibals and run by my rules, and anyone who has a problem with that or thinks they have the balls to rip it from my cold dead hands is welcome to give it their best shot. Now get out!”

They run. They don’t even hesitate, and I don’t blame them one bit. Two of Marlow’s closest men, his most trusted allies, just went biblical on his face. There is no loyalty anymore. Leadership is dead and when you find yourself on an every-man-for-himself-type basis in the middle of a room full of enemies, psychos, and traitors, running is the smart choice. I would applaud them if Ryan would let me lower my hand.

“I’m not going to die,” I tell him irritably.

“Not if I can help it, no.”

“Everyone out now,” Vin says sharply, already ushering his Guard toward the back of the room. “We gotta move.”

“Where are we going?” Ryan asks, helping me to my feet.

“The showers. We need to get in the tunnels now.”

There’s shouting from outside. Men come running from every corner of the property, all of them heading for the group of guys that just left.

Vin points out the window. “That is not going to end well for us. Marlow came here with at least thirty men. They won’t be afraid of a traitor, a flesh eater, and a girl when it dawns on them that they have us seriously outnumbered. They’re shaken but they’re not idiots.”

“Andy!” Ryan shouts.

Andy looks up calmly, his eyes creepy crystal clear. “I’m right behind you.”

The swarm outside is growing. Several men are already running toward the door, about to make it inside.

“Then you’re already dead,” Vin replies darkly.

We run for the back of the building. I don’t know if Andy is behind us, but I know Marlow’s men are. I hear the door crash open, barked orders, the thunder of too many feet on the floor—too many to fight, too many to run from, but we do it anyway because every one of us is a child of the wild. We don’t know how to quit.