Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
I can’t, though. I can barely wrap my mind around all that just happened, when I feel something on my back. A punch. Then another that sends me to the ground.
“You piece of shit!” Seth turns me over, laying into me between Alexei’s and Luke’s attempts to keep him back. As he makes another go for me, Brad hooks his arms around him. “Murderer! You’re a fucking murderer! Get off me!” Seth pushes on Brad before rushing past me and falling to his knees at Cody’s body.
“No…no, no, no.” He searches desperately for any sign of life. “Come on. It’s you and me, buddy. It’s just me against everyone.” He waits for a reply from Cody’s still body before pounding his fist into the floor, screaming again, as though trying to make up for all his cries that went muffled behind his gag.
“Let’s talk this out,” Brad says.
But Seth turns, his gaze locking with mine. “Take that fucking knife and slit your goddamn throat.”
I’m not slitting my throat—but suddenly I find myself crawling toward Cody, retrieving the blade from his body.
Alexei screams, “No, Matteo!” and soon he and Luke have my arms at my sides, pinning me with their weight.
“Take it back!” Alexei shouts.
I want to resist, but it seems like the only desire my body has is to get Alexei and Luke off me so I can finish the job. And truly, after what I’ve done, a part of me just wants to do it anyway. Because I really am my father’s son.
“I won’t take it back!” Seth shouts. “I fucking won’t!”
“Please, Seth,” Luke begs.
“You’ll never know what really happened if you let him do this,” Brad says, trying to reason with him.
Seth pushes to his feet and starts toward Brad, but then pushes past him and throws himself against the wall, bashing against it before shouting, “Stop, Matteo!”
I feel the release of my muscles as my body is once again in my control.
“Oh God, oh God,” Seth says, crumbling to his knees, turning away from the body like he can’t bear to look at it.
“Cody?” Luke says. He still has my arm, keeping me in place, but his gaze is behind me.
I follow it to see Cody sitting up, a patch of blood on his chest, but no sign of an injury. He’s not the panicked, fear-struck Cody I saw just a few minutes earlier. He’s eerily serene.
“Who are you?” Seth asks. He must’ve noticed the change too. Something’s different about Cody, in his expression, even in the way he’s sitting up.
This isn’t Cody.
Did I fail? Were we too late?
Cody glances between us, his gaze settling on Seth. Even before he answers, I have a sense of the truth. A knowing like what I experienced when I was inside Finnegan’s body with Syphor for the first time. An ominous warning of not just who he is, but what it means for what’s to come. That for us, this is only the beginning.
And in a voice much deeper than Cody’s, our visitor says, “I am Kysar.”
As my mind spins with this wild revelation, Alexei steps up beside me, resting his hand against my back. Despite everything—all that’s happened tonight, along with this current mindfuck—my boyfriend’s touch assures me he’s with me.
And I’ve got his.
No matter what darkness lies ahead, we’ll face it together.
THE END