“Whatever you’ve done, take it back!” His voice is fading, along with his life force. But the truth is, I haven’t done anything. If I ever needed to see his demon self, it’s right now.
I whirl toward Dace, afraid of what I might find—only to see him still caught in that strange, hypnotic, silver-eyed state.
Strangely still. Strangely unharmed. Looking as though he’s on the verge of transforming into something I can’t even begin to imagine.
I turn my focus to Phyre and race toward her. Determined to wrestle the dagger away, unwilling to take the chance that she’ll use it again.
She lets it go easily.
Too easily.
Freeing up her hand to reach into her father’s suit pocket, and retrieve the detonator he’d stashed there.
A single glimpse of that small, electronic device is enough to make all of the pieces fall into place.
The explosives Dace told me he saw in her father’s shed are now stashed inside the Rabbit Hole.
I whirl on Dace, desperate to awaken him from his strange, hypnotic state. “The club!” I shout. “The club’s going to blow! You have to warn everyone to evacuate!”
Dace shakes his head, looks at me with wide glittering eyes making a slow return to their usual icy-blue. Seeing the detonator in Phyre’s hand, his blood-soaked brother falling against the stage, gasping for breath, he turns on his heel and races for the Rabbit Hole. While I lunge toward Phyre and tackle her to the ground. Effectively pinning her down, only to realize too late that the button is blinking.
She’s already pressed it.
Already started her own New Year’s Eve countdown.
“You should’ve listened to me while you had the chance,” she says. Her neck visibly bruised from Cade’s hand. The absurd message on her T-shirt illuminated by the haphazard row of candles that continue to flicker around us.
Her words punctuated from the countdown coming from inside the club.
Ten!
You can hear the swell of excitement from here.
Nine!
Phyre looks at me, her eyes a mess of mascara and tears, making her look like the villain of some tragic cartoon. “The last days are here.” She shrugs as though she’s not the least bit responsible for what she’s just done. Putting hundreds—possibly thousands of lives in ultimate danger, as behind us, the crowd counts down from eight to seven. “Better make your peace now. There’s no more avoiding it. No time for forgiveness.”
Six!
I punch her hard in the jaw. Slamming her cheek deep into the ground, more out of frustration than anything else. A move I instantly regret the second I see the way she grins in response.
Five!
I push off her, longing to rush inside, help Dace clear the place, but I can’t afford to leave her with Cade. Can’t afford to let her finish him off. Now that Dace is back to being himself, I can’t be sure he’ll survive it.
Four!
The next thing I know, the alleyway is teeming with bodies. Once-happy revelers now frantic in their need to evacuate the party. Oblivious to Suriel’s prone body. Cade’s perilous state. They storm the stage, causing me to lose sight of them in the chaos. But when a space is suddenly cleared, I find Cade gasping for breath as Phyre looms over him, grabs hold of his shirt, pulls his face to hers, and centers her mouth over his.
The countdown in the club may have halted—but in my head it continues.
Three!
I leap onto her back, and pull her off him, jamming my athame hard to her throat.
Two!
“Do it!” she screams, her neck arced in offering. “Put me out of my misery! Please—I never asked for any of this!”