She couldn’t see Shane.

I left him.

The door opened behind her, and a hand grabbed her shoulder and yanked her backward. She fought it blindly, tried to get the shotgun turned around, but a cool, pale hand grabbed the barrel and held it away, and then she realized that it was Myrnin. He looked past her and saw the draug flowing down the steps toward them, and without a word, grabbed her around the waist, lifted her, and ran.

“No!” she screamed, and struggled to get free. She lost the shotgun in the process, but it didn’t matter now; the only thing that mattered was she had to make him understand that they had to go back. She kept screaming as the walls flashed by at nightmare speed, and there was a sound around them that drowned out even her own anguished cries, something brutal and triumphant and terrible. There were draug, too. She could see them coming for them, but Myrnin fired his shotgun one-handed to clear the way and never stopped, never faltered. “No, go back!”

Then they were outside, and Michael and Eve were in the truck’s driver and passenger seats. Claire saw them in a tear-streaked blur as Myrnin passed them, opened the back door, and flung her bodily inside. He entered, slammed the door shut, and shouted, “Go! Now!”

“Where’s Shane?” Eve asked. She’d turned, staring, and the dawning horror in her eyes was nothing to the blackened fury and terror inside Claire. She grabbed for the door, but Myrnin held her still.

“He’s gone,” Myrnin said, never taking those dark eyes away from Claire’s face. “Shane is gone.”

Michael’s face was grim and ashen. “We can’t just—”

“He’s dead,” Myrnin said, and it was as cold and cutting a thing as she’d ever heard him say. “He’s dead and you will kill us all if you don’t get us out, now. Do you want to see what your pretty Eve will look like in their pools as they strip her down to the bones? Because I promise you, Magnus will make you watch.”

Michael flinched, and hesitated, and then …

Then he put the truck in reverse and no matter how Claire tried to scream, fight, stop him, he drove away.

And left Shane behind.

CHAPTER SEVEN

SHANE

When the draug’s liquid surrounded me, flowed over me like syrup, everything just … whited out for a few seconds. And then it went black.

And then I just … woke up.

It surprised me how easily I got away.

One second I was trapped in that sticky, thick, stinging liquid—death by drowning in jellyfish—and the next I was clawing my way free, up, and finding the edges of the bubble that held me prisoner. I got my hand out, then my elbow, and then my face broke the surface and I gasped for air as I slithered completely free. I was slimed and disgusting, and I was stung all over, but that didn’t matter. I slipped in the thick draug residue and tried to follow Claire down—but part of it split off and came back for me.