BooksBarbecue
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Chapters (22)
  1. Chapter One
  2. Chapter Two
  3. Chapter Three
  4. Chapter Four
  5. Chapter Five
  6. Chapter Six
  7. Chapter Seven
  8. Chapter Eight
  9. Chapter Nine
  10. Chapter Ten
  11. Chapter Eleven
  12. Chapter Twelve
  13. Chapter Thirteen
  14. Chapter Fourteen
  15. Chapter Fifteen
  16. Chapter Sixteen
  17. Chapter Seventeen
  18. Chapter Eighteen
  19. Chapter Nineteen
  20. Chapter Twenty
  21. Chapter Twenty-One
  22. Epilogue

“No,” I whispered. I ran for the door, and Claire and Jared grabbed my arms. With my full strength, I took one step after another, slowly but surely making my way to the doorway.

Claire grunted against my strength. “Nina, stop!”

Bex joined his siblings, grabbing both of my ankles and wrapping his feet around them. I could have broken free, but I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t want to hurt any of them, I just needed to be aboveground, to breathe fresh air and feel the sun on my skin. To hear my voice—just one time—without an echo behind it.

“Nina, look at me! Look at me!” Jared said, positioning his face in front of mine. “You have to stop. You’re going to get yourself killed, and the baby will die. Do you hear me? We’ll all die!”

I stopped struggling, and my body went limp as I sobbed on the ground against my husband. My focus on survival, irrational or not, had become a monster.

Claire and Bex took a step back with labored breath. I’d given all three of them a run for their money.

Jared stood and pulled me with him. “Okay?”

I nodded, watching him walk into the tomb. “I’m sorry.”

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

Legion

I bolted for the top of the stairs, shoving the altar out of the way. I crawled out of the hole, squinting against the bright sun filtering in through the rotunda.

I took a deep breath, letting the warm, fresh air fill my lungs. I bathed in it, taking in every bit before Jared dragged me back underground. After a few seconds, the warm air went away, and the cold, dark feeling of the tomb surrounded me. Jared had barely let me take an entire breath before he’d forced me to return.

I opened my eyes and realized I was still in the Sepulchre. The room was full of shells, poised to pounce. I could hear Jared crawling up the stairs, yelling my name, but immediately I was attacked. I fought off one, and then two and three at a time. By the time Jared reached the top, I had already taken out half the shells in a fury of moves I didn’t even have to think about. A small woman threw herself at me, her arms flailing about. Jared incapacitated her with a single blow. Claire and Ryan reached the top, quickly followed by Bex, and the mob inside the Sepulchre quickly thinned. More filed in, though, and we were running out of room.

“Back up!” Jared commanded. “Back downstairs!”

The walls shook, and two large, dark forms squeezed their misshapen bodies into the entrance of the Sepulchre. They weren’t shells, but demons, large demons with gray skin and mouths full of teeth under moist snouts.