Emma winds the tourniquet around her own arm below the sleeve of her T-shirt. Heightened senses make everything more visceral: the grime on her skin, the smell of her sweat, the vein popping in her arm, the blood rushing there. The blood Hoyt’s so desperate for, the blood that is everything to him…

The blood that is everything.

There’s only one clean needle left, and suddenly Emma knows what to do with it. She’s going to take control of Hoyt’s ritual, sully it. She’s going to hit him where it hurts.

She unwraps the needle and slides it—without attaching the plastic barrel of the syringe cylinder—straight into her vein. The sting is mild. She takes a deep breath. Please let this work.

Then she turns around to face Hoyt and releases the tourniquet.

The effect is dramatic. Blood—her blood—gushes down her inner arm in a thick scarlet runnel that bifurcates halfway to her wrist. She watches it drip onto the floor. If nothing else, letting part of herself out like this feels like a release.

“Emma, no!” Bell cries.

“What are you—” Hoyt still has Kristin’s syringe in his hand as he rushes over. “Stop that! Don’t do that! For god’s sake, you’re wasting it!”

He’s so intent on stopping the flow of Emma’s blood he doesn’t realize when Kristin Gutmunsson pushes up off the floor and flies at him.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Kristin slams into Anthony Hoyt with an earsplitting scream, shoving his own right hand violently toward his face. The used syringe he’s holding buries itself deep into his cheek.

“TAKE MY BLOOD, YOU MISERABLE FUCKING SHIT!” Kristin’s face is twisted in a snarl, like she’s been possessed by her brother.

Hoyt makes a garbled cry.

In a single smooth motion, Kristin yanks the revolver out of Hoyt’s waistband and aims straight at him. Hoyt dives to the floor, and the gun goes off like a deafening crack of thunder inside the chapel room. The shot goes wide. Hoyt rolls, scuttles. Still screaming, Kristin fires once more. But her aim is wild, and a fourth bullet plows into a floorboard. It doesn’t look as if she’s handled a gun in her life.

“Kristin, give me the gun.” Emma jerks the needle out of her arm, snatches the weapon out of Kristin’s hands. “Untie Bell. We’re getting the fuck out of here.”

“Simon—”

“Kristin, NOW!”

In less than five seconds, they’re falling out the door of Simon’s room and into the great hall.

Cool air slaps Emma in the face and if she weren’t running, she’d be crying with relief. She’s holding Bell’s arm, Kristin is on his other side, they’re running, Bell’s stumbling, half bent over, Emma’s checking over her shoulder as they sprint for the barred gate.

“The key,” Emma pants. “If we can get to the foyer door—Bell, move!”

The great hall is an echo chamber of their thumping feet and struggling breaths. Bell’s sweating, it’s a cold sweat, Kristin looks green in the face. Emma hustles them past the steel bars, spins to check their path of retreat, holding the gun in a two-handed grip, muttering, “Come on, come on.”