“What the fuck is this?” Oliver’s voice raked down Ava’s spine, and she hissed from the corner of the familiar cell, as she sat crouched with the wailing baby in her arms. “A baby?”

The demon grunted and shrugged its shoulders.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Oliver shook his head. “Whatever, a snack, I suppose.”

If not for the steel at her throat, she’d have escaped, but as she’d nearly decapitated herself once, Ava kept her distance, like a rabid animal attached to a leash.

“Look at you, Ava. You’ve progressed. Which means you’re tainted.” Oliver paced in front of her, his footsteps clicking over the infant’s cries. “Didn’t I warn you of this?”

“Shhh.” She kissed the top of the baby’s head, rocking on the balls of her feet. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Avalon.”

“In mere hours, you’ll be dead.” He threw a syringe across the room, one he’d attempted to inject unsuccessfully into Ava, and it crashed against the wall. “You’ve ruined everything!”

Ignoring him, she continued to calm the baby, holding the crown of her head. “Let me return her to her mother. You can have me. You can bind me with steel and let him take me. I won’t fight. I’ll accept your injections. I’ll do whatever you want. Just … let her go back to her mother.”

“Do I look like a fucking idiot to you? Seriously.” His lips peeled back with a snarl, and he crouched too close, taunting her fist. “You’re useless to me now.”

“Then, let me go,” she said on a whimper.

“I have three starving and incredibly sexually-frustrated Sang in the next room. If they don’t mate you, they’ll at least find some nourishment in the two of you.”

The thought twisted Ava’s stomach, and she held the baby tighter, shaking her head. “I won’t let you hurt her. I’ll fucking kill you!” Clutching the baby with one hand, she lurched forward, nabbing his arm. The sinking of her fangs into his flesh had her eyes rolling back at the tinny flavor of his blood on her tongue.

The sharp sting of a smack to her face dislodged her teeth from his arm. Ava fumbled for the baby, catching her in the crook of her elbow, and huddled back into her corner.

“You fucking bitch! You dirty fucking bitch!” Oliver shot to his feet, clutching his bleeding arm. Two painful blows of his foot hit her ribcage.

As she curled into herself, trying to catch her breath, Ava flinched at the pulses of agony shooting through her body.

“Put her in the room with them! Put both of them in there. Let the fucking Sang finish them off.” Oliver strode from the room, his curses echoing down the hallway.

Gorilla tightened his grip of the chain, and Ava cried out when the metal bit into her throat.

“Gods! S-s-stop!”

The bastard would sever her head right there.

She rose to her feet, fingers clawing at the steel that clamped around her throat, and with the baby still screaming in her arms, she stumbled behind the demon.

The creak of the door fluttered the wings of the Sang, sounding like a shuffled deck of cards.

A sharp push from behind, and Ava tumbled to her knees, the cold concrete tearing into her skin as she fell to the floor. Still, she held tight to the baby.

She closed her eyes and imagined Calix’s room, could see it so vividly inside her mind, but when she opened her eyes, the smell of rotted meat and the gray concrete walls closed in on her, suffocating her.

Gods, she couldn’t flash! Why couldn’t she flash?

Eyes glowed from the ceiling, watching her with pointed interest.

The baby’s cries reverberated off the walls, and Ava tucked her into her shirt in a feeble attempt to swaddle her.

For a moment, she thought she’d been spared, just as the last time she’d been locked in with the creatures, but when the white bat-like figure swooped down from the ceiling, limping toward her, terror rose from the pit of Ava’s stomach.

A second, and the third followed the first, and her pulse throbbed beneath her flesh.

The Sang weren’t after her, though. Their eyes fixated on something else.

Avalon.