What if the gentle Violet can’t control her monster ever again?

 

 

Chapter 47

 

ARION

 

Pushing up from the ground, wincing in some pain, I stand to my feet, staring ahead at the road that has been split apart by the most ferocious lightning strike yet.

Blinking against the rain, I watch as a blue-haired belly-dancer gives Idun a lap dance. And by lap dance, I mean she’s dancing only on Idun’s lap, because Idun is in two pieces.

Idun’s upper body is desperately clawing at the ground, heaving her top half away as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, the blue-haired, pink-eyed version of Anna laughs with the red-headed apparition of Anna.

The triplets dance in a circle around Idun’s top half, moving along with her, singing Ring Around the Rosie. Every time they ‘all fall down,’ Idun cries out in pain and slams to the ground with them.

They laugh merrily each time, while Red-Headed Anna sings to Blue-Haired Anna, giving her a beat to grind her hips to.

I…have no idea how to feel about any of this.

Staring on, unmoving, I watch through the rain, listening to the sound of Idun screaming again. The only male ghost is dancing with a ring of female ghosts. Then that group comes to join hands with the triplets, expanding their circle around the ‘unstoppable’ alpha.

Idun’s next scream is twice as loud when they all fall down.

Idun scrambles to move, practically racing toward me on her hands, with her eyes frozen wide in…terror. I’ve never experienced anything like I’m feeling right now, so I have no idea what to even label it as.

Stunned and confused are just two of the many pointless reactions my immobile body allows me to have.

She grabs my leg in a desperate hug, but my eyes lift from her to all the ghosts, who swing an eerie look in my direction the moment she touches me. They grin in unison, while the blue-haired version of Anna shifts into the redheaded one before my eyes, stealing the flesh.

Her red-lipped grin twists into one of pure evil. She moves with less visibility than a shadow, even to my eyes, and she’s very suddenly standing in front of me, eyes peering up, as she twists her hair around her finger.

Idun makes a startled sound, releasing my leg very abruptly, and scrambles off on her hands once more.

“Taste her fear, Vampyre?” Anna asks, her grin unwavering.

Down to my bones, I’m fighting the urge to tremble, due to some inconveniently wild and unexpected fear of my own. I’m too frozen to move or form words.

I feel her presence for the first true time, and it’s…terrifyingly exciting and undeniably powerful. It transcends any presence Idun has ever emitted.

The lower half of Idun’s body comes running by me, as if Anna is turning Idun into a bad parody of her former self.

“Keep watching. The show’s just getting started, and you know how much Idun loves a captive audience,” Anna adds with a wink.

In the amount of time it takes me to blink, Anna is missing, which leaves me quickly darting a look around, searching for the direction she’s gone.

When my gaze lifts to a rooftop, I spot Talbot Lane staring down at me with an intense and dark expression. He turns and is gone in the next instant behind a veil of unrelenting rain.

January Violet Carmine hasn’t just been keeping secrets from us; she’s been hiding an entire identity.

Not that we’d have ever believed a word of it.

Glancing down, I lift the leg of my pants, spotting the bruises Idun left behind with her desperate cling.

The rain pelts me harder, as I start to move and stop. Then I start again and…stop again.

Why isn’t Idun’s monster out? Why is Idun running? How the fucking hell did we not know Violet’s been this powerful all along?

I run a hand through my drenched hair, as my shirt clings to me, the fabric so soaked it’s become nothing more than a weighted hindrance.

I could use some gin.

Maybe more than some.

“I’m glad I trusted my brother,” Emily says as she drops from the rooftop beside me.

My senses are so distraught that I never even felt her coming.

I cut my eyes to her, as she gives me a timid, shaky smile.

“I guess I should respect you for how very little you’re intimidated by extremely powerful women, huh?” she asks, her voice hesitant.

“Shhhh…”

The hissed warning comes from a ghost that magically appears at Emily’s side, causing my sister to startle and stumble back a step. The ghost’s head spins in a full circle, as it laughs with its distorted mouth.

The long, dark hair turns into tiny snake heads, as the dark eyes of the apparition glisten under the distant lightning.

“No witnesses, Vampyre,” the ghost tells Emily in that hissing tone, a snake’s tongue darting between its sharp teeth. “You only get a free pass because you’re his favorite sister. For now.”

After the next strike of blinding light fades from view, the ghost is gone.

I’m not sure when my sister grabbed my arm, but I now feel her nails digging into me, as she trembles all over.

“That was just a projection, right? Yet I still felt its presence?” she asks, her grip tightening. “That’s the first time I’ve felt its presence.”

I say nothing, since…words aren’t forming. I’ve never before been as speechless as I’ve been this night.

“Arion, I’m going home. Call me when this is over,” Emily says with a dead, flat tone, as her entire body trembles once more.

Just the ghost’s presence sent her survivalist instincts into overdrive.

She pauses, while I remain somewhat lost in my state of shock.

“Arion,” Emily says quietly, calling my attention once again. She turns her head enough to look over her shoulder at me, seriousness in her eyes. “Power like that could destroy the world. Imagine what life will be like when there are betas for that monster. I know you love her, and if Idun is shamelessly running in terror, you certainly can’t defeat the monster breathing down her neck. But that thing is certainly not the sweet girl you’ve been parading around. What happens next?”

For a moment, I simply stare at her, unable to answer. After another few beats of silence, she nods.

“Call me when you know,” she says.

She turns back around and sprints into the darkness.

For now, Idun seems to be the only target.

Idun’s a target…

The world is brand new all over again.

Music starts blaring, and I turn and sprint in the direction it’s coming from.

 

 

Chapter 48

 

DAMIEN

 

God help us all.

That’s the only thing I can think of when I see the chorus-singing kick-line of ghosts, who are definitely jamming out—in choregraphed, synchronized fashion—to Mad Hatter.

Another ballerina-zombie-girl ghost is half flesh and half bone, doing her own dance.

The field is fully lit by the spotlights, that I saw a few ghosts floating through the town on their way here. The lights are powered by the electricity surging from Hyde, I think.

The power to the ungodly amount of speakers seems to be generated by the same source.

Electricity visibly skitters across the ground.

Idun is mid-scream, as the song changes to Sweet but Psycho.