“N-No… he just disappeared. Into thin air,” Misery whispered.
He stiffened, and Daria darted her gaze to his, to the darkness swimming inside that she’d come to love as just another part of him. “Daria, I think… this doesn’t feel righ—”
Warning bells sounded in her head, and Daria leapt forward, fisting her hand in his shirt just as he faded from sight, turning transparent before fading completely. Her fist clenched around nothing but air, and Misery was gone.
She stepped back, staring at the spot they’d both just stood in, and there was nothing. No evidence that they’d ever existed.
“Youth? Youth, where are you?” another voice called, and Fear jerked her gaze up to the main house. She took a single step before stumbling to a stop, twisting her head around to study them. Her own affliction was rampant in her gaze. Fear was afraid.
“It’ll be okay,” Hope said to her, his voice low and comforting, even as more shouts sounded from within the house.
Fear nodded, putting on a brave face, but she faded into nothing the same way Truth and Misery had.
Daria’s heart clenched hard, her breath escaping in a hiss of pitiful air as she stared at Hope. Why were they disappearing? What was—
She stepped forward and grabbed onto Hope, tugging him with her toward the door. She didn’t dare turn her back on him, afraid he would disappear too.
His hand was warm in hers, but it did little to ease the ice filling her chest.
They didn’t have to go far, the door flying open before they could take more than a few steps. Death and Betrayal stepped through… and no one else.
“Misery and Truth?” Death asked quietly, voice as low as Daria had ever heard it. His eyes were dark, not a hint of plum in their depths.
“They disappeared,” she whispered, voice catching at the end. Hope wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and she eased into his side. “Are you guys going to disappear too?”
None of them answered, the silence settling thick in the air around them. Daria kept her gaze locked on Death and Betrayal, expecting them to fade away at any moment. Instead, as the silence stretched on and they remained the same, the ache in her chest expanded.
“I think we’re okay,” Death said softly.
“For now,” Betrayal muttered. Death shot him a sharp look, and he shrugged as if to ask what?
“What happened to everyone?” Daria dared to ask. To Pain, Persy, Fear, Youth, Misery, and Truth…
Wood protested, the squeaky sound loud in the room, and Daria turned her head to find Cadmon. Safe and sound and unbothered by everything around them.
“I think I know what it was,” he offered quietly, as if he knew one wrong word would be enough to unleash the tension vibrating around them.
But he didn’t have to say anything, Daria already knew. Even the thought was enough to make her stomach roll. Why else would demons randomly disappear?
“It was Pandora. It has to be,” Daria whispered.
Cadmon nodded silently.
Pandora would have had to obtain Sofia’s consent to activate the curse again, which meant she drugged her… or something much worse.
WRATH
Darkness faded away, giving birth to a tiny spark. As consciousness came to him, so, too, did anger. Opening his eyes, Wrath saw his feet dangling above a concrete floor. The joints in his shoulders protested at holding his own body weight, strung up by his wrists.
That spark of anger burst into an inferno of rage as his gaze traveled to a tiny waif of a woman, bound to a chair, head slack on her shoulders.
Blood streaked her face, and he could only pray that it belonged to someone else. If anyone had hurt a single hair on her head—
“You’re awake. Welcome back,” a smooth voice purred, sending shivers of dread prickling across his flesh.
Pandora.
Wrath refrained from speaking, refusing to show her an ounce of the emotions that roiled inside him.
“Don’t have anything to say to me? That’s fine,” she snapped, walking into his line of sight. She circled Sofia, dragging a chipped fingernail across the back of her shoulders. Pandora stopped behind her right shoulder. “Probably for the best, since you have no excuse for betraying me. I’m just glad to have Sofia back where she belongs. Now all that’s left is doing the same with you demons.”
“She won’t ever agree to that,” Wrath muttered.
“Yes she will. It worked the first time, it will work again.”
Wrath squeezed his eyes closed, wishing his vision to steady faster, his head to clear more fully. He must have been knocked out at the pavilion, taken along with Sofia before anyone could help.
He shook his head. Foolish. He was so stupid to think it was okay to bring Sofia with them.
But how was I supposed to know Pandora would be there?
How was he to know Pandora would surprise them, attack them yet again, before they’d even taken a breath after the other attack?
Anger flared inside him all over again. Pandora was a menace—one who needed to die.
But neither of them seemed in the right position to do anything about it.
As if his thoughts had conjured her, Sofia groaned, her dark hair obscuring her face as she rolled her head to the side.
Wrath ground his teeth together, wishing she would just remain asleep. He didn’t want her to get hurt.
He clenched his fists, the chains holding him biting into his skin and stinging. All he wanted was to break out of the restraints and whisk Sofia away, somewhere she could finally be safe.
But Wrath knew safety was something that was out of their reach, at least until Pandora had been killed.
If I could just—
He struggled against his restraints as Sofia lifted her head, eyes still pinched closed.
“Go ahead, talk to her, Wrath. Comfort her as she wakes up,” Pandora taunted.
Wrath wanted to call out to her, wanted to wake her up and tell her to run, but from the way she was strapped to the chair, he knew that wasn’t an option for either of them.
With a sigh, he sank into his bonds and let himself feel the pain, the pinch of the metal, and the ache in his shoulders as he swung back and forth.
You deserve it. You couldn’t protect her.
Gritting his teeth, he kept his gaze trained on Sofia, locked on her dark hair and the soft curve of her jaw and the sweet curl of her lips. Those green eyes blinked at him groggily, not quite catching on to their surroundings, to what was happening.
Pandora had her drugged again.
Good. I’d rather her not know.
The sigils beneath her chair were stark against the concrete floor, the jar already marked with her blood. That was why there was blood on her face.
Everything was in place, all Pandora needed was a yes, and it would all be over. Wrath’s eyes shuttered in dread, but he snapped them back open. He had a feeling this might be the last few moments he’d have with Sofia, and he didn’t want to waste them.
Before, when Pandora had talked her into saying yes, to becoming a host to a gathering of demons, it was only after being drugged. At the time, Sofia hadn’t known any better, had been easier to persuade.
But now that Sofia had escaped, had gotten to know the other demons, had met her own fucking sister, Wrath knew she wouldn’t give in easily.
Which only left one way to convince her.