Dania smiled as Knight's eyes went wide with terror. She reached up and wrapped her hand around the wrist of the hand that squeezed her throat. Even as sparkles danced in front of her eyes from the lack of oxygen, she slowly pushed her razor-sharp claws into the flesh of his arm.

  Knight let out a small whimper, but didn't move. Dania curled her lip and slashed, opening up his forearm from wrist to elbow. At the same time, she struck with her other hand, driving her knuckles into Knight's throat. His eyes bugged out, and he pitched backward, crumpling to the ground as a dark slick of blood spread from his arm. The elastic band of his headlamp slipped off the top of his head as he fell, crashing to the ground and illuminating the empty corner to Dania's right.

  "Fear-induced paralysis is a hell of a thing, isn't it, Clayton," Dania rasped. "Terror clutching at you, wrapping around your throat, holding you motionless in the face of the pain you know is coming… tell me something. How does it compare to being on the other side?"

  She walked slowly—because she could barely walk at all—forward and carefully lowered herself down until she knelt on either side of his chest, trapping his biceps beneath her knees.

  "How does it feel to be the helpless one?" she asked with a feline snarl. She struck again, slashing across his face, dragging her claws through his eyes. He flinched, but didn't otherwise move. Another small, pained whimper escaped past his lips.

  "You can't even scream, can you?" Dania asked. "You're so afraid, you can't make a sound bigger than a mouse. Did Kendra scream, when you broke her collarbone with your fists?" She slammed the flat of her hand down on his clavicle and felt a satisfying crunch.

  "How does it feel to know how worthless you are in the face of fear?" Dania leaned forward to growl her words into his ear. "And fear of what? A dream? A monster? Or the bone-deep knowledge that you always have been, and will forever be nothing."

  Dania punched her claws into his sternum, feeling the hard resistance of his breastbone. She didn't bother to try and break through it. Instead, she steadied herself against his chest while she rolled back onto her feet and came up to a crouch. Then she dragged all ten claws down the front of his body, ripping deep furrows to his navel. The scent of excrement filled the air, telling her she'd perforated a bowel.

  "Oooh, you stink, Clayton," she added. And for good measure, she sliced his abdomen from side to side. He let out another high, insistent whine, but his fear-paralysis held steady.

  "It sucks, doesn't it?" Dania asked. "I would say, that I hope you've learned a lesson from this experience, but the truth is, it doesn't matter if you have or not. Because I'm going to kill you, Clayton Knight. I'm going to open your throat from ear to ear and watch your life bleed down that drain in the floor next to you. And then I'm going to take those cards you're so proud of, and I'm going to return them to their rightful owner."

  She smiled down at him, even knowing he couldn't see her with his lacerated eyeballs. More whimpering, pleading noises escaped his lips in an unceasing stream, but they were starting to fade. It wouldn't take long for him to bleed out, even if she left him like this.

  But Dania wasn't quite done. She'd made him a promise, and she meant to see it through. She looked up at Hush, who regarded her from where he'd stayed next to the cell's bunk. The overland monster smiled at her, flashing his rows of shark teeth, and gave her a nod. She returned the smile and then bent to speak in Knight's ear one more time.

  "Goodbye, Clayton," she whispered. And then, just as she'd promised, she drove the claw of her index finger into the soft, sweating flesh of his throat next to his carotid artery. Then she ripped it sideways, severing the blood vessel and sending a spray of salty, iron-hot blood into the air. Knight's whimpers pitched upward, but then gurgled away into silence.

  A pack of cards appeared on Knight's shredded chest. Though they sat amidst the bloody carnage Dania had wrought, the deck appeared pristine, untouched by the mess of bodily fluids. Slowly, Dania reached out and picked them up, holding them with something like reverence.

  "These are Kendra's," she said softly. "Can you carry them back to her at the Haven?"

  "Yesss," Hush said. "But you should llllook at them firrrssst. Ssseee if therrre iss anything to helllp you."

  "Okay," Dania said. She picked up the deck and stumbled over to the bunk, sitting heavily atop it as she fanned the cards out next to her.

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  "Doo youu ssseee something?" Hush asked after a silent moment.

  "Maybe…can you bring me that headlamp? I want to look closer."

  "Yessss." He disappeared, and a second later, Dania saw out of the corner of her eye as he wrapped shadowy fingers around the light and brought it to drop in her lap.

  "Thank you," she said, picking it up and holding it rather than trying to put it on. Her face still hurt badly enough that she didn't want to try something like that. "Yeah, this deck was definitely meant for Kendra. Look at all the pregnant mother imagery," she said, shining the light over the cards. "Shadow and Nature, with Life energy…This one might help."

  She pulled out a card that had icy-green and pale gold edges.

  #

  Dania concentrated on the cards that had been floating in front of her chest the whole time she carved Knight up. At her wordless command, the Scimitar Cat dropped into her hand, and the healing card took its place. She touched it, willing its power to flow over her, to wash away her wounds like sand carried down the Nile. Icy green and pale gold light flowed over her, spinning her head around as if she'd had too much to drink. She sagged back against the wall and sucked in a deep breath to try and steady herself.

  Oh! That didn't hurt!

  There was no needle point of pain stabbing in and down with every inhale. Likewise, the constant throbbing in her face vanished, leaving her feline vision even sharper than it had been.

  "Youuu look muuuch betterrr," Hush said. Dania blinked and focused on him.

  "I feel better," she said. "This card… it packs a punch. Please tell Kendra I said thank you… even though she didn't really give me permission to use it."

  "I doooo not think she willlll mind."

  "I hope not." Dania swapped the healing card out for her Scimitar Cat once again and dismissed her deck. Then she held Kendra's cards out to Hush. "Okay, take these to Kendra, then find Jake and Amari. Tell them I'm okay, but we need a plan. Just make sure they know that under no circumstances is Jake to come after me himself, all right. He needs to stay safe in the Haven. Him coming here is exactly what they want. If you can bring me a phone or something, that would be best, although I'm not sure what kind of signal I'll get in here."

  "I willlll go," Hush said, taking the deck. "I can carrrrry the deck with meee, but not the body."

  "Leave it," Dania said. "He's got a key to the cell in his pocket. I'll wait for you to return, but I'm not stuck here. But hurry, okay? I need to let Jake know I'm okay and he doesn't need to come rescue me."

  "Then I go. I willl returrrn."

  Dania nodded. "And Hush?"

  "Yessss, Deckbearrrerrr?"

  "Thank you. For coming for me, and for using your paralysis attack on him."

  "Youu arrre welllcome, Deckbearrrerr. It wasss my pllleasssurrre."

  Hush reached out and ran his claw along Dania's jawline, the way he'd done a few times before. Then he backed away and disappeared beneath the bunk.

  Alone with only the stinking corpse of Clayton Knight for company, Dania shivered. The chill had felt good against her battered skin earlier, but now that she was healed, it only made her miserable.

  Come on, Dania, she told herself sharply. There's no time to feel sorry for yourself. Get that key, if nothing else!

  She pushed herself up to her feet and grimaced as she approached Knight's body again. Eviscerating him had seemed like a good idea at the time, but the stench of perforated bowels was something she would have preferred to avoid.

  At least the cold keeps the smell down a little, she told herself. See, silver linings, Dania! That's the spirit.

  Dania found the key in the front pocket of his jeans, along with a folding knife that she clipped to the strap of her bra inside the neck of her shirt. She'd just settled back into place on the bunk when Hush's shadow reared up beside the edge.

  "Deckbearrrerrr," he said. "I have sssomething forrrr youuu."

  "Did you talk to Jake?"

  "He wasss not therrre. I ssspoke with the wheeellled deckbearrrerrr and the young motherrrr." He climbed up onto the bunk beside her. Dania tried not to think about the unnatural way in which his joints bent and moved, and blinked when his hand shot out toward her.

  He held a phone.

  "Whose is this?" she asked.

  "The young motherrr's," Hush said. "She ssaid you could ussse it to call Nyx's Chosen or the otherrr girrl. The code isss a ssquare."

  "Thanks," Dania said, tracing the unlock code over the screen. The phone flared to life with a picture of little Ethan smiling behind rows of phone apps. Dania tapped the phone icon and punched in Jake's phone number from memory.

  "Kendra?" Jake asked, his voice ragged and stressed. "Everything okay?"

  "Jake, it's me."

  "Dani?! Amari! It's Dani! Are you all right? Where are you? We can come—"

  "No!" Dania's voice cracked. "No, Jake, please. You can't come here, it's exactly what they want. I'm bait, meant to trap you so Landaine can take the Night Haven from you somehow. He seemed to think if he could bring you to me, he could somehow force you to give it to him. We can't take that chance, Jake. The guy is crazy, he thinks he's going to become a god."

  "Okay, okay. Slow down, Dani. This is Rhett. You're on speaker phone. I'm with Jake and Amari. Did you say Landaine?"

  "Yeah. The guy from Berto's letter I showed you. He's the one running this whole operation for the Renfeldts. He knows about the set that includes Jake's Night Haven, and he wants that card. So you can't bring Jake here. Got it, Detective? You can't let him come here."

  "Dani, do you know where you are?"

  "Um…no." She looked around her immediate surroundings. "I've been in a cell, like in a prison."

  The line went silent.

  "Hello?"

  "We're here, Dani," Jake said, his words empty of the frantic joy he'd had when she first spoke. "Mr. Joe just texted Amari. That phone has location sharing on it, we know where you are."

  "You're at the old Noimoire Psychiatric Hospital. The abandoned one." Amari's voice sounded slightly distant.

  "Jake, don't you come here," Dania said. "Please. Promise me."

  "I can't," Jake said, misery in his voice. "We're already on the way."

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