Seth, Harlow, Vanessa, and I climb in, and we rocket through the night.
Please let this work, I whisper, looking up at the stars.
The oil rig is at least seven stories tall, with small lanterns hanging off its spindly arms. It looms over us, and Seth spins our boat in a circle as we reach the landing dock.
“Why would it be here?” Harlow asks, and I have a sinking feeling in my stomach. What if I’m wrong? What if I’m really, really wrong?
We pull up to the landing dock, and I look to Vanessa.
“Anything?” I ask as she looks up at the oil rig. She shakes her head in a shallow tremor.
“Nothing. Charlotte. I don’t feel anything,” she whispers. “Do you?”
I shake my head.
“We’ll have to search,” I whisper.
A spotlight bleeds through the night, nearly blinding us as the sound of a huge motor cuts through the darkness.
A speedboat pulls up to the far walkway of the Rig, and my heart plummets.
I don’t know who that is, but it’s probably not help.
“Let’s go,” I whisper. We all step off the dinghy and run up the metal stairs, trying to be as quiet as possible, but the clanging of metal rockets over the water. I peer through the latticework as the boat pulls up to the small dock.
I grab Seth’s arm as recognition sinks over me. It’s Abel, and he’s not alone.
A man with bound hands sits next to him, and I recognize the shoulders. Dean.
Abel steps out of the boat and reaches down, pulling Dean along with him. He twists, and I see that Dean’s eyes are covered, his mouth gagged.
“Mirror, Charlotte,” Seth whispers quietly.
“No,” I whisper. It feels like the world is tilting under my feet, and my hands dig into the metal.
“Charlotte,” Seth shoots back, and I drop my eyes, watching Abel pull Dean onto the dock. One hand steers Dean while the other grips a piece of black fabric.
“Oh, Charlotte! My dear Charlotte! I thought . . .” He grunts as he pulls Dean farther onto the dock, closer to the stairs. “I thought, after our chat yesterday, that you’d understand what happens when people get in my way,” he yells, his voice cracking as he yanks a knife from his back pocket. With a flick of his wrist, he opens the blade.
“No,” Harlow gasps. The sound carries, and Abel’s eyes flick up. We pull back, and Harlow claps a hand over her mouth, shaking as tears run down her cheeks. I use the glass to peer back over the edge. Abel smiles as he lifts the knife, almost like he knows he has an audience. He brings it closer to Dean’s neck, and I can’t breathe. Just when I’m about to stand, to yell at him to stop, he lowers it and cuts the rope holding Dean’s hands.
“You had to make this hard, didn’t you, Charlotte?” Abel calls, lifting the black fabric. I recognize it—it’s the shirt I was wearing at the safe house. He dangles it in front of Dean’s face, and Dean goes still.
“Shit,” Seth whispers next to me, and he puts his hand on my shoulder. “We have to go. Now.”
I shake him off and look back down.
“It’s Dean,” I hiss.
“Charlotte,” Seth warns as Abel reaches over and pulls the blindfold off Dean.
Everything slows down. My heart thuds in my ears, and it sounds too slow. My tongue goes numb, and the breath I was exhaling gets caught on my tongue.
Dean’s eyes are a bloody, hateful red.
And as Abel lifts the shirt higher, Dean’s face moves with it. He’s smelling my shirt. Vanessa whimpers softly, her knuckles white on the railing.
“You know? I couldn’t have planned this better, honestly. For him to have degraded so quickly . . .” He dangles the shirt, and I hear Harlow sob softly at the way Dean follows it hungrily. “It just . . .” Abel does a chef’s kiss, then pulls the gag off, stepping back before tossing my shirt forward. It lands on the stairs, and Abel watches as Dean staggers after it, stopping as he looks up.
My Dean.
My best friend—
But he’s not anymore. He’s something else.
And he’s walking up the stairs after us.
Oh God.
I lean back, and Seth’s face is drawn as he jumps to his feet.
“We’ve got to go. Now,” Seth yells. We take off, and I hear a soft growl from below.
A realization hits me, and I spin. “Separate!” I order, and Harlow looks like she might argue. “He’s after me,” I cry. “Look for the Heart—this is our only chance.” Harlow nods and pulls Vanessa after her. They sprint deep into the third level, but Seth stays with me.
“You have to go,” I whisper.
He presses his mouth to mine quickly as he passes and grabs my hand. His lips are cold, his breath fast. “Not a chance,” he says as he pulls me after him.
We climb.
The stairwell is mesh metal on either side and metal all the way up, so there is no way to hide. Dean jumps over the railing and sprints toward us. Seth looks over the railing.
“He’s three levels down,” he says.
Another set of footsteps has joined the fray, and I know Abel is slowly walking up, too.
“Come on,” Seth says, pulling me on. My legs burn—my lungs feel like they’re on fire as we climb higher. My walkie-talkie lets out two beats of static from Harlow—nothing yet.
No Heart.
Desperation fills me as I put out one pulse back. Keep looking.
It has to be here.
Seth stops, his breath heaving as he hauls open the door to the sixth level. It’s empty inside . . . just the bones of what will one day be an observation deck. From this height, I can see the fires lighting up in the woods. The fight has started, and I pray they were ready.
The equipment is still in the plastic. Seth and I run, hand in hand, hurtling behind a plastic-covered motherboard as the door behind us kicks open and Dean steps inside, a low, wet growl sounding from his throat as he walks slowly in.
He’s closer now, and I drop my eyes. I can see him—the way his fingers are taut. His shoulders straining with a barely contained rage. A deep sob blooms in my throat, but I swallow it down. Tears fill my vision, and I press my lips together as I blink them away. My hands finger the blade.
Death before the willful Crimson.
I’m not close enough to surprise him, and there’s a sick relief at the thought.
We’ve talked about this for so long. I know what I have to do, but I don’t know if I have the strength.
Seth puts his fingers to his lips and motions for me to follow. We stay low, hidden behind the equipment as we crawl. There’s an exit on the far side.
The walkie lets out another beat of static. And then a second pulse.
I scramble to silence it, terror lashing at my lungs. But I’m not quick enough.
Dean tips the table next to us over, and Seth and I scuttle along the floor and hide behind a bunch of cardboard boxes. I can hear him, clicking his jaw shut. The sick snapping sound fills me with dread—how would those teeth feel on my skin? Seth crouches in front of me, and we move as fast as we can.
With a furious snarl that rips through the room, Dean shoves a cabinet, and the domino effect knocks the dozen other cabinets over. I bite back my squeak of terror, and the noise gets lost in the crash.
They’ve all got to be about a ton each, and the noise as they hit the floor tells me that we won’t survive being caught under them. Seth grabs me, and we roll, the last cabinet crashing where we’d just been hiding. We dart apart as a shelf smashes down, scattering supplies. The sorts of supplies that we would have killed for—flashlights, cell phones, solar panels. They’re worthless now. All we need is something to stop Dean. Anything. My hands rifle through the mess, but I can’t find anything useful.
Dean gets closer to Seth, and my eyes catch the glint of a blade on the ground.
Seth dropped it. He’s unarmed.
I turn and sprint for the back door.
Follow me. Follow me. Leave him alone an
d follow me, I beg. Dean looks up and rushes after me. Seth takes the moment and scrambles. The door opens to another stairwell, and I shut the door, hard, trapping Dean inside before sprinting up the catwalk.
My walkie-talkie buzzes twice. They still don’t know where the Heart is. I spin myself up another flight of stairs before I let out one long beat of static.
Get away, it says.
Three small pulses come back.
Negative.
I turn, stopping in my tracks as I see Abel climb over the railing in front of me. He found another way.
I send out one more long beat of static, and this time—nothing comes back.
“Where are you going, Charlotte?” he calls. This is a game to him.
I turn, doubling back as I hear Seth yell my name from the other side of the observation deck at the exact moment that Dean breaks through the door, blocking the other way out. I look up, the only way to go. Abel reads the look on my face and lunges as I jump, my hands grabbing the metal as I climb to the next level. He lets out a howl of frustration, and I hear a bang as he follows. I scramble up to the top.
We’re at the top of the Rig. I walk to the edge, praying that there’s a ladder or something.
But there’s nothing. Nothing except a seven-story drop and the black water.
“Charlotte!” Harlow’s voice calls from below.
I turn back as Abel advances and climbs over the rail. The growls get louder, and I know Dean has found the stairs. He staggers onto the platform, and Abel steps behind him, closing the mesh gate.
He’s secured the only way out. Dean lurches between us, snapping as he gets closer to me. I inch closer to the edge, fighting to keep my back to them, holding my mirror up before me. Seth reaches the top of the stairs, and he pounds on the door.
“Charlotte!” he screams. Harlow and Vanessa join him, and the cacophony of screams gets louder.
“Tell me where it is,” Abel says. “And I’ll kill your boyfriend before he rips you apart.”
I take a step forward until there’s nothing but air in front of me as Dean lurches for my back again.
“When people find out what you’re doing, they will stop you. They will know this is evil.”
Abel doesn’t roll his eyes. He doesn’t smirk. He looks me dead in the eye, reflected in my mirror.
“No. No, they won’t. If I got Evelyn Marsali to do what I say, then there isn’t much hope for you.” Dean gets closer, and I let out a cry as he reaches for me again. I climb the rigging that edges out over the water, and Dean stops, snarling when he realizes he can’t follow or get any closer without falling off the edge himself. I twist my blade in my hand, avoiding Dean’s eyes as I lift my face, his grunts filling my head, a sick soundtrack over the memories that roll through my mind.
Dean’s smile over the glow of birthday candles. Dean, making fangs out of Bugles. The sound of his laugh from the other room. The sound of his heart against my ear.
Death before the willful Crimson.
The promise I made. I lift my blade as Dean reaches for me, but stop when I see a glint in the darkness behind Abel—metal.
Evelyn steps out of the shadows, a syringe lifted over her head.
Before I can move, she plunges the needle deep into the side of Abel’s neck.
He lets out a cry as he drops to his knees, clutching the syringe with shaking, bloody hands. He pulls it out, and only a tiny bit of the orange fluid remains.
“What? What the hell? Evelyn—” he yells, but his words are cut off by a sharp cry of pain as he grabs his face. Dean turns, staggering as his attention is pulled to the rageful sound. Evelyn holds out a hand, stopping him, and he listens.
She’s the Queen, and the beast in him recognizes her.
Abel looks up, and his irises are orange and filled with inexplicable terror. Evelyn stalks closer to him, and he scrambles back. I tilt my mirror, following them in the reflection.
“You said if I keep taking the antidote, I’ll keep listening. You said that. So I didn’t take it last night. And guess what?” Her voice is more like I remember now. There’s a tremble to it.
“You’ll die. You stop taking the antidote, and you’ll be like him,” Abel says, gesturing to Dean, who breathes heavily as he waits on the edge of the platform.
Abel tries to stand, but Evelyn puts a foot on his chest and kicks him backward. He skids, landing in front of Dean.
“I remembered some things. It was like a fog lifted for the first time in a while.” Evelyn motions to Dean, who snaps his jaw as he pivots toward Abel. The man scrambles to his feet and turns to run back toward the stairs, but stops when he meets Evelyn’s bloodred eyes.
A shriek of terror fills the night air, and Abel covers his face once more.
He heaves as he lowers his hands, and Evelyn smirks. “You’re right. The world will be different. And it will be better. Because it won’t include you.”
Abel turns, locking his eyes on me. My hand shakes as I see the hatred in his reflection and the burning red of his eyes.
“You,” he says, and I hear his footsteps coming for me. “Look at what you’ve done.”
I step back and look over the water, and Abel lets out a disdainful laugh.
“Come, now. Don’t pretend to be brave. Look at me, Charlotte. It’s your only option.”
Everything around me slows, and the panic that tastes bitter in the back of my throat subsides.
Everything stills until I just hear my heart.
“Look at me!” he screams.
Look at me.
My heart, thick in my chest, beating with my own choices.
There is a reason I’m here—me, and no other. There’s a purpose to all this. Because I’m the only one who can make a beginning out of this ending.
I have to believe that now.
The words slip past my lips. “Come find me in the depths,” I whisper.
Seth pounds at the gate, screaming at me, but he stops as I look at him, and I hope he can read my face.
I hope he can tell that I love him.
Abel stalks closer, and I inch closer to the edge. The wind whips my hair around my head, and I feel a humming in my blood.
“You will not choose my end, for this heart is mine,” I say.
And then, I close my eyes and jump.
Chapter 41
THE WORLD STOPS AS THE DROP PULLS ME TO THE blackness, stretching on past forever. Whatever happens to me, the cell phone I was recording on will fall into the right hands. And the whole world will know who Abel Lassiter is. And what he’s done.
The water envelops me then, and I don’t feel it at first.
But the weightlessness covers me, pulling me lower.
I wait for the terror, but it doesn’t come. There is a burning on my ribs, but it’s not from my lungs. It’s not from fear. I open my eyes as my feet hit the sand. I stand there, my hair floating around my face, blinking against the brightness of the moonlight in the water.
She’s there again, and this time I’m not dreaming. The woman, her vest all the way undone. She opens it, and the pink glow under her skin pulses.
And I look down, realizing that the light isn’t from the moon—it’s from me. Vines of light streak from my skin, cutting through the water.
“Anne,” I whisper.
“You figured it out,” she says, stepping closer to me. Her hair ripples behind her.
I look up at her eyes. They’re a light blue, and they’re full of something I can’t quite place.
“What’s happening?” I breathe, looking down at my hands. The vines twist in the water around us, forming an illuminated map.
And in the center is the pink glow in the middle of her chest.
“I don’t understand. It’s Vanessa. Vanessa is the Chosen One.”
Anne’s eyes meet mine, and she reaches out, pulling my shirt up.
I see it then as I look down.
On my fourth rib.
Se racheter.
My re
demption.
My heart staggers in my chest as I look up at her. A smile forms on her face.
“I didn’t curse the world, Charlotte. The man who tried to claim me did. He had power in him that wasn’t of this world, from the places between the air and sky we aren’t supposed to know about. I jumped from the stern, and he cursed me for my insolence. He cursed the world. He wanted the world to suffer for my rejection of him. He wanted us all to suffer because I chose death instead of a life in his arms. And the world remembered the opposite. From what I gather . . . not much has changed.”
She puts a hand on my rib, and I close my eyes at the feel of her skin on mine.
“I hated you,” I whisper. I put my hand over hers.
“And you did it anyway,” she says. “Redemption. A way to stop this, Charlotte. I always picked you. But it had to be your choice. You had to believe it. And it had to cost you everything.” She pulls our hands away, keeping her fingers wrapped around mine.
I stop, looking down at my ribs. At the mark left there. I shake my head.
“The Chosen One was always going to be the one who chose herself. Just like I did.”
She puts her palm to my cheek, her eyes blazing as she looks up at the surface.
“Take it now. And end this.”
She takes my hand and guides it to her chest. My hands sink through her skin like she’s not even there, and her eyes close as my fingers find the cold glass.
“What will happen to you?” I ask, my voice quivering as I look at the Heart. “Where will you go?”
“Where we all go,” she replies, and I can hear the smile in her voice. I lift my eyes to hers. This close, she looks so real, so human. There are freckles on her nose, and she has a scar on her right cheekbone.
Dean’s words bubble up in my memory. I always imagine her as this terrifying thing. This force. But she was just a girl once.
My hand hesitates as I press my fingertips against the ruby. “Are you scared?”
Her lips press together in a grin as she shakes her head and puts both hands over mine.
“This heart is mine. I’m giving it to you. End this, Charlotte.”
I take a deep breath as I pull the stone loose. Anne fades like a ghost then, and I’m holding the ruby in my hands.
Unchosen Page 29