“But, we...you...you need to get me out of here, okay? I don’t want to be here any more.”
Jared nodded, his voice low and calm. “I understand. As soon as the baby comes, we’ll leave. I promise.”
I shook my head, the tears cascading down my cheeks. I took a step back. “No. No, I don’t want to have the baby here. I can’t stay here another night. Not another second.”
“That’s a prize-winning freakout, right there,” Kim said without emotion.
Jared grimaced. “You’re not helping, Kim. Listen,” he said, returning his attention to me.
My body shook. I was in control of nothing. Not my body, not where I slept. I couldn’t even go to the bathroom alone or take a walk. It was too much. Too much.
“You can’t make me stay here. I can leave when I want.”
“You’re right. You can leave when you want, but...I want you to stay. The second you’re aboveground, Nina, you’ll regret your choice. Just...trust me? Please? Just a little bit longer. Can you stay with me a little bit longer?”
Tiny twin rivers dripped from my jaw onto my dirty shirt. I closed my eyes, but all I could hear was the dripping. The damn dripping. It wouldn’t stop.
“No,” I whispered. I ran for the door, and Claire and Jared grabbed my arms. With my full strength, I took one step after another, slowly but surely making my way to the doorway.
Claire grunted against my strength. “Nina, stop!”
Bex joined his siblings, grabbing both of my ankles and wrapping his feet around them. I could have broken free, but I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t want to hurt any of them, I just needed to be aboveground, to breathe fresh air and feel the sun on my skin. To hear my voice—just one time—without an echo behind it.
“Nina, look at me! Look at me!” Jared said, positioning his face in front of mine. “You have to stop. You’re going to get yourself killed, and the baby will die. Do you hear me? We’ll all die!”
I stopped struggling, and my body went limp as I sobbed on the ground against my husband. My focus on survival, irrational or not, had become a monster.
Claire and Bex took a step back with labored breath. I’d given all three of them a run for their money.
Jared stood and pulled me with him. “Okay?”
I nodded, watching him walk into the tomb. “I’m sorry.”
Chapter Twenty
Legion
I bolted for the top of the stairs, shoving the altar out of the way. I crawled out of the hole, squinting against the bright sun filtering in through the rotunda.
I took a deep breath, letting the warm, fresh air fill my lungs. I bathed in it, taking in every bit before Jared dragged me back underground. After a few seconds, the warm air went away, and the cold, dark feeling of the tomb surrounded me. Jared had barely let me take an entire breath before he’d forced me to return.
I opened my eyes and realized I was still in the Sepulchre. The room was full of shells, poised to pounce. I could hear Jared crawling up the stairs, yelling my name, but immediately I was attacked. I fought off one, and then two and three at a time. By the time Jared reached the top, I had already taken out half the shells in a fury of moves I didn’t even have to think about. A small woman threw herself at me, her arms flailing about. Jared incapacitated her with a single blow. Claire and Ryan reached the top, quickly followed by Bex, and the mob inside the Sepulchre quickly thinned. More filed in, though, and we were running out of room.
“Back up!” Jared commanded. “Back downstairs!”
The walls shook, and two large, dark forms squeezed their misshapen bodies into the entrance of the Sepulchre. They weren’t shells, but demons, large demons with gray skin and mouths full of teeth under moist snouts.
The one on the right grabbed Jared while the other took my shirt in one hand, and slammed my back against the opposite wall.
“Hey!” Kim yelled from the mouth of the stairway. “Get the hell out of here!” Even though the monsters stood two heads taller than her, she didn’t seem nervous in the slightest. The demons wailed at her, shielding themselves with their shoulders, but they didn’t retreat.
The demon that Jared fought barked at the black-eyed minions filing into the room, and before anyone could react, a half-dozen of the shells dove at Kim, pushing her down the stairway. Her scream faded as she rolled further underground.
Bex leapt in after her, and Claire and Ryan went to work on Jared’s demon.
I tried to rip my shirt to escape the grip of the brute, but his hands were gigantic, and I couldn’t break free. A shell in military fatigues slipped into the room, walked to me without hesitation, and held a pistol to my temple.
The demon holding me signaled his partner, capturing Jared, Claire and Ryan’s attention as well. In a move so fast I could barely follow, Jared pulled his sidearm from his belt and held it on the shell. The entire room froze.
“Don’t. Move,” Jared said.