Vicious Memories

Chapter 105

Beneath the waxing moon, Liam walked up to Bev again.

"We can figure this out in the lab. We'll take a blood sample and analyze it. Dr. Krieger can put together any antidote you need. But we have to move forward and clean up this mess."

"Enough," she snapped. "Dr. Krieger won't be able to fix anything. If Oliver says we won't find the antidote in time, we won't find it. I'll handle this without your interference, thank you very much."

Liam moved a step away. His gray eyes were full of resentment, but he held his tongue.

"I will not back down now," she said. "Tell me how to cure myself and I'll let you live. The others have their fate sealed already."

"I'd rather die with the rest of them."

"Is that so?"

I shrugged. "I know you aren't used to this, Bev, but I have the leverage now. It isn't up to you to negotiate. Either we all go free, or you die. There are no other ways this is going to end."

Bev scoffed, holding my green eyes with her light blue ones. I stared back as stoically as I could, refusing to blink. I wouldn't look away. Off in the distance the branches of the monkeypod tree let out a skeletal moan as the wind bent them sharply to one side.

Bev spun around without warning, her braided hair swinging wildly, a few blonde vines flying loose. She stalked off into the darkness, one of her guards directly on her heels.

The stars careened wildly overhead and I moved before I could second-guess myself, leaving the guards behind me and returning to where I belonged. They let me go. The villagers standing at the front of the group opened up a small space so I could walk into their midst. I looked around at the faces surrounding me, searching for residual signs of animosity or anger.

Someone grabbed my hands from behind and worked a cold piece of metal between them. Before I could so much as voice a question I heard a small snap and my wrists came free.

Arun held up the plastic binding with disdain. "Would've been much sturdier with a rope and a knot."

Cooper threw his arms around me and squeezed so hard I thought my ribs would crack. The rest of the village followed his example, approaching one by one to clap me on the back or kiss me on the cheek.

"I knew it."

Alice reached the front of the crowd and took my face in her hands, her skin warm on my cheeks. We looked at each other, and I noticed that the gold rings in the center of her irises had completely consumed the brown. It was mesmerizing, the way her eyes spoke to me, and I could have stared into them forever.

"I knew it," she repeated, stretching up onto her toes to kiss me.

A few people wolf whistled, and I smiled sheepishly.

"Now what?" Finn asked nobody in particular.

"Now we have to convince Bev to accept Ollie's deal," Gabriel said. "It's either that, or we die. I'm not sure what other form of justice we can get for everything else she's done."

"I'd rather die," Tana said, only half-sarcastically, "if it means taking her down with us."

I smirked at that, on the verge of saying more, but Cooper let out a shout from the edge of the group.

"She's at the monkeypod tree."

"Oh, hell no," Alice snarled.

She set off into the night, and the rest of us followed, swishing through the wet grass for what I knew would be one of the last times. The cabins that had witnessed so much skulked in the darkness around us, our caves a forgotten mass of planetary bones in the distance.