“Yet,” Janvier said, “I’ve heard other hunters say you saved their lives by warning them to take extra weapons or backup when the intel suggested no need for either.”
“That’s different. I know things now and then.”
“And there are no nightmares? You pay no price for this knowledge?”
Ashwini couldn’t hold his gaze. Because there had been dreams before each of her warnings to fellow hunters, dreams that had left her soaked in sweat, her heart racing so hard and fast that it had caused physical pain. “Stay,” she said, her trust in him so deep, it was a part of her soul. “If . . . if it looks like I might start screaming, haul me away.” It was her secret horror, that the madness might suck her under before she even knew it was there.
“Have I ever left? Hmm?” A slow smile that made her heart ache. “Even when you wished me to perdition. Or was it to a bog infested with leeches?”
“No, I’m pretty sure it was a pit filled with fresh elephant dung.”
“Ah, we must be clear.” Another kiss to her knuckles.
Centered by the playful interaction, she clenched her fingers on his and then she reached out with her other hand and closed it with infinite care over the exposed part of the victim’s arm.
Again, the impact shoved into her like an ice pick to the brain. Every second of the terror and the pain the victim had endured, all of it concentrated into this agonizing and brutalizing force. Feeling her hand clamp down on Janvier’s while remaining gentle on the victim’s arm, Ashwini tried to see through the shriek of it but it was too viscous, too loud.
A bead of sweat formed on her temple, started to roll down. Her stomach threatened to revolt. Stifling the urge with sheer effort of will, she shuddered and thought of Janvier, of the hunt through the bayou that had left her sticky and bad tempered and bitten by what felt like a thousand mosquitoes, forget about the other bugs.
The visceral memory cleared a pathway through the rage of screaming emotion, a thin ribbon of a road that was a verdant moss green. It didn’t stop the panic, the horror, but the emotions formed a curving wall of terrible ugliness on either side of the road now, ready to smother her again should she falter in her will. Sucking in shallow breaths of air, Ashwini stepped on the road, followed it down . . . and then she was falling in a gut-churning spiral, the evil baying at her, mocking her.
Ashwini slid out one of her knives. No one was ever again going to imprison her. Slicing the howling darkness to shreds, she stepped out and . . . “Oh.”
The woman who lay so motionless on the hospital bed was not as she was now, but as she must’ve been: that stunning face with its unique beauty, of medium height and curvy, with silky black hair down to her waist.
“Hello,” Ashwini said. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“We don’t have much time. I’m going.”
“No.” Ashwini reached out, took her hand. “You’ll make it.”
The woman’s smile was sad and resolute both, her shoulders firm. “No, I don’t want to stay, don’t want that life. I’m not what he made me.”
Thinking of the shell on the bed, her bones as fragile as a bird’s, her heart a flutter beneath Ashwini’s touch, and her eyes hollow, Ashwini understood that this woman would never again live, even should her body survive. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” The victim’s fingers grew thinner . . . No, they were fading. “Not enough time.”
“Tell me his name.” Ashwini fought to hold on to her for another heartbeat. “The one who hurt you.”
“I don’t remember.” No distress, as if she’d traveled beyond that. “It’s already gone. I know my name. Lilli Ying. I have a mother, a father. Please tell them I didn’t suffer.”
It was a lie, but a lie Ashwini would speak as if it were the truth. “I promise. Can you tell me anything about the person who hurt you?”
“The first monster wanted to cause us pain. It gave him sexual pleasure.” A flicker of fear pierced the peace, was quickly erased. “But then . . . then the other one came, and it was worse.” Her features faded, her voice a faraway whisper. “The other one had wings. And he drank my life from me.”
“Wait, don’t go!” Ashwini felt as if she were attempting to hold on to a wisp of air, a streamer of mist. “I need a trail to follow to find the monsters. Something. Anything!”
The echo of the victim tilted her head, looked at her a little blankly. But then she said, “It smelled like peanuts, where they kept me. Strange. Made me want peanut butter muffins. Peanuts. Such a big place that smelled of peanuts.” The air dissipated, the words less than a memory of thought. “I have to go.”
“Where?” Ashwini asked, the question one that haunted her after all the screams she’d touched in the world, all the pain she’d witnessed. “Is it a good place?”
Her only answer was a piercing beep that shattered the world into a million sharp, glittering shards.
• • •
Janvier easily took Ashwini’s weight when she staggered back from the bed. Alarms sounded from all around them, the heart monitor showing a flat line. But the woman on the bed . . . she had a smile on her face, a final muscle movement made the instant before the alarms shrilled into high-pitched panic.
Holding Ash as the doctors rushed back in, he heard her whisper, “No, let her go,” in a voice so hoarse, he only heard it because her breath kissed his jaw on the words. “She wants to go.”