Chapter 30 · Echoes of the Dead

"Who the hell are you, Julian?"

Sloane didn't shake, but her grip did. She had me pinned against a jagged slab of obsidian, her boots skidding on the shifting ash of the Dead Zone.

I couldn't breathe. The air tasted like ozone and old graves. "I don't... I don't know what that thing meant," I choked out. "Sloane, look at me. I'm the same guy who's been fixing your head for weeks."

"The same guy whose name was written in the Book of the Dead two hundred years ago?"

She tightened her hold, fingers digging into my bicep. Her eyes—usually cold, calculating—were wide with horror. And betrayal. "You're not some washed-up shrink. You're an anomaly. A ghost. A lie."

I tried to pull away. She slammed me back against the rock.

Hard.

Wind knocked out of me. We were chest to chest, heartbeats hammering in a wild, desperate rhythm. I could feel the heat of her through the armor.

"Get out of my head," she hissed, face inches from mine. "Tell me the truth before I decide it's easier to let the void take you."

"I can't tell you something I don't know!" I yelled. My voice cracked.