Chapter 26 · The Marriage Is the Key

Carson hit the tile floor hard enough to crack it.

I went down with him, one knee in a puddle of black station water, both hands locked around his face before his teeth could find somebody else's throat.

“Carson. Look at me.”

His eyes were still wrong. Too bright. Too wide. The pupils had gone thin and silver, and dark veins crawled up his neck under the blood smeared across his skin.

The hunter he'd thrown into the ticket wall wasn't moving.

Neither was the guy with half his shoulder missing.

Jonah stood three feet away with a gun he clearly didn't know how to hold. His hands shook so badly the barrel made little circles in the air.

“Is he back?” Jonah asked.

Carson's chest jerked under my palm.

Then he looked at me.

Really looked.

“Mia,” he said, and his voice came out rough enough to scrape.

“Yeah. Hi. You're still here.”

His gaze dropped to my hands. The black mark of our oath wrapped around both our wrists now, thin as ink under the skin. It pulsed once.