Chapter 30 · Shut It Before Sunrise

Vera had my blood in one fist and my wrist in the other.

Not all of it. Just the mark she’d ripped out of me.

It burned between her fingers like a little red animal trying to bite her. My skin was split open where it had been, and every beat of my heart sent hot pain shooting up my arm.

“Let her go!” Elias shouted.

His hand locked around mine so hard my knuckles ground together. He was half on the floor, half dragged toward the Gate, boots scraping uselessly over wet concrete.

The Gate kept pulling.

It wasn’t a door anymore. Not really. The old steel service entrance had peeled open down the middle, but there was nothing behind it except black depth and faces. Too many faces. Pale mouths. Blank eyes. People pressed shoulder to shoulder in a place that had no room.

And they were all looking at me.

“Nora,” Micah said.

His voice came from somewhere near the Gate.

I twisted around.

He was on his knees ten feet away, wrists wrapped in ghost hands. Thin gray fingers crawled over his throat, under his shirt, through his hair. His eyes kept changing.