Chapter 6 · The Pact Shows Too Much

The knocking came again.

Harder this time.

It wasn’t from the apartment door. It wasn’t from the black crack tearing across Micah’s living room wall, either.

It came from behind my ribs.

I doubled over so fast my shoulder hit the coffee table. The thing snapped in half under me. Cold coffee splashed over my hand, dark in the candlelight.

“Nora.” Elias grabbed my arm.

“Don’t touch me.”

My voice came out thin and ugly. I yanked away, but the blood pact burned under the skin of my palm. His blood. Mine. That little cut from the ritual had healed hours ago.

The mark hadn’t.

Micah was still on the floor by the wall, wrists wrapped in those black chains. They weren’t metal. Not really. They moved when I looked straight at them, tightening and loosening like something breathing.

His face had gone gray.

“Get away from her,” he whispered.

“I’m trying to get you out,” I said.

“No.” His eyes found mine, huge and wet. “Not you. Him.”

Elias’s hand tightened around the knife at his side.

Vera stood near the busted front door, one boot planted in the entryway like she owned the whole building. Maybe she did.