“You are a sick asshole.” He’s struggling to stay calm. “You forced that poor woman to shield Sophie from me before you murdered her, didn’t you? You made it so I wouldn’t be able to read her clearly. That all I’d get from her is static.”
It all starts to click. Tricia Basswood must have been an Emotional. And Jonah must have focused on Sophie so much because he couldn’t read her.
“Aren’t you the clever one,” Enlilkian murmurs.
One of his minions, the one wearing Harou’s face, inches closer; Jonah immediately counters. Before I can even blink, it’s writhing on the ground, wailing. If this bothers Enlilkian, he doesn’t show it. In fact, his attention never waves from me.
I want to claw the rest of his decaying eyes out before I rip his existence apart.
“Don’t be like this, Jonah.” Sophie’s all false sweetness. “Not after everything we’ve meant to one another.”
I manage to lunge forward, but Jonah catches me before I can strike her.
This only makes Sophie laugh and laugh. “Gods, Chloe. You should have seen your face back in that office. He fucking puts a ring on your finger, gives up his brother for you, and you still think he’d cheat on you?” She tsks again. “Although, had he, you would have deserved it, you stupid cow. You did leave him behind, after all.”
I try to lunge at her again, but Jonah’s grip is viselike. And then Sophie is screaming dropping to the ground as she thrashes in pain while the Harou-Elder struggles to get up on its knees, what I can only assume as tears streaking its putrefying face.
“Don’t come an inch closer,” Jonah warns it.
Whatever he’s doing to Sophie slows to a stop, because she flattens her palms against the ground and shoves herself up. She wipes the tears from her face before hissing, “You have always been such an asshole, Jonah Whitecomb.”
Like he cares.
And then she bursts into laughter, like some kind of crazy person. “Bet you didn’t know Muses can occasionally manipulate emotions,” she sing-songs, pointing a finger at me. “Not as well as an Emotional, but well enough. Well enough to screw with somebody like you.”
I’m reminded of a time years back when Lizzie told me just such a thing. “It’s a little known fact,” she’d said, “but some Muses can attune themselves to a tiny bit of emotions from those around them, if they’re strong enough. It allows us to feed off of those feelings to help create a bond.”
But Lizzie had only mentioned sensing emotions. Muses can manipulate them, too? Did she manipulate me earlier? Make me doubt Jonah?
It doesn’t matter, though. I’m taking this bitch down. Because by the time I get ahold of her—
Wait. Something’s wrong. Something is very, very wrong. It’s too quiet all of a sudden. Too still.
“Enough, little Creator,” Enlilkian is saying to me. “It’s time to go.”
And yet, time stands still again, or at least slows way down, but not by my choosing. Because Enlilkian is grabbing my arm when I didn’t even see him move toward us, yanking me forward at the same time the incorporeal Elder that killed Kofi reappears, twisting one of its arms into a whip that strikes my husband right across his arms that just split seconds before held me tight.
I am hysteria, screaming like a wild banshee until Enlilkian’s grip crushes the bones in my arm below his fingers to fine dust. All of the oxygen in the room disappears without a trace as I collapse; he kicks me then, shattering my kneecap.
Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, nonononono. Jonah.
Another kick destroys my femur. I can hear it crack, and it’s weird, so weird, because I hear it, hear my bones shatter. How can they be so loud when everything else is so silent around us but my own earsplitting voice?