I didn’t know how much longer before she’d wake but I already felt the effects of the painkiller. Marcus never told me how he’d come across such a miraculous medicine as the Cryolyt pill. And I’d never dared take one—even on the days I’d screamed for the pain to stop—hoarding them for the day I escaped.

But now?

Now, I finally knew what they felt like.

Heartbeat by heartbeat, ice-water flowed through my veins, snuffing out the constant fire from the vitalsync core and removing the throbbing punch of being stabbed. As the numbing fog worked through me—steadying my breath and keeping me alive—a strange kind of strength unfurled beneath it. A strength that felt as if it came from my very bones—a power that hummed and thrummed, familiar but also foreign...mocking me as if it’d always been there just hidden.

The guards continued to bark into their walkie-talkies, throwing panicked looks at the gate as if praying Marcus would appear any second and take charge.

Shifting under Whisper’s towering bulk, I caught the cat’s eyes as my hand strayed to the dagger in my chest.

I’d wanted to keep it in for visual purposes. To make them panic and take me to the hospital. But these bastards were too well trained or too scared of repercussions, so...I would pivot.

Gritting my teeth, I wrapped my fingers around the hilt and tugged.

A flash of searing pain cut through the foggy numbness of the pill, but I ignored it.

I kept pulling, wincing at the sickening sensation of it coming free from my body. I groaned as I tugged it the final way.

The guards spun to face me, horror on their faces as fresh blood drenched my shirt, glossy and thick even on black fabric in the rain. “What the hell are you doing?! Stop it. You’re bleeding. Shit, it’s everywhere!” They rushed toward me but wheeled backward again as Whisper opened his jaws and roared.

“Don’t move, alright?” James panicked, raking a hand through his dripping hair. The fact that no one had shot Whisper was a testament to how afraid they were of me. How afraid they were of my blood...even if I was bleeding out before them.

“Mr. Ward is almost here. J-Just...wait. We’ll get you sorted. Just...fuck, don’t die.”

If Marcus was almost here, that meant I had to hurry.

Because the games weren’t over yet.

And once they were, I wanted to stand on a hilltop of their corpses, not look out from behind prison bars.

That left only one option.

Slaughter my way out.

Chapter Six

IT WAS EASIER THAN I THOUGHT it would be to stand.

As the Cryolyt’s numbness kept my pain at bay, that strange power kept building—granting life to my seized muscles. Chills darted down my back as I climbed slowly and unsteadily to my feet.

The world spun.

My chest ached.

But...no pain.

“Mr. Ashfall!” James shouted. “Stay down! You’re bleeding! Stay the fuck down.” He tried to get to me, only for Whisper to slash a claw-tipped paw in warning.

Parrying backward, he yelled, “Why the hell did you take out the knife?! What if you die before we get you treated? What if—”

“Quiet.” I shook my head, unnerved at the strangeness of feeling nothing, the oddness of feeling something else beneath. “Your shouting is so annoying.” Straightening my spine, I brushed down my blood-soaked shirt as if preparing for a board meeting, not a rampage.

James’s eyes popped as the three other guards cursed and danced on the spot with panic. “How are you even standing?!” James choked. “You’re killing yourself.” Pointing at Rook passed out by my feet, he added, “S-She stabbed you. Why is she unconscious and you’re...somehow not?”

The Cryolyt pill continued to strengthen and numb me, spreading out like a blizzard through my blood.

The surgical erasure of pain was suddenly my most favourite thing in the world.

And I was officially done with his questions.

“Whisper...” I flexed my blood-covered fingers, glancing at my predator friend.

The panther froze, his whiskers flaring as if he could smell something different about me—as if he could see the steam billowing through my veins as the pill shovelled snow onto the remaining fires within.

Through some unspoken bond that’d formed over years of sharing a life together, Whisper understood exactly what I wanted.

I arched an eyebrow in the guards’ direction and his lips pulled back in a murderous snarl.

All it took was a nod.

With a roar, he launched forward—a blur of black muscle and death.

With a single lope, he flung himself onto the three huddling guards as if they were made of kindling. Two went down. One staggered into a run. And James—the guy who used to help the nurses strap me to the chair and forcibly take my blood when I was younger—met my eyes for a single, terrified heartbeat before Whisper left the guards he’d bowled over and pounced like a sinuous shadow.

James went to scream but gurgled instead as sharp fangs punctured his throat.

Whisper growled with his mouth full, letting every savage instinct come out to play.

It wasn’t a clean kill.

James scrambled and clawed at the beast, falling onto his back as Whisper pinned him to the wet grass. He kicked and thrashed. He squirmed and punched...but it was no use.

Cartilage gave way with a wet crack. Blood spurted as sharp teeth found an artery.

With a vicious shake of his head, Whisper tore through tendons and windpipe all at once.

James’s arms fell to the side as he died, wide and upturned, rain puddling in his slack palms. Blood poured out in thick choking spurts as Whisper spat out a mouthful of gore then sprinted after the other guards.

They didn’t get far.

It looked as if the panther grew wings as he pounced onto an older guard, all four paws shredding his back as he drove him face-first into the ground. Claws pinned him down, teeth sinking into the back of his neck as Whisper dispatched him as easily as murdering an unlucky antelope.

The other two men screamed and ran as fast as they could.

A streak of bloody midnight galloped after them.

Leaving Whisper to have fun, I headed to James’s corpse.

Dropping to my haunches, ignoring the quick blackout of my vision, I blinked away the spots and popped the clasp on his holster.

I palmed his gun.

The weight of it took me by surprise. The deadly feel of a machine designed to deliver death. I’d never held one, but I’d read enough novels to know the one thing that got everyone into trouble was not removing the safety.

Scowling, I inspected the weapon.

Safety.

Where exactly was—

“Ah.” My thumb found a small switch. I flicked it. And just to be sure, I aimed into the sky and squeezed the trigger.

The BANG almost blew out my eardrums. The kickback sent my arm jerking.

The two sprinting men looked over their shoulders, running wild and messy with Whisper taking his sweet time hunting them.

I’d never shot a target, let alone a moving one, but...there was a first time for everything.

Whisper went to leap onto the back of the slowest guard, but I whistled, stopping him mid-leap. “Come here.”

Instantly, the panther swivelled in the air and raced back toward me. Out of range. Away from my likely terrible shot. Only once he was safely by my side did I open fire.

Bang, bang, bang, bang.

I emptied the magazine.

Most of the bullets missed, but enough landed.

The men’s legs stopped working as blood bloomed, fireworking from their backs with red mist.

Their screams cut off as they tumbled.

And as I fired the last round—watching with mild curiosity as they transformed from alive to dead—Rook finally chose that moment to wake up.