The beeping of the heart monitor was the only sound in the room.
Zoey sat in a chair that had long since molded itself to the shape of her body, watching the slow rise and fall of her mother’s chest. Three weeks. Twenty-one days of this underground clinic, this fluorescent purgatory where ti seed to move differently than the world above. Twenty-one days of watching Alicia Winters breathe through a tube while poison worked its way through her system despite everything Dr. Yewon and the Sinclair family’s resources could throw at it.
Her mother looked smaller sohow. Diminished. The woman who had terrorized Zoey’s childhood with her booming voice and iron discipline now lay silent and still, her dark skin ashen against the white sheets. The feeding tube, the IV lines, the catheter, all the indignities of forced survival that Alicia would have raged against if she’d been conscious to witness them.
‘She looks so weak and soft for once,’ Inner Zoey observed quietly. ‘Even when she did that manipulative crying shit after whooping us, she didn’t look like this.’
Zoey didn’t respond. She’d done a lot of not responding lately. A soft rustle ca from the corner of the room where Tink had claid a small nest of blankets and pillows. The fairie hadn’t left Zoey’s side since returning from Dhara. She’d practically glued herself to Zoey’s hip the mont she’d learned what happened. Now she sat curled up, wings folded tight against her back, watching Zoey with those enormous worried eyes that seed too big for her tiny face.
“You should eat sothing,” Tink said softly. It was perhaps the twentieth ti she’d said it today.
“Later.”
“You said that three hours ago.”
Zoey’s jaw tightened. “Then I’ll eat later than later.”
Tink didn’t push. She never pushed these days, just stayed close, a small warm presence that refused to leave no matter how cold and distant Zoey beca. It should have been annoying. Instead, it was the only thing keeping Zoey tethered to sothing resembling sanity.
Her phone buzzed on the bedside table. She picked it up, scrolling through the ssages that had accumulated over the past few hours. Her friends had been relentless in their check-ins. Alexander and Lindsay worried sick about her absence, Joseph offering awkward but sincere support, even Peter and Jelena sending their regards.
Lindsay’s latest ssage was typically her: warm without being suffocating.
LINDSAY: Hey. Not going to ask how you’re doing because I know that’s a stupid question right now. Just wanted you to know we’re thinking about you. Alexander tried to bake cookies for you but set off the smoke alarm twice, so maybe be glad you’re not here for that. Love you. We’re here when you’re ready.
Despite everything, Zoey almost smiled. Almost. A separate thread caught her attention. Elizabeth Sinclair.
ELIZABETH: Everett is doing well. He wanted
to tell you he misses you but understands why you need to be there.
Zoey felt a twist in her chest at her brother’s na. Everett had wanted to stay, but she’d refused. Besides, she didn’t want him to see their mother like this for as long. So images you couldn’t unsee.
ZOEY: Tell him I love him. And thank your family again for everything.
ELIZABETH: You don’t need to thank us. You’re family now, whether you like it or not. The Sinclairs protect their own.
Another ssage arrived, this one from Coach Scott.
COACH SCOTT: The kids are asking about you. Dylan especially. He’s been training like a demon. Says he wants to make you proud when you get back. Don’t know what’s happening in your life right now and I’m not going to pry. Just know we’re all pulling for you.
Zoey’s throat tightened. Her students. The little monsters she’d trained to beco future champions. To them, their teacher had simply taken an extended leave for “family reasons.” The truth was so much worse. Her phone buzzed again. This ti the na made her sit up straighter.
THEUS.
She answered imdiately. Tink’s ears perked up. The fairie was one of the few people who didn’t know about Zoey’s daemon ally, and Zoey intended to keep it that way. Her magjistar friends would never accept a friendship with a daemon. So secrets were better kept.
“Protheus.” She kept her voice low, angling away from Tink slightly.
“Zoey.” His voice carried that particular blend of warmth and calculation that she’d co to recognize, genuine concern filtered through a mind that couldn’t help but analyze every variable. “How is she?”
“The sa. Stable but not improving.”
“I’m sorry. Truly.” A pause. “I need to speak with you about sothing. It’s... not pleasant news, but you need to hear it.”
Zoey glanced at Tink, who was watching her with open curiosity. “Hold on.” She stood, walking to the far corner of the room where the monitoring equipnt humd and beeped. “Go ahead.”
“The situation has escalated beyond my initial projections. Poison, the daemon who attacked your family, has undergone an evolution. She’s now a First-Grade daemon.”
“A Daemon King.”
“Yes. And she’s been systematically dismantling the Luminaurora Organization of Magjistars. Massacres. Destruction. Magjistars defecting to her cause or fleeing entirely.” Protheus paused. “What concerns
more is that she’s acquired sothing. A weapon.”
“What kind of weapon?”
“I don’t have specifics. My sources are limited. I’ve been careful not to expose myself or my people to her organization’s notice. What I do know is that it ca from sowhere within OM territory. A vault, perhaps. Whatever it is, she went to significant lengths to obtain it.”
“And you think this weapon is ant for .”
“I think Poison is many things: vengeful, ambitious, surprisingly strategic. But she’s not stupid. She knows you’ll co for her eventually. She knows she can’t match you in direct combat. Therefore, she’s preparing sothing that will neutralize your advantages.” A note of genuine concern entered his voice. “This weapon, whatever it is, is ant to stop you. Not slow you down. Stop you.”
Zoey was quiet for a long mont. In the background, her mother’s heart monitor continued its steady rhythm. Beep. Beep. Beep.
“I don’t care,” she said finally.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I don’t care.” Zoey’s voice was ice. “None of it will matter. She hurt my mother. She threatened my family. She’s going to die for that. I don’t care what she has or what she’s building or how many daemons and humans follow her. When I co for her, nothing she’s prepared will be enough.”
“Zoey...”
“I’m not being arrogant, Protheus. I know I’m not invincible. I know there are things out there that could hurt , maybe even kill . But knowing that doesn’t change anything.” She turned to look at her mother’s still form across the room. “So things are worth dying for. So people are worth dying for. And so debts have to be paid in blood.”
Protheus was silent for several seconds. When he spoke again, his voice had lost so of its usual smoothness. “I’ve calculated many possible futures for you, Zoey Winters. Paths where you beco a force for change this world has never seen. Paths where you bridge the gap between humans, magjistars, and daemons. Paths where you accomplish things I cannot even fully predict.” He paused. “Very few of those paths begin with you throwing yourself at a Daemon King who’s specifically prepared to destroy you.”
“Then maybe your calculations need adjusting.”
“Perhaps they do.” A long exhale. “I can’t stop you. I’ve known that since the day we first did business together. But I can ask you to be patient. To wait until we understand what Poison has. To let
gather more intelligence before you make your move.”
Zoey considered it. Really considered it, because Protheus had never steered her wrong before and his planning ability was beyond anything she could match. But then she looked at her mother, at the tubes and wires and machines keeping her alive, and felt that cold thing in her chest pulse with renewed purpose.
“I’ll wait,” she said. “Not because you asked, but because my mother needs
here. As long as she’s in that bed, I’m not going anywhere. But the mont she wakes up, or the mont she doesn’t, I’m going after Poison. And no weapon in the world will save her from what I’m going to do.”
“Understood.” Protheus’s voice was carefully neutral. “I’ll continue gathering intelligence. When you’re ready to move, I’ll have everything I can find.”
“Good.”
“And Zoey? For what it’s worth... I hope your mother recovers. Truly.”
“I know you do.” The line went dead.
Zoey stood there for a mont, staring at the phone in her hand. Then she turned to find Tink watching her with an expression that was equal parts worried and curious.
“Work stuff?” the fairie asked carefully.
“Sothing like that.” Zoey walked back to her chair and sat down heavily. “Nothing you need to worry about.”
Tink’s wings fluttered, a nervous tell she’d never quite managed to hide. “Zoey... I know you’re going through sothing terrible right now. And I know you don’t want to talk about it. But I’m here. Whatever you need. Whenever you need it.” She paused. “Even if what you need is soone to hit things with you.”
That actually drew a small smile from Zoey. “You’ve gotten pretty good at hitting things.”
“I learned from the best.” Tink’s expression softened. “She’s going to wake up, you know. Your mom. She’s too stubborn not to.”
“Yeah.” Zoey reached out and took her mother’s limp hand, feeling the faint pulse beneath papery skin. “She really is.”
They sat in silence after that. Zoey holding her mother’s hand, Tink keeping her quiet vigil in the corner.
…
The morning shift arrived. Nurses checking vitals, Dr. Yewon making her rounds, the subtle increase in activity that marked the transition from night to day in this windowless world. Zoey accepted the breakfast tray soone pressed into her hands and ate chanically, tasting nothing. Tink made approving noises from her corner.
Her mother’s condition was stable. That was what they kept telling her. Stable but unchanging. The poison had done its damage; now it was a question of whether her body could repair itself or whether the coma would beco permanent.
Zoey thought about Poison. About the daemon who had done this. Who had invaded her ho, threatened her family, slashed her mother’s throat with venomous claws. She thought about the army Poison was building, the weapon she’d acquired, the systematic campaign of destruction she was waging against the OM. And she felt that cold thing in her chest, the part of her that lived for violence, that craved combat, that had been dormant these past weeks, stir to life.
‘When the ti cos,’ Inner Zoey whispered, ‘we’re going to tear her apart. Slowly. Painfully. We’re going to make her understand exactly what she took from us.’
Zoey didn’t respond. But she didn’t disagree either. For now, she would wait. She would sit by her mother’s bed and hold her hand and pray to whatever gods might be listening that Alicia Winters would open her eyes. But when her mother woke up, or when she didn’t, Zoey would leave this clinic and return to the world above. And then there would be a reckoning.
Across the city, in a warehouse that had been transford into a military headquarters, Poison reviewed the latest intelligence reports with cold satisfaction. Everything was proceeding exactly as planned. The OM’s response to her systematic attacks had been predictable: defensive, fragnted, politically paralyzed. Their patrols were stretched thin trying to protect too many locations at once. Their leadership was more interested in assigning bla than coordinating counterasures. And their greatest potential weapon against her, Zoey Winters, had vanished entirely from the public eye.
That last point was the most interesting. The human girl who had humiliated her at the warehouse had disappeared. No sightings. No attacks. No dramatic confrontations. Just... silence. Poison didn’t know where Zoey was or what she was doing. She didn’t particularly care, either. What mattered was that the girl wasn’t interfering with her plans. Perhaps she was recovering from so injury. Perhaps she was dealing with personal matters. Poison had, after all, killed her mother. Slit the woman’s throat with venom-coated claws and watched her bleed out.
A small smile touched Poison’s lips at the mory. The look on the mother’s face when she’d realized what was happening. The futile struggles as the poison took hold. The satisfying finality of it all. Zoey Winters would co for her eventually. That was inevitable. The human girl was nothing if not predictable in her attachnts, her loyalties, her pathetic need to protect the weak and punish those who threatened them. She would erge from wherever she was hiding, burning with righteous fury, ready to avenge her dead mother. And when she did, Poison would be ready.
Poison’s hand moved unconsciously to the mahna-shielded case at her hip, the case containing the Oubliette. The crystal sphere that could seal anything in a pocket dinsion. Her insurance policy against the day when Zoey Winters finally ca for her.
“The human girl is powerful,” Webb observed carefully. “Perhaps the most powerful being any of us have ever encountered. Are you certain the Oubliette will be sufficient?”
“The Oubliette doesn’t care about power. It doesn’t asure strength or speed or skill. It simply... contains. Sixty seconds of activation ti, and even Zoey Winters will be trapped in a pocket dinsion where her fists can’t reach anything.” Poison’s smile was thin. “The challenge isn’t the weapon. It’s ensuring I survive long enough for the weapon to work.”
“Hence the contingencies.”
“Hence the contingencies.” Poison stood, moving to the window that overlooked the warehouse floor below, where daemons and humans worked side by side, building sothing that had never existed before. “Zoey Winters will co for . Not today, not tomorrow, but soon. She’s probably licking her wounds sowhere, mourning her dead mother, gathering her strength. But that won’t last forever. When she erges from whatever hole she’s hiding in, she’ll be looking for blood.”
“And you’ll be ready.”
“I’ll be ready.” Poison’s erald eyes reflected the activity below. “Every variable accounted for. Every possible outco prepared for. By the ti she reaches , the fight will already be over. She just won’t know it yet.”
Webb nodded and withdrew, leaving Poison alone with her thoughts and her plans and the crystal sphere that humd with contained emptiness at her hip. Sowhere out there, Zoey Winters was waiting. Hiding. Growing angrier by the day. Let her. Let her co when she was ready. Let her bring all her monstrous strength and her killing intent and her righteous fury. Poison would be ready. And this ti, she wouldn’t lose. Ethan… Will be avenged…
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