Makayla’s heart pounded so violently she swore the creature in front of her could hear it. Her breath came fast, shallow, and yet the air around her felt thick, as if she was trying to breathe through water.
Gino was there. He had moved. She had seen the flicker in his eyes, the desperate, silent cry for help. He was still inside that body, still trapped beneath whatever this was.
And she was not about to let him go.
The entity—this thing that had its claws wrapped around her father’s very being—was smiling. A slow, patient smile, as if it already knew how this would end.
“He is mine,” it said, its voice a deep whisper that scraped against her skin like rusted metal. “There is no undoing what has begun.”
Makayla stepped forward. She didn’t care about the way the ground beneath her fel
