Chapter 93 Full Moon
Maddie POV
Jace came back at midnight exactly like he said he would.
I heard him before I saw him, soft footsteps down the corridor and then the quiet scrape of a key in the lock.
The cell door swung open and he stood there with his jacket on, his eyes moving quickly down the hallway behind him.
"We have four minutes," he said.
"Come on."
I stood up and followed him out without saying anything. My legs were stiff from the cold floor and the wolfsbane had left a dull ache behind my eyes but I kept moving.
We went left down the corridor and then through a narrow passage I had not noticed when they brought me in.
Jace pushed open a heavy door at the end of it and cold night air hit my face.
We were outside.
The grounds were dark and the trees at the edge of the property started about fifty meters ahead of us. Jace moved toward them without checking if I was keeping up and I stayed close because I did not have a better option right now.
We reached the tree line and pushed through into the forest. The ground was uneven under my feet and the darkness was thick between the trees but I could see well enough to keep moving.
Gory stirred faintly, still weak but more present than she had been in the cell now that we were away from the wolfsbane.
"This way," Jace said quietly and turned north.
I followed.
We had been moving for about ten minutes when Jace slowed down and glanced at me. "There's a car waiting about a mile out. We get there and we're gone before anyone notices."
"Gone where," I said.
"Silverthorn," he said. "You'd be safe there. My pack wouldn't touch you."
I stopped walking.
He turned and looked at me. "Maddie."
"You said you were getting me out," I said. "You didn't say anything about taking me to Silverthorn."
"Where else are you going to go?" he asked. "You can't stay here.
Hawthorne will come after you the second he realizes you're gone."
"That's my problem to figure out," I said. "Not yours."
He took a step toward me. "I'm trying to help you."
"You're trying to bring me back with you," I said. "Those are not the same thing."
He opened his mouth to say something else but I never heard it because right then the mark on my neck burned.
Not the usual low warmth I had gotten used to. This was sharp and deep, like something pressing hard against a bruise from the inside. I gasped and grabbed the nearest tree to stay upright.
"What's wrong?" Jace asked.
I could not answer him. The burning spread from my neck down through my shoulders and into my chest and I knew what it meant even through the pain.
Calix was in trouble. Whatever was happening to him right now was bad enough that the mark was pulling at me like a current.
I dropped to one knee and the pain spiked and then my body stopped being mine.
Gory took over fast, faster than she ever had before. I felt my spine shift and my vision blur, then everything went white and I was not in control anymore.
The transformation hit me like a wave and I could not stop it and I did not try.
When it was over I was standing on four legs in the dark with the cold ground under my paws and the forest air suddenly full of information. Every scent, every sound, every shift in the wind registered clearly in a way my human senses never reached.
Jace was backed against a tree about ten feet away staring at me with his mouth open.
I did not wait for him to recover. Gory turned us north and we ran.
The mark pulled like a compass needle pointing at something specific and we followed it through the trees, moving fast with the full moon cutting through the branches above us. I could feel Calix somewhere ahead, not close but reachable, and underneath the pull of the mark there was something else.
A wrongness in the air that got stronger the further north we went.
Then we heard voices. Low and flat, two of them, coming from somewhere just ahead. Gory slowed and we moved quietly through the last stretch of trees until we reached the edge of a small clearing.
There was a cave entrance cut into the rock face on the far side. Two figures in black stood just inside it with their backs to us. Between them on the ground was Calix, on his knees with his head down and his hands pressed flat against the stone like he was fighting to stay conscious.
Gory did not wait.
We cleared the clearing in seconds and hit the first figure before either of them could turn around. My claws connected and they went down hard. The second one spun toward us and I was already moving, driving them back into the cave wall with enough force that they crumpled.
Neither of them got back up.
The wrongness in the air snapped like a thread breaking and Calix lifted his head.
I shifted back without meaning to, the transformation reversing on its own the way it sometimes does after a surge like that. I landed on my hands and knees on the cave floor and stayed there for a second catching my breath.
Then I looked up at Calix.
He was pale and his eyes were unfocused but he was conscious and he was looking at me like he was not entirely sure I was real.
"Maddie," he said.
"I've got you," I said. "Can you stand?"
He nodded slowly, I got under his arm and helped him up. And we walked out of the cave together into the cold night air under the full moon.