My chest constricts.
He presses his ear to the cold steel, eyes narrowing. “There’s something. Quiet. Like humming… or breathing through fabric.”
We look at each other once. That’s all it takes.
Guns raise. Muscles coil. Emerson’s hand tightens on the knob.
I whisper, “On three.”
But he doesn’t wait for three.
The door slams open and we barrel inside, ready to take out anything that moves.
Then we stop.
Because nothing moves.
And everything bleeds.
The room is a slaughterhouse. Blood coats the walls in glossy streaks. Bodies sprawl across the floor in mangled heaps, throats open, limbs bent wrong, eyes glassy. The copper tang is choking, thick enough to taste.
For half a second, I think we’re too late.
Then something shifts.
A figure snaps upright in the back corner, blade glinting, stance ready to kill the next thing that twitches.
Berk.
She’s soaked in blood from brow to boots, hair matted to her face, pupils blown wide with adrenaline. She looks like vengeance carved out of bone and hunger. A feral snarl curls her lips.
Then her gaze locks on us.
Recognition snaps through her features. The snarl melts into the brightest, wildest smile I’ve ever seen, teeth sharp and victorious.
She sprints.
“Berk—!” I only get her name out before she launches herself at me. I barely manage to catch her as she slams into mychest, momentum knocking me backward onto the blood-slick floor. Rowan and Emerson rush forward, hands everywhere, touching her like she’s a ghost they’re trying to prove solid.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Rowan breathes, staring around. “What the hell happened in here?”
“What didn’t happen?” Emerson mutters, scanning the carnage. “There are… holy shit… are their dicks out?”
Berk pushes up on my chest, grinning with pure mischief. “Don’t worry,” she says, voice sugary sweet through the gore. “I didn’t touch any of their dicks. I pinned them down with another knife, so I didn’t have to use my hands.”
Rowan follows her pointing finger—then doubles over laughing so hard he nearly drops his gun. Because every single corpse was given the signature treatment.
Octopus hotdogs.
Bloody. Carved. Ridiculous. Horrific. And goddamn Berk.
He wheezes between laughs. “You made octopuses. Out of all of them. Every… single… one.”
She shrugs innocently. “They deserved it.”
I grip her jaw gently, forcing her eyes to mine. “Are you hurt? We heard you screaming.”
“Oh, that?” She waves it off as if she tripped on a rug. “I had to cover their screams with mine. Didn’t want whoever was outside getting suspicious.”