Chapter 192

Kade

My heart stopped a little after two in the morning.

I didn’t know that was what it was, at first. I only knew I was awake, all at once, flat on my back in the dark, with something closed round the inside of my chest like a fist. Not pain. Pain would have been easier. A grip. Cold and complete and absolutely still, and inside it, nothing. No beat. No sound in my ears. I lay there with my mouth open and my hand on my breastbone and waited for my heart to do the next thing, and it didn’t.

One. Two.

Then the fist opened, and my heart came back so hard it hurt. Slamming. Ragged. Too fast. I rolled onto my side and dragged in air like a man pulled out of the lake, and lay there, shaking, with the sweat going cold on my skin.

And then, before I could think, before I could even get my breath, something else happened.

The thing under my ribs lay down.

I felt it go. It had been awake for weeks. Climbing. Stretching. Turning over every nigh