All Chapters of The Debt of the Virgin Widow: Chapter 111 - Chapter 120

You're not supposed to be here."The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them. I stood on the edge of the salt-sprayed cliff, my boots sinking into the damp Portuguese soil. Dante stood ten paces away. He looked like a man who had walked through hell and forgotten to brush off the ash. His single arm hung at his side, the sleeve of his heavy coat fluttering in the Atlantic gale."I don't know where 'here' is."His voice was a low, guttural vibration that bypassed my ears and went straight to my marrow. He didn't look at me with the calculating gaze of the Butcher. There was no tactical analysis in his eyes. Just a raw, animal recognition."How did you find us? I burned every bridge. I sank the tablets. I left you in the rubble.""I didn't follow a map." Dante took a step forward. His boots crunched on a cluster of dried hydrangeas. He tapped his nose. "The scent. It’s in the marrow. You, the boy... you smell like ozone and rain. I could find you in a vacuum.""You don't

"Move, Leo! Into the dark! Now!"The white pup didn't bark. He didn't whine. He simply vanished into the throat of the volcanic tube, a streak of pale light against the jagged black basalt. I scrambled after him, my boots slipping on the slick, porous rock. Behind me, the heavy thud of Dante’s uneven stride echoed against the cave walls. The air in here was thick with the smell of sulfur and ancient, rotting earth."They're right behind us." Dante’s breath came in ragged, wet hitches. He leaned his weight against the entrance, his single arm trembling. "I can hear the boots. Too many of them.""You shouldn't be able to hear anything over the surf." I grabbed his shoulder, pulling him deeper into the throat of the mountain. "Unless your ears remember things your brain doesn't.""My head is a hive of static, Bianca. But my skin... my skin is screaming." He looked back at the sliver of grey Atlantic light dying behind us. "They have thermal scanners. These caves won't hide our heat for l

"Wake up, Queenie."The voice rattled against the glass. I didn't open my eyes. My head was a drum being beaten by a ghost. Every pulse sent a spike of white light through my brain. I tasted copper. Old, dried blood. I shifted my weight, and the cold bite of a metal floor met my skin."I know you're awake, Bianca. The vitals on this screen don't lie."I forced my eyelids open. The world was a blur of sterile white and clinical blue. I was in a box. Four walls of reinforced glass, three inches thick. I tried to sit up. My right arm gave out. I looked down. A heavy plastic brace locked my wrist to my thigh."Where is he?" My voice was a dry croak. It hurt to speak."Which one? The Butcher or the brat?"I turned my head. The movement was a mistake. Nausea surged in my throat. Across a narrow, steel walkway, another glass cell hung from the ceiling.Dante.He wasn't sitting. He was chained. Heavy, industrial shackles held his single arm high above his head. His feet barely touched the flo

"Open the door, Miller, or I’ll paint this deck with your teeth."Dante’s voice didn't sound like a man anymore. It was a low, vibrating growl that seemed to come from the floorboards. Across the steel walkway, he was a silhouette of violence. His hand—the one missing a thumb—was a mess of shredded meat and white bone, yet he gripped the pulse-rifle with a terrifying, steady strength."Stay back! I’m warning you!" Miller scrambled away from the monitors. He held his sidearm with both hands, the barrel shaking. "The ship is going down! We have to get to the pods!""The pods are for people." Dante took a step forward. His bare feet left bloody, tacky prints on the metal. "You aren't a person. You’re a target."K-boom.A massive shudder rocked the ship. The deck tilted ten degrees to the starboard. I slammed against the glass wall of my cell, my shoulder screaming as the plastic brace jerked my arm. Outside the monitors, a massive, black-furred limb—twice the size of a man—smashed throug

"Don't you fucking dare die."I gripped Dante’s collar. My knuckles were white. The water was a freezing, oily weight against my chest. We were in the secondary corridor, a narrow steel throat that was rapidly choking on the Atlantic. Behind us, the brig was a soup of debris and drowned guards. Ahead, the only light came from the flickering emergency strobes of the escape trunk."Leo! Grab the railing!"The boy didn't move. He floated near the ceiling, his face pressed into the last two inches of air. He wasn't crying. He wasn't even breathing right. His skin was turning that sickly, translucent green again."The cage, Mommy. It's... it's humming."I turned. The dampening cage Miller used—the one that had held my son—was wedged against the bulkhead. It was mangled. The blue electrical arcs were gone, replaced by a low, rhythmic thrumming. The bars were thick, industrial-grade steel."I've got you." I lunged for it.The lock was jammed. The impact of the ship hitting the ocean floor ha