Chapter 876
Skye tried to stand, but her knees buckled. The room began to tilt. The sound of the rain faded into a high-pitched ringing.
“How long?” Alistair grabbed Julian by the collar.
“Without the specific antidote, maybe an hour,” Julian said, panic edging into his voice. “We need to get her to the lab. Now!”
Skye looked at Alistair. His face wore an expression she had never seen on him before — pure, undisguised terror.
“Alistair,” she whispered. Her tongue felt heavy, like it no longer belonged to her. “My hand. I can’t feel my hand.”
Then the darkness took her.
The world came back in fragments. The beep of a monitor. The smell of antiseptic. The sensation of ice moving through her veins.
Skye opened her eyes. She was back in the safehouse medical bay. Alistair sat beside the bed, holding her hand so tightly it hurt. He looked as though he hadn’t blinked in hours.
We update every week on FindNovel.com
“Hey,” she croaked.
“Don’t move,” Alistair said softly. “The toxin — we slowed it down. Dialysis. But it’s binding to your cells.”
Julian was hunched over a microscope in the corner. “It’s a synthetic variant,” he muttered. “Highly advanced. I can’t crack the protein shell without the key.”
“We need Caleb,” Lucian said from the doorway. He looked haunted.
The large monitor on the wall flickered suddenly to life. Static hissed, then cleared.
A woman sat in a high-backed chair. She wore a black dress and a heavy lace veil that covered her face entirely.
“Hello, brother,” the voice said. It was distorted and metallic, but the cadence was unmistakable.
“Celeste,” Lucian whispered. He stepped forward, his hand reaching toward the screen.
“You look tired, Lucian,” Celeste said. “Guilt does that to a person. You watched me burn, didn’t you?”
“Give us the antidote,” Alistair snarled, rising from his chair. “Now.”
Celeste turned her veiled head toward the camera. “So impatient, Alistair. Always the protector. It’s sweet, really.”
“What do you want?” Skye asked, forcing herself upright. Her body screamed in protest.
“I want my life back,” Celeste said, her voice climbing in pitch. “I want the means to start over. I want the Sun’s Tear.” The Yellow Diamond.
“You want the stone?” Skye asked.
“Bring it to the Old Clock Tower at midnight,” Celeste commanded. “Come alone, Skye. Just you. If I see Alistair — if I see a single drone — I pour the antidote down the drain.”
“She can’t walk,” Alistair shouted. “She’s dying!”
“Then she better crawl,” Celeste said coldly. “Tick tock.”
The screen went black.
“We can’t give her the Diamond,” Julian said. “It’s one of the four keys to the Mastermind’s Algorithm. If she hands it to him —”
“I don’t care about the Algorithm,” Alistair said. “I care about Skye.”
“I’m going,” Skye said. She swung her legs off the bed. Pain shot up her spine, but she clenched her jaw against it.
“Skye, you can barely stand,” Felix argued.
“Inject me with adrenaline. Amphetamines. Whatever you have,” Skye ordered. “I am not dying in this bed.”