About the Dark Read Free

the way to the
middle of the room? The darkness whirled. Demi’s feet pounded on
the floor faster than bullets coming out of a machine gun.
    “Demi, wait!” I shouted. “Stop! There are
books here. You’ll trip. You’ll fall. You’ll break your neck
against the damn counter.”
    But she was already ramming into the books. I
heard her flailing her arms, trying to regain her balance. I heard
her choked breath when she must have realized she couldn’t. I
darted toward her, grabbing at the air, hoping I would catch her
arm or her shoulder, but I overshot. I was still groping in front
of me when Demi crashed into my side. She grabbed my neck, and I
rooted my heels, and somehow…somehow…somehow I held up.
    “Demi,” Sinna said, his voice tense, but
relaxing as he spoke. “I am glad I haven’t heard you fall down. I
am assuming you are fine.”
    By this point I was clean out of breath
because Demi stupidly kept on squeezing my throat. I thought she
was just in shock, so I tapped on her hand to tell her that hey, it
was high time she let me go. Only she didn’t. She was throttling me
for real. Panicking, I pulled on her hands, but they were stronger
than cement. I started to black out.
    Fox, as if intuiting something, announced,
“Well, Ever, you know I’d love to hear your voice. Just something
along the lines: ‘Dear Fox, I love you very much.’”
    I fought to make a sound, but my throat was
crushed between Demi’s fingers. I did, however, remember I had
fingers too, so I slapped on Demi’s arms as loudly as I could.
    Fox ripped off his blindfold. “What’s going
on?”
    He saw Demi strangling me, but before he
could move, Demi released my neck, and I fell in a heap on the
floor. I gasped for air.
    “Ever, you okay?” Fox ran toward me. “Ever,
what happened?”
    He glared at Demi as she removed her
blindfold, and she seemed unsure of what to say. I weighed possible
outcomes. If I told Fox the truth, he would try to kill Demi. She
would of course fight back, and Sin and I would have to join the
fray, he on Demi’s side and me on Fox’s, and all of us would get
hurt, and some of us might get murdered, and then whoever left
alive would still have to share this bookstore.
    I smiled. “Oh, I tripped on the books, and
Demi caught me.”
    “By the neck?” Fox squinted at me.
    “Well, she was blindfolded,” I said,
struggling not to sound all scratchy and raspy. “She couldn’t
see.”
    “Demi?” Fox asked. “Is that what
happened?”
    Keeping his eyes on the floor, Sinna walked
over to us and gave me my dress. I pressed it to my neck, hoping to
hide the bruises that must have begun darkening there.
    “Demi?” Fox asked again.
    “Yeah,” she said tentatively, then with more
certainty, “Yeah.”
    I nodded. “Well, congrats, Dem. You won.”
    But she shook her head. “No. You just
tripped. It doesn’t count. Let’s play again. I insist!”
    There was a ringing fury in her voice. And
hate. And rancor. And abruptly, I felt dead certain the people
who’d kept us here in hope we’d grow up to be their pet murderers
were going to be very pleased with Demi and very disappointed with
me. Because I wouldn’t survive the next game.
     
    More about Ever, Fox, Demi, and Sinna…
     

Into
the Blind (Excerpt)
    And the Queen of Hell will come to rule the Earth,
and everyone will love Her .
    —Delilah 6:66
     

Prologue: A Heart Child
    The black market was closing. The last sellers and
buyers clustered behind an out-of-business toy store in Brooklyn,
where the road smelled of trash and the subway trains that ran high
above the street rattled the loudest. There were no children for
sale at this hour. The last and least important bits of the day’s
tidings were hastily sold.
    “There’s been a dance kid born in Queens this
morning.”
    “Hell, who needs a child gifted in
dancing?”
    “But it’s right around the corner. And the
parents haven’t hired any security.”
    Monies changed