Free Experiment in Terror 06.5 And With Madness Comes the Light by Karina Halle Page A

I was afraid of him,
because I was about to show him how a real mentally deranged
person behaved.
    “Guys!” Ada yelled. She then looked at Perry
nervously. “It’s okay, I invited him.”
    “Why would you do a stupid thing like that?”
Maximus said to her. Oh, I was so damn close to feeding him his own
dick.
    “Stupid?” Ada cried out, her hair flying.
“I’m not going to sit back and let you tie my sister to her
own bed, pretend you know what the hell is going on with her, and
then cart her off to a hospital tomorrow when we all know she’s
probably not going to be coming back!”
    As nice as it was to see Little Fifteen
acting so supportive of her sister—especially when I knew how
strained their relationship could be at times—she wasn’t my
concern. Perry was watching everyone, her eyes darting between the
three of us until they rolled back in her head and it slumped into
the pillow. She started to twitch. Oh Jesus.
    I took a few steps closer, wanting to touch
her, to hold her. This couldn’t be possession. This had to be
something else. “What’s wrong with her?” I asked.
    “I’d stay away if I were you, son,” Maximus
said, putting his arm out to stop me.
    Son? I bit down on my lip to keep from
saying something I really wanted to say and threw his arm off of
me. I went over to her and crouched down so that I was at her
level. Her head rolled back and forth, as if she was arguing with
herself inside.
    “She’s not well,” I said stupidly. Did she
even really know I was here?
    “No shit, Sherlock,” said Maximus.
    Her eyes opened for a second, looking at me
blankly. Just as I thought, they weren’t hers. They were brown.
“Did you notice her eyes are a different color?” I asked Maximus,
practically seething at his ignorance.
    He snorted. “What are you talking about? No
they aren’t, they’re just dilated.”
    I shook my head, fighting my anger. “Dilated
but the color around them is brown now. Perry’s eyes have always
been blue. Like the ocean on an overcast day.”
    Ada gasped. “Dex is right.”
    Of course I was fucking right. And I wasn’t
about to stand here and take this. I reached for the ropes,
starting to untie them, wincing at how raw her delicate skin was. I
swallowed hard, trying to keep focused and calm, to hold my
emotions at bay. I had to get through this, for both of us.
    “Dex, don’t do that,” Maximus warned. “She’s
tied up for a reason, not for sport.”
    “She’s not a fucking animal,” I grunted,
ignoring him.
    Suddenly, Perry raised her head. “I wouldn’t
do that if I were you,” she said in a quiet voice.
    I looked at her just as the last knot came
undone and our eyes met. I looked deep into her strange new soul.
She had to know I was here to help her, not to harm her. I was
trying to save her. “It’s me, Perry. It’s Dex.”
    She smiled at me. It was chilling.
    “ Precisely .” A depraved, gravelly
voice came out from her raised lips. Not her voice. Not even a
human one.
    Before I could even process what was
happening, she lunged forward out of the ropes and grabbed me by my
shirt. Her hands almost burned into me and the smell of sulfur
momentarily filled my nose before she flung me across the room. One
minute I was at the bed, the next I was thrown, landing on the
ground, pain shooting up from my shoulder.
    Ada was at my side but it didn’t matter
because Perry, that thing that was inside her, broke free out of
the rest of the ropes like Bruce Banner on crystal meth. She
leaped, fucking leaped , in the air and tackled me back to
the ground. I saw nails coming after my eyes and shut them hard
before she could get at them. She scratched at them anyway, the
skin growing wet with my blood, before she went after my throat,
wrapping her burning fingers around it.
    I couldn’t breathe. Whoever this was, she
was a hell of a lot stronger than me. Devastatingly stronger than
me. My heart beat hard as I struggled for breath, my limbs feeling
numb