I smell smoke. The scent draws me out of sleep, from the longest nightmare I’ve ever endured. But I’m waking to something far worse.

Paul, his mouth spewing blood, his eyes dull. He looks at me and says, “Metis, you’re a beautiful boy.” And then his head falls against my shoulder. His heart stops. My arm is in his chest, my hand out through his back.

I scream but I can’t hear my own voice.

I am a ghost. I am not here.

I pull myself free from him, watch him fall to the ground, lifeless.

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My body revolts against me, and I feel him in the back of it still screeching at me that his fun isn’t over and that he’ll break free again. But I can barely hear that, now. I fall over Paul’s body, tears burning my face.

Everything burns, everything hurts. Someone grabs my shoulder and it is like a knife in me. I scream at them to let me go. I scoop his body up, my father, my father. I rocket into the night sky, toward the red horizon, the Smiling Tower. It’s the only place left for me to go. I shift my momentum and fly until the blood rain hits my face.

The world is red now, it is red in the ground and red in the earth, and I find my way to the tower. I bring his body to the walls, and it’s there I see her, pale and monstrous, beautiful and ethereal.

Carnality looks down at me in pity, her red lips quirked in sadness.

“Please,” I pray. “Please kill me.”

END OF BOOK ONE