A cold wave of panic fell over Nat like a tsunami – Gaisgeil was gone.

Not just gone from her side.

Gaisgeil was gone – from her mind.

Her breath came in fast and sharp bursts. Her chest ached. It was hard to breathe.

"Nat?" Justin walked beside her, their shoulders touching as they followed the nightmare blank-faced girl, the boy taking up the rear. They were being lead through the halls of a massive, dark mansion, the opulent size and gaping halls doing nothing to keep the claustrophobia at bay. "Nat!" he said again, more sharply.

"I can't feel her," Nat gasped. "I can't feel Gaisgeil."

"Nat," Justin hissed, "you gotta focus now ok? I need you to focus."

Focus. She couldn't. Not on anything but gaping, painful emptiness in her where Gaisgeil used to be.

The girl turned to face them. "Yes, focus please. We don't want you to miss the next phase of our victory."

Our victory. Whatever victory this girl thought was coming, it wasn't hers. It was the worms. The girl had lost whatever battle she'd fought, the blood staining her shirt was evidence enough of that. But the girl was no longer who she'd been before. The girl was one of them now, one of the Whole. A puppet moved and spoken for by a creature of evil. The girl who'd once been inside that body – she was lost somewhere in the dark now. In the dark with the Whole. Frightened and alone and not sure how to break free.

Just like Nat had been. Before she found Gaisgeil.

The girl lead them to a large dining room, a pair of empty plates on the long oak table, a couple of overturned chairs. And at the head of the table sat a boy – as blank of humanity in his gaze as the other two. But with an heir of confidence, of authority, that would have made Nat feel sick if she wasn't so worried about Gaisgeil.

There was a clicking on tile – the sound of massive claws, and Nat could smell the creature before thundered into the room like a mountain – the saber. The same one that had come for them in the fields.

The unicorn's absence was a throbbing, aching pain in the core of Nat's soul, and she doubled over, clutching her middle as her mind stretched and strained, trying to find where Gaisgeil had gone.

"Where is Gaisgeil?" Nat growled. "What did you do to her?"

A sound poured from somewhere deep in the saber's throat - like boulders through an endless canyon. Nat shuddered. It was laughter.

The girl turned. "Gaisgeil has undergone some...improvements."

Nat felt the words like a punch to the gut. Her worst fears realized. Gaisgeil had been changed. The Whole had taken her under again. And this time, Nat wasn't there with her, not there to help her navigate the dark, to pull her up to the light.

Not yet anyway.

She looked around the room, at the dead eyes of their captors, the impatient twitching of the saber's right ear. She knew what writhed and wormed inside all of their skulls, in the meat of their minds. The parasites.

She'd seen them, a long time ago at Second Chance Ranch. Seen their nests where they wriggled and slurped in a fluorescent mass of mayhem and evil.

She didn't see them now - but by the looks in the eyes of the kids and their sabers, she knew the nest couldn't be far.

Or worse.

The boy at the table watched her. His eyes had a flicker of something more than the others - a focus that burned into her. The way they all faced in his direction, the saber at his back. The boy was in charge here.

"You're him," she said, realizing.

The boy grinned, bemused.

"Him who?" said Justin. "Nat, what are you talking about?"

"Franklin," she said. "You're who we've been looking for."

"Not as hard as I've been looking for you, Nat Wick."

She shouldn't have been surprised he knew her name - she'd heard his whispered in the recesses of her mind where the Whole still echoed, the same place she heard Kayla's. But still she shuddered all the same. Because the truth was in his fiery glare - the boy that had been Franklin wasn't Franklin anymore. The Whole had taken control of him so completely. And of course they did. Nat wilted at the sight of him - what was he? 10? 11 years old? Nat had barely survived her last brush with the Whole. How could this child be expected to break free all on his own?

"Of course," the boy who had been Franklin went on, "not as hard as we've been searching for the other."

Justin stiffened.

Kayla.

"I must say, I am disappointed not to see her here in your company," said Franklin. "But no matter, you've brought us enough to work with."

The boy who had been Franklin looked Justin up and down as if evaluating a prize. He looked victorious, and Nat felt sick - she'd played right into their hands by bringing Justin here. Whether Justin and Kayla wanted to deal with it right now or not, the truth was Justin was her Andres. And if it were Andres in the clutches of the Whole, Nat would come for him.

"Then again," said the boy, "if Gaisgeil can be relied upon, perhaps we won't have need for this one in the end."

Gaisgeil.

Nat's breath caught in her throat. "You sent her after Kayla?" After Andres.

The boy nodded. "She has to prove her worth to the Whole."

The usefulness of Gaisgeil - her mighty, loyal Gaisgeil. Bile rose in Nat's throat. Gaisgeil was a monster, a maneater. What she could do to Andres if given the chance - Nat's knees began to quake. The room began to spin.

Justin put out an arm to support her weight, and turned frowned at the boy who had been Franklin. "What do you want with us?" he said, a tremor in his voice despite his best effort at bravery.

"Us?" the Saber laughed inside their minds. "A light snack of this one might be all he's good for."

The boy held up his hand for quiet and the Saber huffed.

"We want you to join us," the boy said. "To collapse into the Whole and meld your mind into ours. Become a part of our great victory."

Nat clung to Justin, an ache growing in the deepest meat of her brain. Justin couldn't hear it, couldn't know - but Nat could. The Whole - they were growing louder in her mind, practically vibrating with excitement and anticipation.

They were going to take her. And Justin. Take them both like they'd taken Gaisgeil. Pull them under into the dark where they'd be lost to each other and the world. Nat could hardly catch her breath, couldn't remember how to breathe.

And the boy who had been Franklin watched her panic with the realization, a smug grin spreading across his face.

And then he winced.

It was brief and it was subtle, barely a crease between his brow. And it was gone as fast as it had come.

But Nat had seen it.

"He's fighting you in there, isn't he?" she said. "Franklin. He hasn't given up. He's been fighting you this whole time."

The boy who had been Franklin frowned.

It was Nat's turn to grin. "You sure you want us finding each other in there?"

The boy who had been Franklin stood.

The buzzing in her brain grew, a shrieking drilling pain, and she fell back, crying out from the force of it.

"Nat!" Justin cried.

"There is no fighting the Whole," the boy said.

And as soon as he did, the pain in her mind was almost too much, her vision spinning and the world fading in and out.

Until the ground at their feet began to rumble, then quake, and Nat and Justin were tossed to the floor as the ground exploded and the worms -

Three of them -

They exploded from the earth like mountains for grey, juicy, slimy meat -

The size of them -

Justin screamed as the creatures rose up, breaking through the ceilings and walls, shattering the mansion to rubble around them -

The worms -

Massive, shrieking, tentacled, and eternal -

Screaming mouths like ancient caverns, endless rows of razored teeth -

The worms -

The impossible size -

And the Whole, frenzied and frothing inside Nat's mind -

The Queens had come.

The Queens were here to finish this.

And then they were taken from behind -

The guy and the girl that had taken them prisoner -

The girl wrapped her arm tight round Nat's neck, the boy locking Justin in his grip -

With their other hands they each held a fat, writhing worm, and Nat screamed.

And then the world, for both Nat and Justin, went dark.

A deep, impossible, consuming dark.

The dark that belonged to the Whole.