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Every va of blood

The energy inside her was literally tearing her apart in its frantic efforts to get to the energyreceptacle in the bronze lattice cage Venoripped Holly’s throat in a single powerful hand and squeezed hard, cutting off her blood flow Her body spas limp

A human would be dead

He was counting on the fact that Holly wasn’t huain expected to feel tore through him as he scooped her up into his ar her on aseat, he checked her pulse

Relief was a cold punch in his gut

She was alive, and the glow had stopped Itinside her needed her to be conscious to do what it had been doing Which meant its own consciousness wasn’t whole, couldn’t exist without being a parasite As with the pulsing horror in the crib, it isted and created of pieces It needed to use Holly as a host However, like an insect that erupted out of its host’s body after consu that body froet out

Leaving Holly on the seat, Venoive the sire every detail he could His gut told hi shouldn’t exist and wasn’t alive in any known sense, the rise and fall under its skin having only a superficial rese As he watched, that rise and fall pulsed and faded in randoedness, pulsed and faded Flickered

And he caught a hint of putrid green below the surface: decay

All details stored in hison his list and touched the bronze lattice directly It threw hiainst the wall, but he’d prepared for that outco enough to identify the power that had repelled hielic

He wouldn’t be getting through it

Which left hiet Holly out of here before she regained consciousness and the ain attempt to reconnect with this other piece of itself He also had to keep her away froure out a solution that didn’t end with Holly’s death

Because Venom wasn’t okay with that

Keeping an ear open for any sign that Holly was regaining consciousness, he went to the s around the turret to see if he could open one The ansasn’t good: as he’d thought earlier, the ere welded shut They were also designed so that slass would have no real ier than a bird to get through, while theframe itself was formed of thick metal

Michaela clearly understood that this unbeing could not be permitted to escape Why, then, did she allow it to exist? For power? Or had she loved Urah to hold out hope for his return?

None of that was important in this time and place

Only Holly mattered

Venom would have to take her out the same way they’d come in

He’d always liked a challenge, he thought grimly

Going back over the room, he made sure they’d left behind no trace of their presence It was evident that Michaela wasn’t mentally connected to the power lattice, else the roouards a minute after their entry After he’d confirmed that no drops of Holly’s blood lay on the floor to betray her, he picked up her body and exited the rooround and carefully relocked the padlock in the same position in which he’d found it

Getting Holly back into her jacket and zipping it up proved easy enough; he lare daggers at hi riposte Her pack was a problee of clothes in it now that her jacket was out So he eed to squash her e it on, he picked her up again and tried not to look at the purpling bruise around her neck

He’d done that

He, a h time to never become without conscience, to never treat woht have forsaken hirown up knowing it was his duty to care for, not harainst her hair before he started down the stairs