All of time seems to stand still. Her eyes meet with mine as a silent cry evicts from her throat.
“No.” She shakes her head furiously. “Please no. I have to live. I have to help my people. Logan—he was meant for me. Never for Skyla. I don’t know what she’s told you, but it’s all a lie. Chloe, you and I were meant for greatness. And Skyla—she stripped it from us. You have to believe me.” She lets out an agonizing cry. “Chloe, help me.” She holds her hand out to me as a choking sound emits from her.
The door bursts open, and both Marshall and Ezrina head this way.
“Oh, thank goodness,” Rory howls as she extends a hand to Ezrina. “She’s trying to kill me. She’s fed me somethingvile.” A cry evicts from her with that last word.
I lean in and pat down her damp forehead with my hand and watch as moisture beads on her upper lip.
“Rory”—I whisper her name sweet as a lullaby—“it’s time for you to leave and never come back. This body, this life, wasn’t meant for you. It was meant for me.”
Her lips quiver uncontrollably as she begins to shake.
“Help me, Chloe,” she stutters out the words. “We can have it all.”
“I will have it all,” I snap. “And I’m not Chloe,” I say. “I’m Skyla.”
Rory starts in on a violent seizure, and Ezrina shouts for Marshall to hold her down.
It’s really happening, Messenger,Chloe pants.Let’s hope you didn’t screw this up, too.
“God, I hope not.”
“Ms. Messenger,” Marshall barks my way as he does his best to steady her. “Are you ready to go home?”
“Yes.” I fall to my knees as I watch my body buck and writhe.
Ezrina pulls an assembly of vials from her bag and lays them out. “Her pulse is weak. She’s diminishing.” Her eyes meet with mine. “This will hurt only for a moment. Once you’re confirmed inside, I’ll start the relief efforts.”
Marshall leans in, bearing those fiery red eyes my way. “Not before you utter the safe word.”
“Yes, the safe word.”
Rory falls limp, and Ezrina looks my way. “She’s gone.”
Marshall clamps his hand onto my head and shouts something unintelligible in a language not my own.
Both Chloe and I let out a riotous cry, and something deep within this body I’m in snaps like the severing of a cord, and I’m lighter than air, floating right out of Chloe Bishop’s earthly frame. I stare down at my lifeless form, so disastrous, so beautifully broken.
And just like that, a strong pull vacuums me toward the floor, right back into the body fate had landed me in the first time around.
A horrific cry expels from me, followed by a sickly moan. Every last part of me is on fire.
Bad idea.
Very bad idea.
“Speak,” Marshall thunders over me. “The word, Ms. Messenger. Utter the word and the pain shall be no more.”
The word. I struggle to open my eyes, but another moan escapes me instead.
What the hell is the word?
It comes to me in a flash, and my lips fumble over it.
“Speak,” Marshall’s voice reverberates over my face.
“Butterfly.” The word comes out in less than a breath before a needle is injected into my arm and I’m forced to take a sharp breath.
