It was his voice, but his mouth didn’t move.
I squinted in confusion.
“Rummy.”
My vision snapped and blurred until a new memory replaced the old one.
Istood over my mother’s dead body, my hands far too small to be an adult’s. No, I was a child again.
This was not the first time I’d been exposed to death, but this was the first time I’d felt it.
My own magic.
The kind of magic that wasn’t supposed to exist in Midgrave. The kind of magic I wasn’t supposed to have.
I knew it was wrong the first time I felt it rush through my veins.
My mother was attacked by the hungry ones. She’d been bleeding, panicking. I was panicking, too.
All I wanted to fucking do was help. But the closer I got, the stronger the power coursing through me felt. I fell to my knees beside her.
“Mother,” I whispered. “What’s happening?” I held my hands over her body, but I didn’t touch her. Even more power fueled my veins like this. My senses ignited, flooding with intensity.
I couldn’t control it. I couldn’t stop it if I wanted to.
And I was too damn young to understand why I was feeling that way.
I should have helped her. I should have brought her back. All that love and fear, though, ignited something dark inside me. Something evil. Something monstrous.
The worst part? The part that would live with me every single night before I fell asleep? When she felt the touch of my magic, she actually trembled like she was terrified of me. Even my own damn mother knew I was made of something sinister.
I did not want to kill my mother, but my power needed an outlet. A single second passed, and that was enough to change my entire world.
I held my dead mother’s hand in mine, and I screamed.
And screamed.
And screamed.
“Rummy, open your eyes, dammit!”
Panic rushed through me. I tried very, very hard to forget about that day. To shove the memory into the locked box in the back of my mind.
And here it was, rushing to the surface and threatening to pull me under.
You’re safe, Rummy. You’re not there anymore.
I screamed again, though it sounded more like a defeated whimper.
But warm, tight arms embraced me from behind, squeezing harder. “It’s okay. I’m right here. I’m right here.”
I thrashed, fighting against his attempt at calming me, but it was no use. His body was an unmoving wall, a stable force dragging me back to reality.If only he knew. If only they all knew.
“You’re okay, Rummy. You’re with me at an inn. You’re safe.”
“Nowhere is safe.”My voice shook, but I squeezed my eyes shut in an attempt to escape this reality. In an attempt to make it all disappear.
“It was just a dream.” Jessiah’s arms tightened around my squirming body.
