Who is the girl beneath the glass? Dig deeper.
“I can’t,” she cried, her voice a desperate plea upon the river breeze.
You must.
After I forced the glass from your hands, what did you feel?
She’d felt nausea squeezing her throat as the weight of the world pressed against her chest, making it nearly impossible to draw breath. Her bones would ache as the muscles forced them to move and support the weight of her body. Tears would well and fall from her bloodshot eyes, but the scream building in her chest was not from the pain or sorrow.
“Rage,” she whispered.
Rage at a world that condoned the torture of others for pleasure. A man who hid his weakness by hurting those smaller than him. And a woman who was too scared to fight for herself.
When her island was taken, the smallest of fissures formed at the base of her soul. When her sisters died, those fissures broke under the pain and pressure. With each bloody brawl and mental war fought against Tor, the cracks fractured and webbed further into the growing void.
All of the times she’d taken that rage and shoved it down so deep inside, Xia thought she was making it disappear. But wrath was malevolent and it festered like mortal wounds, seeping into those fissures and eating away at her soul until they were gapingvalleys of hatred and torment. Each swallow was a driving force into the wedge determined to shatter her.
It was then Xia realized that the monster standing on the black beach that night was one of her making. She let anger and hatred rot inside like a plague until it birthed the beast sleeping in her belly. Xia manifested her fury into a sentient being, and it was too hungry to let her go.
Who is the girl beneath the glass?
She let the discovery resonate and breathed until she was ready to take full responsibility for the evil she’d brought upon herself. She couldn’t control her circumstance, and she didn’t deserve the tribulations placed upon her shoulders. But Xia was the one in control of her actions and responsible for their fallout.
A responsibility I am eager to carry for the both of us.
The girl beneath the glass armor wore skin strong enough to live without it, and she would no longer hide behind a brittle illusion of strength. She would be fierce, and even the stars would quiver upon her reckoning.
He stared into the violet eyes of the only person he’d ever met more obstinate than Chaos and sighed.
“I’m going with you. You’re the walking cliche of ignorance and you won’t last a minute without me.”
“Be careful, Nyx. If you keep it up I might start to think you care about me.”
The intensity of her gaze faltered as her eyes turned down to the table. She recovered quickly, but Brooks caught the squeeze of her throat as she swallowed.
“What aren’t you telling me Nyx?”
Her eyes darted to his as the composure slipped back over her features. She watched him for what felt like hours, the silence heavy between them. When the tension was at its thickest, she broke the silence.
“I’m invested.”
“Invested?” He couldn’t stop his brows from disappearing underneath his hairline.
“Yes.”
Brooks stared at his opponent as he determined his next move in their battle of wills. Though he’d only known her a few days, Brooks had seen enough to know something was off. She’d never shut up this long.
Chaos probed the walls of her mind. The sour tang of guilt laid heavily on his tongue as tingles of anxiety ran down the tenuous connection.
She’s hiding something. Let me speak to her.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea–”
“When I met you, you were on an island far from home and playing games you had no business buying into,” Chaos spoke aloud. “What are you really up to Nyx? And don’t lie to me. I’ll know if you do.”
“Why does everyone keep saying that?” She murmured to herself. Her face hollowed as she sucked her cheeks, the wrinkles in her forehead deepening as she considered her next move.
“Someone threatened my family. Someone that Iknowwill be at the Freakshow. Powerless daemon like me don’t just get invitations to Olympian parties. This could be my one shot at making that threat go away and I will not let you stand in the way. Eternal being or not, I will escort you to the Freakshow or die by your hand fighting.”
