“Do you remember me?” he asks.
“Gabriel.” The single word takes everything I have left. The urge to close my eyes is almost overwhelming.
“Very good,deliciae. You’re safe here.”
“Nuh-huh.” I’m not safe anywhere. AURA will come for me. They’ll never let me go. They’ll force me to find the Blade. To use it. Shit. What if they can track the WCU? They’re part of the NSA. Of course they can track the WCU.
Panic lends me the strength to push him away. He backs up until he’s almost at the window, his hands raised. “I mean you no harm, Willow. Who—or what—is AURA? The man and woman at the church were hurting you, and I stopped them.”
He says it like he didn’t just piss off two people who will stop at nothing to get the power coursing through me.
I can feel the Blade’s call, even now. It’s far away, but the urge to find it—to possess it—is like nothing I’ve ever known before. Almost…musical. So soft and alluring, I ache for it.
If I stay here, Isaac and Hannah will find me. My only hope is to run.
“Don’t…follow me,” I manage and stumble for the door.
“Wait!” Gabriel calls after me. “What is the void? Why did they send you there? I can help, Willow!”
For a single heartbeat, I falter. He was so kind when we first met. But so were Hannah and Isaac. If Gabriel figures out what kind of power I can wield, he’ll want it too. I can’t trust anyone. Not until I find some way to destroy the Blade. And myself along with it.
The lightsof the Embarcadero blind me as I stumble out of Gabriel’s hotel. We’re nowhere near the cathedral or AURA’s lab. The brief spark of hope keeps me going. But for how muchlonger? And…where? I can’t go to my apartment. That’s the first place they’d look. UCSF, maybe? But I don’t have my ID, my phone, or any money. Hannah “took care of everything” when I agreed to move into the apartment above the lab. She went everywhere with me. To the coffee shop. The drugstore. Grocery shopping.
I filed for a leave of absence from the university. I told Anton I had to take care of some personal business and wouldn’t be reachable for a few months. Even if I had my credentials, they probably wouldn’t work.
How could I have been so stupid? I did everything Hannah asked without question. Why didn’t I realize what she was doing?
She isolated me from my entire life.
Barefoot, still weak from my time in the void, I fight against my rising panic. Ducking into an alley, I rest my back against the wall and close my eyes. But all I see is Hannah’s face.
When I tried to resist at the cathedral, she…snarledat me. Her eyes hardened—changed color, even. And her expression… She was so angry. It was like her mask fell away and underneath…was a monster.
Oh, God. “She’s not human.” But what the fuck is she? A witch?
I’m the worst kind ofOther.I don’t know anything about this world.
My whisper appears before me, frantic. She points to my neck, then hers.
“I know! They’ll turn it on again. They’ll send me back to the void. But what the hell am I supposed to do about it?” Sinking down until my ass hits the pavement, I start to cry.
She rakes her fingers down her neck, then stares at me expectantly. Can I really tear the WCU out of my body?
I tug off my sweatshirt and stare down at the four butterfly bandages closing the incision above my tank top.
As I pull off the first one, the tickle starts in my throat. “No! Not yet! They can’t…”
My whisper is as panicked as I am. Tears swim in her eyes. It’s only a dull hum. I still have time.
Except the power ratchets up several levels after I tear through the third bandage. My vision goes glassy. Across from me, my whisper screams silently into the night.
I claw at my skin, unable to wait a moment longer to get this fucking torture device out of my body. Blood wells under my nails. Too much of it. I can’t find purchase. It’s too slick, and the pain gets worse every second.
“Willow! Fuck me. Thank the Almighty above. You…”
Gabriel’s words are lost to my scream. The device is buried under layers of muscle, too deep for me to reach. Pure agony locks my limbs. My throat spasms.
“L-level…s-seven,” I stutter. In a few seconds, I’ll be back in the void. I can’t see my whisper. I can’t see anything. But I’m still here, because I can feel Gabriel laying his hand over the destruction I’ve waged on my skin.
