But I didn’t.
I didn’t want to be rescued anymore.
“What if you could go back, Anna?” Eiryn asked flippantly.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “You know it’s not safe, and I’ll never understand what’s happening to me.”
“Well,” he said, his index finger and thumb gently strumming his chin. “What if there was a way? A way for you to be safe from yourself and rest assured everyone around you was safe too?”
I stared at him.
What was this? Was my mind fucking with me? Was this some drug-induced hallucinogenic crucible meant to break us? It didn’t matter. Ultimately, none of that was why I came here.
It was true that I felt like a threat to everyone I cared about. It was true that I didn’t trust my own mind.
But none of that was truly why.
I was here because I needed to know.
I needed to know who I was, who my mom was, and why what happened to us happened.
I couldn’t turn my back on it, not even if I were promised the life I’d once imagined.
Not even if it meant my death.
A smirk formed on Eiryn’s lips.
“See ya, Anna,” he said, his form fading away.
I stood there, my heart beating evenly and drawing steady breaths.
The mist began to clear, and my mind was calm.
I touched the bracelet Derrick had given me, the gift from my mom I’d rejected. The emerald at the center, almost black in the darkness, felt smooth in its setting. Like me, it was alone, firmly set in place, and unyielding in what it could endure.
“Anna!”
I locked on to Isabella’s voice as her form appeared in the distance. The light of the stars silhouetted her as she ran to me.
“You made it,” she breathed.
I glanced around, noticing Cody coming up behind her.
“Have you guys been here the whole time?” I asked.
“Yeah, you disappeared!” she said. “I got turned around for a while and had to find my way through a cloud, but I followed the river.”
I blinked hard.
“River?”
“Yeah, come on,” Cody said.
I followed them, wondering if they’d seen anything like I had, but I was too scared to ask.
Taking a deep breath, I stepped beyond the woodline. Behind me was a dense thicket that I couldn’t see more than a few paces into.
How had we just escaped that foggy forest in total darkness without so much as a scratch? And the hallucinations—was it the mist?
