1
ELODIE
It’s impossible to steady my racing heart as I zero in on the vials clutched in Thorne’s hand. My world stills and self-combusts all at once.
I can feel the eyes of everybody in the room narrowed on me, waiting in anticipation, but I can't lift my gaze to see them. I don’t have to. I can smell Rion, feel Kael’s natural intensity, sense Ocean’s trepidation, and see Thorne’s hands before me.
Their eyes, however, are off limits. If I see the same panic flicker through theirs as it takes hold of me, I don’t think I will be able to withstand it.
I try to gulp down the nausea, but I'm a servant to it now.
Just like that, the truth is told.
“They—”
My lips freeze, my throat clogged before I can finish my sentence as I gape at my fate laid out before me.
I can’t breathe.
Lightheaded and delirious, I'm moving before I realize it. My fingers graze over Thorne’s palm, sending a shiver down my spine, but it doesn’t stop me from snatching the vials from his hand. Oxygen still fails me as I spin on the spot, darting toward the door with a ferocious sense of urgency. I hear my name called from behind, but it’s like whispers in the wind, a fleeting breath as my pulse pounds in my ears.
My attention is scattered. My eyes are wild as I lurch from the boys’ dorm room and turn toward the stairs. In my panic, instead of descending, my foot lands on the first step leading higher up in Institute Thirteen.
I don't stop.
I don't think.
I just keep moving.
My feet pound against the hardwood stairs in tandem with my heart as my fingers achingly curl around the vials of blood. Step after step, I ascend higher until I reach a door. Unfazed, I wrap myfingers around the handle, desperate to keep moving.
I don't consider my surroundings until the door is swinging open, and I lurch when I’m greeted with crisp air. Sucking in a breath, I halt at a small wrought-iron fence standing between me and the fatal plummet to the ground.
With my free hand, I lean against the bar, bracing myself as tears gather along my lashes. Blinking them away is impossible as I dare to look at the vials in my hand.
One.
Two.
I whimper as my eyelids fall closed, lifting my hand from the bar to cup my mouth, trying to shield the sound from greeting the world and meeting my ears, but it's already too late for that.
The ache in my chest grows stronger as I let the truth settle over my body.
They are my parents.
Not Warren Blackwood.
Not Georgia Blackwood.
But Ellie and Odie… I don’t know their last name.
I don’t knowmylast name.
My heart hurts.
Shaking my head gently, I try to gather another breath, but fail miserably as a flashback flickers in my mind.
“You really should sleep, dear.”
