My vision tunnels as I risk a backward look. There are too many.
In panic, my magic surges, bright and hot, and I nearly let it light me like a flare in the dark. Fear holds it back.
I’m so tired of fear. Tired of running. Tired of shrinking. Tired of letting monsters decide what I am. My feet skid on frost-slick leaves as I stop short behind a thick cluster of brambles. For one heartbeat, I stand there, trembling, the knife useless in my hand and breath steaming in the air.
And I make a choice I have never made before.
I stop suppressing my magic and let it rise, but a massiveweight slams into my back.
The world explodes sideways. Air leaves my lungs in a brutal rush as I hit the forest floor. Mud fills my mouth. My cheek grinds against the chilled earth as a heavy body pins me down.
Bear.
Bruno’s breath is hot and rank at my ear as he shifts partially, enough to gain hands while keeping the bulk of his strength. His forearm presses across my shoulders, grinding me into the dirt.
“Got you,” he rumbles. “Told you she’d tire.”
My wrists are yanked behind my back. I thrash, kicking, clawing, but another body lands at my side.
Anatol.
He crouches gracefully, still mostly human, pale hair falling into sharp blue eyes that gleam with cruel satisfaction.
“You always were better at running than fighting,” he murmurs. “I suppose it should make me mad, but in truth, it makes the capture taste sweeter.”
His fingers slide into my hair and yank my head back. Panic detonates inside me.
The position. The weight. The forest floor. My trapped arms.
My body remembers.
Gregory’s breath. Bruno’s bulk. Anatol’s laughter. The sound of tearing fabric. Fingers bruising. The way I left my body to survive what it couldn’t bear.
My vision fractures.
No no no—
Anatol’s nose drags slowly up the column of my throat, inhaling deeply. His tongue flicks against my skin, deliberate and degrading.
“Still tastes like magic,” he whispers against my pulse. “You’ve been hiding it from us.”
My stomach heaves.
I buck violently, but Bruno tightens his grip, laughing low in his chest.
“Easy,” he says. “All the magic in your fingertips is going to be so much fun to control.”
Anatol laughs. “We’re going to enjoy this. There’s no rush now. No audience. Just us to finish what Gregory started.”
The edges of my consciousness begin to splinter. The trees blur. My limbs feel distant and disconnected.
This is how it happens.
This is how I disappear.
Fear squeezes tighter and tighter until there is no room left for breath.
And then, beneath the terror, beneath the memory, beneath the old, practiced dissociation, heat surges through me.
