EZEKIEL
My ears are ringing, and my heart is thundering in my chest like it’s trying to break free of the chaos.
Something iswrong.
I burst through the cabin’s front door, and by the time I reach the bottom step, rain has already soaked through my clothes. The downpour feels like needles stabbing my scalding-hot skin over and over. An unhinged laugh bursts from my lips, and then a sound more animal than man answers back.
I sprint away from the cabin as fast as I can until I stumble at the edge of the glade. Inexplicably, my limbs grow heavy like lead while my thoughts become increasingly muddled as if bidding me to sleep.
Except I don’t feel the least bit tired.
Understanding of what’s happening dawns and I bark, “Fuck!”
Freeing the knife from my pocket, I don’t hesitate before slicing my palm open. The skin splits, and blood splatters the ground before being immediately washed away by the rain. The pain of the wound does the trick and chases away the drugged feeling until I’m alert again.
Keep going, keep going, keep going.Panic lances through my chest when I realize that I can’t tell which one of them is trying to break free. It feels like Seth and Bane are battling for control, but of what? Of me? Or each other?
This isn’t how it normally feels when one of my alters takes over. The split happens so quickly that I’m not even aware ofit until hours, days, or weeks later when I wake up to the aftermath. No, this is something different.
The agony and confusion are enough to slow my pace until I remember Aurelia and how close she still is—how dangerously within reach.
I have to keep going. I have to keep her safe.
Clenching my teeth, I push my legs faster, harder, but no matter how much distance I put between the cabin and me, it never feels like enough.
And then I trip over a fucking rock.
I land in the mud with a curse and go rolling down a hill that sends me over a rocky ledge and down into a riverbed that’s usually dry but floods quickly during heavy rain—like now. To be anywhere near it is a death knell. My body twinges from the impact of hitting the rocks in the water, which isn’t nearly deep enough yet to soften the blow. A growl builds in my chest, and it burns to force it down.
Terror has tears spilling from my eyes as I laugh maniacally at my pain. Rage like I’ve never felt before bids me to punch a hole through my chest and tear out my own heart. I haven’t felt a loss of control of my own body this deep since the table.
Somehow, I pull myself to my feet, but the moment I do my head explodes, and the blinding pain sends me right back to my knees, clutching my head with a scream.
“Stop! Pleeeeease! Stoooooop!”
My pleas go ignored, and the war inside my mind continues. I’m left screaming in the rain and the mud, and just as I begin to fear that I’ll be trapped like this forever, the chaos that Seth wrought vanishes in an instant with a brutal and violent finality. I feel the cold hollow of his absence only briefly before the phantom and acrid taste of ash and blood building in the back of my throat leaves me gagging.
Bane. It’s only him now.
One by one, the mental chains I use to keep him constrained in the abyss of my splintered mind snap like twigs. Suddenly, my shirt feels too abrasive against my skin, and I tear it off with a growl. I realize too late what it was all for.
Seth wasn’t fighting to get out. He was fighting to keep Banein.
“Zeke!” The echo of Thorin’s call reaches my ears, followed by swift footsteps drawing him closer.
“No.”No, no, no, no!
If Thorin’s already caught up with me, there hasn’t been time to grab the tranquilizer. Thorin won’t kill me, which means he left the cabin without any protection. I open my mouth to scream, to warn him to stay away, but my throat constricts like there’s a hand around it, squeezing and keeping me silent.
No matter how hard I try, I can’t get the words out, and it dawns on me then why this time is different. Usually when I switch alters, I go willingly, the transfer of control so smooth that I’m barely even aware of it. Splitting is my mind’s way of protecting itself, to keep from fracturing further. This loss of bodily autonomy is a punishment from my mind for resisting its defenses—for rebelling in order to protect someone other than myself.
Seth, I silently plead.Please. Help me.
But Seth doesn’t answer because he isn’t there. He lost the battle, and now there’s only me standing in between Bane and Aurelia. Remembering the knife I carry, I tug it free and place the serrated edge already stained with my blood to the throbbing pulse in my neck.
My death will crush her. I know that now. But if my blood on the ground is the only way to keep her safe so be it. My fingers tighten around the handle, and I feel the muscles in my arm coiling to strike, to slice, and to slay when I hear a vicious curse behind me.
“Zeke?What the fuck, man?” I feel the commanding hand of my best friend on my shoulder, and my body stills at the perceived threat. “Give me the goddamn knife.”
