Regan brushed hair back from my forehead. Her fingers trembled when they touched the bandage near my temple. “That’s where we start.”
That should have helped.
It didn’t.
Because I could see them.
All three of them.
The guilt.
The haunting.
The thing I had tried so hard to keep from happening.
Mandy was in the room again.
Not really. Not as a ghost floating above the bed or whatever drugged-out desert version of me had believed. But in their eyes.In the way Tarak looked at me like time had folded wrong. In the way Edge kept staring at my face, seeing damage overlaid with old damage. In the way Regan’s mouth shook when she tried to smile.
I had wanted to protect them from Mandy’s curse.
Instead, I had dragged the curse home wearing my body.
My gaze found Tarak.
He flinched.
That was worse than anything.
“I’m not her,” I said.
The words came out so small.
Tarak closed his eyes.
When he opened them, they were wet.
“I know, little one.”
I hated that I loved him for saying it.
I hated that I didn’t believe him yet.
My chest tightened.
Panic rose sharp and fast, and my hand moved without permission toward the empty space where Dylan’s had been.
He was still there.
Standing now, near the wall, like he had backed away when my family entered because he knew he didn’t belong in this part.
But I looked at him anyway.
“Dylan.”
The room shifted.
Edge’s hand on my ankle went still.
