Page 6

Ethan still lived inside me, and I lived inside him.

I wonder if he felt when Liaza cut me to pieces.

I hoped the bastard did. It’d serve him right.

No. Swerve. Think about flowers and pizza and Tess’s weird quips about life.

Hot tears flowed down my face. Everything still hurt, and my natural healing abilities had faded with my ever-growing weakness. My bones knitted slower than usual, and my cuts were closed but still red and angry against my skin.

It hurt to make even the slightest movement, and sleep was a lost cause.

To pass the time, I watched the dirt, praying my experiment paid off. The smell was horrific, but since I wasn’t smelling so great these days, Minka and Liaza didn’t notice.

If they bothered to allow me to bathe, I might be fucked, but right now, my filthy state served my purpose well. To my eyes, the dirt I’d tried to fertilize looked the same. Maybe a touch darker if I was really feeling optimistic that day. But it was still dirt, and I saw nothing to indicate any life loomed there.

I wish I could stick my finger in the ground like Evie and call up monstrous poisonous plants that would eat my mother’s face off and stab Liaza right where his heart had never been.

But alas, I was a weird hybrid with fucked-up magic who was so weak she was damn near powerless.

One last stand, I told myself. Then I could let go.

The sun had disappeared from the room, and I hadn’t seen Minka and Liaza for most of the day. This never happened, and I didn’t like unpredictability. Not now.

Changing the normal order of things led me to speculate on the reasons why, and that flooded me with anxiety. I liked predictability, knowing the exact sound Liaza would make as he came down the hall carrying that bag full of metal he liked to use to cut me up with, the sound of the kettle whistling, knowing my mother would soon sit down at the table with her tea to taunt me.

The howl of the wind and snow outside letting me know I would get no reprieve from either of them today.

Even if I knew the day would go poorly, at least I knew.

Them being gone for so long wasn’t normal.

Anxiety trickled down my spine. Change was bad.

Every day I woke up, Mom shoved gruel at me and poked at me verbally for a while. Liaza did the same thing. They took me out for one of their sessions, rinse and repeat forever until I die.

Sometimes, if I were lucky, they fed me dinner. Most nights, I spent the night hungry.

Tonight, both of them were gone, and that had never happened. One of them was always there to poke at me. The fire had long burned to ash, sending the tiny cabin plummeting into close to freezing temperatures. My breath plumed in the air, and my teeth chattered.

All I had in the cell to keep me warm was a threadbare blanket and the clothes I’d been taken in. I shoved myself against the front bars, seeking any warmth I could find. The backside of the cell was too close to the outdoors, and the cabin’s insulation sucked, allowing every bit of heat to leech from the walls.

The fire was on the opposite wall of the cell, and when someone was there to stoke the blaze, the entire room felt warm and cozy. Tonight, with the entire place empty and the fireplace cold and gray, I felt more alone than ever before. My thoughts turned dark, the possibilities lining up like soldiers sentenced to a firing squad.

Death.

Death.

Worse than death.

When someone was here, I channeled all my grief and hurt and fear into anger. Without a target, someone to focus my fury on, my thoughts turned bleak.

I shivered and tried to ignore the shadows playing in the darkness. There was no plant life anywhere around to cast those shadows. Only the moonlight coming in through the window.

Everything looked more sinister when darkness fell. Even the teapot’s shadow rose above the wall, its curved spout resembling a hooked finger, beckoning me to come closer.

I fell asleep watching those shadows, wondering when they would finally come to claim me for one last time.

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