Page 22

C ruising through the residential communities had been one thing—turning onto one of the busiest roads in town gave me heart palpitations that mimicked last night’s escape from the werewolves.

It’d been easy-ish to focus on the road when there was nothing but the hum of the tires, the chirps of the birds, and my pounding heart filling my ears.

But now there were so many competing colors and sounds and restless activity that I was one swerve away from crashing.

And the digs from Ryder that I hovered over the wheel like a grandma didn’t make the transition easier.

I glared at him, but he was too busy taking in the sun with his eyes half-closed and his arm out the window to notice.

My irritation flared even more.

How could he even make those annoying comments when he was basically asleep next to me?

I pulled into the complex of my therapist’s office, the usual fluttering in my chest hitting me hard when I saw the brown stucco building and drove through the two-level garage.

Breath shallow, I channeled all of my energy into my grip on the steering wheel, the tips of my fingers turning white.

About to jump out of my own skin, I took a ragged inhale, and it reminded me of my last session with Dr. Fairmore, and the breathing exercise she’d had me try.

Not able to close my eyes and mentally transport myself to the ocean, I rolled my neck, inhaled a lungful of fresh air, and held it in for ten seconds.

I gradually released it, shocked at how not-sweaty my palms were, how not-racy my pulse was, how not-bouncy my legs were.

I released a laughy breath at the simplicity of it, but shoot, this little breathing trick was effective.

Even a simpler version, like what I just did.

Dr. Fairmore would be stoked to hear it.

For the first time ever, I was actually excited to share something with my therapist.

No longer sprawled out in his seat like I was his personal chauffeur, Ryder scanned the lot for an open spot as I turned down the last row.

He pointed at one towards the back, free of any neighbors.

One where we wouldn’t be boxed in.

The better for a stealthy escape, I guessed.

Actually…I had no idea what motivated any of his decisions.

I hitched the e-brake and stepped out, leaving the headphones on the seat.

As I tamed my unbrushed beachy waves in the circular side-view mirror, movement fluttered to my right, and the passenger door clicked shut.

I stopped preening. “What are you doing?”

With his keys in one hand, the other running through his hair attempting to subdue the locks spilling over his forehead, Ryder donned an expression as perplexed as mine.

“There’s a waiting room, isn’t there?”

Not this again.

I’m sure my face said it all.

“What, you thought I was going to wait for you in a hot car for forty-five minutes?” Ryder’s brows dipped inward, quizzical.

“They have air conditioning in there.”

My eye roll might’ve made it a tad obvious I’d rather not have him as my plus-one.

But I didn’t have time to fight him on it.

“Please, leave the arrows in the car, would you?”

He responded with a boyish grin that I didn’t trust at all.

We marched towards the units on the ground floor, leaving the shade of the garage for the dry heat of the summer day.

Something flashed in my peripheral, metal in the sunlight.

Twisting in its direction, I wasn’t surprised at all to find the source on my companion’s waist. From his very low, hip-hugging waistband that had me looking right above his?—

“What’s that?”

“What?”

I pointed to the brilliant white buckle that glimmered from his belt, the material so similar to that of his arrowheads.

“Oh, this?” He pulled on the clasp, repositioning the seam of his pants.

“A belt buckle.”

I narrowed my eyes at the half-truth he’d given.

“Then why is it shaped like it could fit around your knuckles?”

“Because it can. They’re brass knuckles,” he added in his irritatingly nonchalant way.

My jaw dropped. “Those are illegal . I said no weapons?—”

“You said no arrows.” He pointed a finger at me.

“You didn’t say anything about other weapons.”

“Oh my God,” I muttered.

Before I could ask more about their color and why he’d felt the need to bring them along, a cool blast hit my face and shoulders as we entered the lobby.

We sighed in sync, savoring the chill.

Ignoring Ryder’s prideful smirk, I sent him to a corner to lavish in his imaginary superiority so I could sign in at the front desk.

Meeting the receptionist’s smile—a first—I passed over my insurance and scribbled down my name, actually engaging in small talk.

I could almost pass off as happy to be there.

What was wrong with me?

“River Harlow?” an assistant read from her clipboard.

I sauntered over to the threshold between the waiting room and hallway that led to the individual offices.

“Dr. Finis will see you now.”

“Great—wait, who?” I stopped dead in the doorway.

She unpropped the door, ushering me in.

“Did you not get the email? Dr. Fairmore’s on leave. In the interim, Dr. Finis will be meeting with all of her patients.”

What.

This pressure chamber of a corridor became about ten sizes too small, the spiel about my therapist’s absence lost to the too-loud thud of our footsteps and the blood drumming in my ears.

I’d obviously heard wrong.

Dr. Fairmore wouldn’t leave me.

I saw her two days ago .

She was here. She had to be.

As the panic grew, it clenched the inside of my chest.

The sconces seemed to flicker, and I lowered my gaze to the floor.

Starting with my forehead, I trailed my fingers over my scalp, glacially slow, so that my arms acted like shields from the world that was crashing down.

I didn’t want to be surprised.

I didn’t want to be hurt.

But that’s exactly what I felt like, and that’s exactly why I’d avoided opening up all these years.

That, and the fact that no one else had ever convinced me I was more than just a patient who needed fixing.

With Dr. Fairmore, I wasn’t just somebody.

I wasn’t just a girl.

I was River, and the guilt and the episodes and all that came with them made me stronger, not weaker.

A subtle, but growing, tug in my gut told me this next person would be nothing like her.

The final door creaked opened at the end of the hall, as if expecting us.

The buttery streaks from the familiar wall of windows vanished when I entered, the passing clouds dampening the room to gray.

“River.” A middle-aged woman, who I assumed to be my therapist, greeted me from Dr. Fairmore’s desk.

With a smile so crooked it made her neck veins pop out and her lashless, black eyes bulge.

It had to be mocking.

No one was ever that excited to meet me.

“Riiivveeerrr.” She drawled out each syllable, tasting the vowels on her tongue.

Her contorted fingers, like they’d been fractured and never reset, pointed at the chair opposite.

“Sit.”

I trudged past my favorite recliner, sentenced to the hard wooden seat.

That exaggerated smile stayed plastered to her face, her ashen skin stretched so tight her cheekbones could’ve broken through her sickly pallor.

“I’m sure you’ve heard Dr. Fairmore had an emergency and had to leave town.”

“I’m missing the details.” I flinched as the door shut behind me, leaving us alone.

“What happened?”

“Oh, I can’t disclose that.” Dr. Finis dabbed the excess saliva pooling at the sides of her upturned lips with a tissue.

She tossed it into a small trashcan already overflowing with the white paper squares stained with pale dots of black and red liquid.

My nose wrinkled at the sight.

“But what I can tell you is she won’t be coming back.”

I lifted my brows at the framed milestones on the bookcase, the cross-stitched artwork in hoops.

The color-coded anthologies, the handloomed woven rug, the chic knickknacks that lined the shelves.

“The receptionist made it sound like this was temporary.” I considered pointing out how odd it was that someone would leave all their belongings if they had no intention of coming back.

But that would give me false hope, which I was done with.

“Don’t you worry, I’ll be seeing to your problems now.” Her voice was sharper than a knife and pricked my hair follicles up.

I leaned back in my chair and glanced towards the busy atrium, hoping to catch the eyes of someone walking through it.

A hollow thud snapped my attention to the fists that had slammed into the desk.

Dr. Finis rose with unnatural quickness, flicked on a tabletop lamp, and headed for the windows.

“We don’t need any distractions,” she hissed.

An aggressive pull on each curtain panel killed the natural light.

Whirling back to the desk, she settled into command, draped in shadow and unspoken threats.

“Much better.”

The darkness hollowed her eyes like clouds eclipsing the sun.

Her craggy, bruised nails hit the mahogany surface in impatient thrums.

After a moment she relaxed, that same shady grin adorning her face again.

“River.” There came another chant of my name, like I was a little glass doll on a shelf for display.

“Daughter of Corbin Harlow and Mira Rae. Mother deceased. Isn’t that unfortunate.”

Despite her words, I found no trace of sympathy.

She cleared her throat, the sound guttural and ragged against the stillness of the room.

“Remind me, how did she die?”

My eyes widening, I shot back against my chair as if the question had slapped me across the face.

“Can’t you just look at my file?”

“I like to hear things from the source, not try to interpret a far less competent person’s scribble.” Her hand slithered to a folder lying atop the stack.

She opened it and said, “We’re going to start out fresh.” Then she ripped my medical chart in half.

There was something seriously wrong with this woman.

I shifted in my seat, the notes from my last visit drifting to my feet.

Feeling like I might end up on the floor with it by the end of this, I cleared my throat and said, “My mom died in a drowning accident.”

“An accident you’re responsible for.” There was no question to her tone, but it had to be one.

There’s no way anyone would just come out and say that.

I straightened, holding my chin high despite the grief pushing me towards the lowest of lows.

“Dr. Fairmore says I’m not.”

“Well, Dr. Fairmore’s no longer here.” Her voice shifted to a higher pitch that scraped against my mind like nails on a chalkboard.

“And, of course, you’re responsible. If it weren’t for you, your mother would still be alive!” Her cackle flittered through the room with such force, it rustled the hairs on my arms and shuffled loose papers, scattering any confidence I’d had.

When I didn’t respond, her laughter stilled, and a heaviness settled on the air, thick with sorrow that threatened to drown me and breathe life into Dr. Finis.

She stared at me, leering and panting, eyes rimmed with black tears as if she’d laughed off her mascara—but she hadn’t been wearing any makeup.

“Don’t act so surprised,” she croaked.

“Those little voices of yours would agree with me, wouldn’t they?”

The shock hit me like a dart dipped in poison, shutting off each motor function until I was nothing but a wide-eyed bag of muscle and bones.

How did she know? The Voices wouldn’t have been mentioned in my file—unless she’d gone through ten years of records, back to the very beginning.

Even then, though, at eight years old, I’d been too young, too traumatized , to explicitly state what was happening.

If I’d said I heard voices, no one took it literally, and I’d suffered in shame and silence since then.

Until my last session, when Dr. Fairmore alluded to their presence…

Had she shared that info with Dr. Finis?

A bolt of anger electrified my veins and brought the feeling back to my fingers.

I curled them in. That was my secret.

“What are you talking about?”

Dr. Finis’s verbal venom was working; she knew it.

“Tell me, what else do they say to you, River?”

A cautionary instinct temporarily constricted my throat, halting me from spewing every curse burning inside me.

This is what she wanted.

A reaction out of me.

Because if her claims were untrue, then why would I get so worked up?

I took a measured breath.

I needed to deflect.

“This is entirely inappropriate.” Like, did we need to switch spots?

I figured I’d be met with a condescending laugh.

It was the ghost-white palms slamming into the tabletop and the way she thrust herself forward that had me leaning so far back in my chair it lifted its two front legs.

The wood creaked against her weight as she extended her neck, her hair slithering across the surface like thin black snakes.

Clearly her teeth hadn’t seen a toothbrush in ages, the enamel so rotten and her breath so sour it singed my nostrils when she whispered, “Says the murderer.”

In the face of such bluntness, my patience crumbled.

It was already wavering, but now the walls came down and fury rose in its place.

Cold and vindictive.

I knew what I was. Unfortunately for her, I was ready to stop running from it.

“You’re right. It is my fault.” My words came out small in the large, dark room.

The doctor curled her lip.

“What?” Her tone remained flat.

“I. Killed. My. Mother.” Each letter should have stabbed until the guilt flowed like blood, emptying me out.

The confession should have ruined me, but it somehow released me.

If the doctor’s words were venom, my acceptance was the antidote.

Bring it on, serpentine woman.

Dr. Finis released a grumble too similar to a growl.

Her withered fingertips drifted with ear-splitting friction over the desk to meet mine—which at some point had gripped the edge.

Her touch was stiffer than a corpse’s, so cold it froze my blood.

But I didn’t dare draw away.

“Is that what you wanted to hear?” I remained unflinching, despite every neuron in my brain firing at me to run.

“Where is your fear, River?” Her jaw jolted open and shut as if it were detached from her body and someone else pulled a string to move it.

“It’s not…” A foul stench clogged my thoughts before I could finish.

I’d gagged on that smell once before—burnt rubber and teratorn guts.

My head swiveled around the room, but I didn’t know what I was searching for.

An answer? A distraction?

A demon? The air stung my widened eyes as I turned back to the doctor, her skin more waxy, saggy than it had just been when I was looking at her a second ago.

It seemed to melt off her bones.

I tried to pull my hands away, but she gripped them even tighter.

The realization I’d been ignoring from the moment I walked in reared its ugly head.

This woman wasn’t human.

She was something different.

Supernatural. Evil.

“Where are they , River?” The question bellowed from deep inside her throat.

It rattled the picture frames, the pens in their holder, but I wouldn’t let it rattle me.

An unsettling calm, like what came before a storm, brewed beneath my skin—as the clip of a memory, one that’d been buried so deep it didn’t seem real, overtook me.

I’d barely gotten my head above water when my mom ricocheted back into the rip current she’d saved me from.

The waves swept around her like limbs, dragging her farther, deeper—until every part of her was submerged except her angled chin and contorted, gaping mouth.

But she’d told me to stay, so…

I did. Then the sky parted as if Death himself had come to snatch her, in a beam of wind and shadow and rain.

Shafts of light broke through the nearby clouds, casting a silhouette within the storm—human shaped, but with billowy arches jutting out of their back.

Wings. The shock and icy cold froze me to the bone, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the figure; it looked so much like her.

I shook my head. She was sinking .

Right in front of me.

It couldn’t have been her.

My mom had died because I just sat there , treading water.

Anger launched me out of the memory like a slingshot.

On a tight inhale, I met Dr. Finis’s hungry, death-black stare.

The fury remained, but I schooled my features as the energy that had started building prickled and parted into each finger and toe, to the very core of me.

Power, unchecked and instinctive and so similar to the rush I got when surfing, pressed against my body, searching for a way out.

I thought it might shoot out of me.

Her death grip tightened, scaly fingers coiling around mine, demanding an answer.

I didn’t know where the Voices were.

But I did know one thing as I thrust my hands forward, trying to throw her off me.

“They’re not HERE!”

I knew this feeling.

It welled up inside of me when I reached my breaking point; not just here, or with the teratorn, but throughout my life.

I just hadn’t known what to do with it—magic.

Source. It beaded my senses like the sweat lining my upper lip as years of heartbreak, hate, and humility gushed out of me.

It pulsed outwards in a gilded wave, not just from my fingertips, but every pore that dotted my skin.

The pressure in my skull throbbed, one painful pulse away from utterly wrecking me—but I couldn’t stop, not even as it twisted each nerve, and felt like it might tear my limbs from my body.

The curtains whipped to the sides and the day flooded in, momentarily blinding me.

The magic ceased as the backs of my hands shot to my brows, shielding me from the brightness and the thuds and shrieks that came from somewhere in the room, but I couldn’t see.

I shot to my feet, tripping over my chair as I scrambled to get away from the area until the light settled—which it didn’t.

My vision adjusted, but it was just as bright.

I locked eyes with Dr. Finis, still behind the desk, but she wasn’t sitting; she wasn’t even standing.

She was dangling , pinned to the bookcase like a wall mount by a dozen brilliant gold threads that seemed to splinter off from the sunbeams. They wove through the air, from her to the windows, swaying in an absent breeze.

She clawed at the light, but it wrapped around her wrists, her ankles, her neck, her gaping mouth, translucent but strong as rope.

Books fell off the shelves as she rammed her head back and tried to force the muzzle free.

I didn’t move. I couldn’t, as if I too were bound by the glistening strings.

Feathers black as a crow’s, torn and singed, wafted to my feet.

One landed on my toe, the faint tickle enough for me to twitch in response, coaxing my body out of shock.

They were everywhere, like someone had shredded a pillow, but didn’t have an obvious source.

I collected one and stuffed it in the back pocket of my shorts, hoping it’d make it out of there intact.

Which meant I had to, as well.

The doctor angrily thrashed as light flooded her mouth, and more feathers erupted from behind her back.

I didn’t have time to consider what that meant.

The sunbeams were dimming, losing their grip.

The golden threads shuddered and then, one by one, they started to snap.

Which meant I needed to stop acting like a deer in headlights and get the hell out of there.

As I turned to book it out of the room, a raspy voice starved of oxygen stopped me in my tracks.

“We will find you, River Harlow.” Dr. Finis gulped and gargled as if she were drowning, fighting off the golden gag.

“This isn’t the end. This is only the beginning.”

My necklace singed my clavicle, the short stab of pain keeping me from spinning around to face her threats.

I flung open the door and hustled down the hallway, not daring to look back to see if she pursued me.