Page 257 of Blackwood

I gave you mercy. I gave you years.

Now I’ll take back what bled through tears.”

“Lex, Cade get her the fuck out of here.”Tex screams.

Lex pulls on my arm, but my feet won’t move.

“So go check the table, wrapped in red,

Something borrowed. Something bled.

No ribbons, no card, no soft disguise.

Just truth we carved and severed ties.”

The voice cuts out. Silence crashes over the room like a wave.

And then I run.

“Malyshka, no!”

Lex’s voice booms behind me, but I don’t stop. My heels echo against the marble as I race toward the gift table, one long rectangle draped in white satin, buried under towers of champagne flutes and ribboned boxes.

Except one.

Wrapped in blood-red paper. No name. No bow. I reach for it with shaking fingers. I know I shouldn’t. But I already know it’s for me. I rip the paper. The box opens and I scream. The sound tears from my throat, raw and feral, as I stumble backward.

“Oh my God…” Cade breathes behind me, voice strangled.

Lex is there in an instant. “Malyshka, come here!” he barks, yanking me into his arms just as my knees give out. He spins me away from the table, shielding my body with his own. My fists slam into his chest, desperate to claw my way back, to see it again, tounseeit.

But it’s too late.

I saw it.

“JACK!” Lex shouts over the stunned silence, voice slicing through the ballroom like a gunshot. “TEX! WE NEED YOU! NOW!”

My breath won’t come, it sticks like glass.

A jagged burn I can’t surpass.

I try to breathe, but every try,

Feels like a scream I cannot cry.

The ballroom blurs, too loud, too bright.

Then fades to black and steals the light.

The people vanish. The music dies.

I’m drowning in my own disguise.

Lex is talking. I see his face.

But all I hear is empty space.

His voice, a hum inside his chest.