Page 10 of Jagged Souls

So Antonio kills her, biting her in half.

I scream.

And I scream.

And I scream.

His eyes widen as he swallows. “That’s not a witch,” he says as he jumps to his feet.

My scream becomes all that I am. Broken and raspy. My vocal chords snap as I keep my eyes on my little girl.

I never got to hold her.

I need to hold her.

She needs to be held by her mother at least once.

Sobbing, I will my body to move. To reach my little girl.

I need to hold her.

I need to hold her.

“Heal her enough to transport. She’s coming with us.”

White light flows around me. My wrists snap back into place. The bones shift back to where they belong. The rest of my wounds are fixed, but all I’m concentrating on is the fact that I can move my hands again. That I can hold my little girl before I’m taken away.

But just as my fingers are about to stroke her little head, Eduardo steps on my hand. I cry out, not from the pain of all my bones being crushed beneath his heel but because I know I will never get to hold my daughter.

I sob as he drags me away from her. I dig my nails into the floor, trying to claw myself back to her. She’s so small and alone.

She needs her mother.

She needs her mother!

But instead, I’m picked up by Antonio and hauled over his shoulder. I beat his back. I scream at him to let me go. I should be doing more. Fighting properly. But my strength, my ability to think clearly is all gone. All I know is grief.

Heart stopping, unsurvivable grief.

And then the world is gone as I’m transported out of the Shadow home.

Fifty-Six

HIM

As soon as the dome falls, Aleric phases me inside the house. I barely got a second to look at the war zone outside, but that was long enough to sear it into my brain. Over a hundred bodies littered our property. Werewolves torn to pieces by grotesque monsters before they themselves were eventually ripped apart. Dead plants lay all around them – so much death where it used to be picturesque. So much violation where there used to be peace. How could Micha have possibly survived?

Intense agony rips through me when Aleric lands inside Mother’s bedroom. I’ve phased half a dozen times in the last hour. My body’s screaming in pain, and I drop to the ground like a fucking stone. All my muscles are on fire. My bones feel like they’re constantly fracturing until they mimic the cracks in a window.

Aleric’s presence is that of a predator above me. You can’t be weak in this life. You can’t do anything that evenseemsweak.

You can’t cry. Can’t go to therapy. Can’t crawl on your hands and knees. But I don’t have the strength to get to my feet. So I crawl towards the heartbeat I can barely detect.

I do it without caring another Boss sees me.

I don’t care about his judgment. The embarrassment. I don't even care that this moment of weakness might mean he turns on our Family later, thinking it is there for the taking. I don’t care about the future casualties.

All I care about is getting to my wife as fast as I can.