Page 2

Chapter Two

Joy

I rested my cheek on my fist as I moved my eggs around with my fork, shoulders hunched with tension.

The scraping sound of metal against ceramic filled the uncomfortable silence.

Maximo’s announcement echoed in my mind, each word like a weight pressing down on my chest. My stomach twisted at the thought of training with Marsha.

How do you prepare for a test you know will end with bruises and the confirmation of what you’ve always feared?

“Maximo,” a tall, lean, blond guard, Henry, walked into the dining room, his boots echoing sharply against the tile floor.

I’d been here almost two months and still didn’t know his last name.

When I had asked, he shrugged and said it was too personal for me to know and I wouldn’t be around here much longer, so why bother?

His face remained an expressionless mask, professionally detached.

“Marsha is here.” He delivered the news with the enthusiasm of someone announcing an impending root canal.

I tensed, shoulders climbing toward my ears as my insides clenched like a fist, not wanting to engage with the woman. She was kryptonite to my positive demeanor—always trying to douse it with a bucket full of negativity. The mere mention of her name left a bitter taste in my mouth.

“Good,” Maximo said as he put his cup of coffee down with a satisfied clink. His lips curved into what might have been a smile on anyone else, but on him looked more like a predator baring teeth. “Joy, you will go with Marsha and she will help you unlock your hidden powers.”

Help wasn’t Marsha’s middle name. More like she would use some horrible punishment or spell to bring them out—if I even had any powers. Which I don’t. My hands trembled slightly as I pushed away from the table, the chair legs scraping loudly against the floor in protest.

Maximo stayed reading the newspaper at the dining room table as Henry escorted me to the front door.

Marsha waited in the entryway for me with another guard, her shadow stretching across the marble floor like a dark omen.

She was dressed in a long black dress that hugged her thin figure and her hair was cropped short, emphasizing her tight face.

Her dark brown eyes locked on me like a warden sizing up a prisoner, making my blood run cold in my veins, as if winter had settled beneath my skin. She broke out in a sinister smile that made my skin crawl, goosebumps rising along my arms despite the room’s warmth.

“Joy, how nice to see you again,” she purred, her voice dripping with false sweetness.

I crossed my arms defensively. “I don’t have any powers, so this is going to be a waste of time.”

She tapped her chin with a long finger, the sharp red nail pressing into her skin. “Perhaps.” Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully, calculating. She raised her hand. I stepped backward, my heel catching on the throw rug.

Henry grabbed my arm with his thick fingers, his grip promising a watercolor of purple and blue by morning, forcing me to remain in one spot. My pulse hammered in my throat.

I twisted my head away from her, panic rising in my chest like a trapped mouse. “Don’t touch me.”

Henry grabbed my neck hard, his calloused hand squeezing just enough to make breathing difficult.

I couldn’t move, frozen in place like a mounted butterfly.

She placed her cold palm on my forehead, the chill seeping through my skin like winter frost. I froze then I shook uncontrollably, my teeth chattering.

Cold pain pulsed through me as if I put my finger in a vat of liquid nitrogen, every nerve ending screaming in protest. A strangled whimper escaped my lips despite my effort to stay silent.

Something dark and viscous seemed to ooze from her hand into my mind, spreading like ink in water, searching, probing.

My vision clouded with black fog at the edges.

Beneath the freezing pain, a pressure built inside my skull, as if my thoughts were being compressed into a tight ball.

My lungs burned for air while my blood felt like it was crystallizing in my veins.

Time stretched and warped—was it seconds or minutes she held me there?

The room tilted and spun, the faces of Henry and Marsha blurring into grotesque masks.

She dropped her hand, satisfaction gleaming in her eyes.

I gasped desperately, my legs buckling beneath me. Only Henry’s cruel grip kept me from collapsing to the floor. The lingering cold remained, a memory of ice etched into my bones, while something new and foreign stirred in the recesses of my mind—something that hadn’t been there before.

“Yes, you have a great power, Joy.” A smile spread across her face, slow and predatory. “One that I will enjoy bringing out of you.”

She looked at Henry, eagerness flashing in her eyes like a predator spotting prey. “Where can I work on her?”

Henry tilted his head, his expression indifferent to my fate. “Maximo said to use the study.”

She flicked her hand dismissively, long fingers cutting through the air. “That will suffice... for the moment.” A hint of annoyance crossed her tight features, suggesting she would have preferred somewhere more sinister.

Henry marched me down the hallway, my feet moving automatically despite the dread weighing down each step. My heartbeat pounded in my ears as we approached the study door. He grabbed a chair from a small table with a harsh screech of wood against hardwood. “Sit.”

He tossed me into the chair with enough force to knock the wind from my lungs. I rubbed my arm where he had gripped me, wincing at the tender spots that throbbed with the memory of his fingers.

I glanced around desperately, seeking comfort in the familiar space.

It had wall-to-wall bookshelves, a large desk and a table.

Maximo rarely came in here, but it was my favorite place in this prison; where I could read books—the classics like Shakespeare, Steinbeck, even Stoker—and not think about what was going on.

Now this sanctuary would be tainted by whatever Marsha planned to do.

Marsha tilted her head toward the door, her sharp chin jutting in command. “You can wait outside.” Her voice was soft but left no room for argument.

My throat went dry as I realized I’d be alone with her.

The air in the room suddenly felt thinner, harder to breathe, as if Marsha’s presence consumed the oxygen around us.

I fought to keep my expression neutral, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of seeing my fear, even as my pulse raced beneath my skin.

Henry looked at me, a flicker of something in his gray eyes—perhaps pity?—crossing his stoic face, then up at her. He shrugged and stood outside the door, the soft click of it closing sounding as final as a coffin lid.

“Good.” Marsha’s lips curved into a smile that never reached her eyes as she turned to face me. She rolled up her sleeves with deliberate slowness, revealing pale, sinewy forearms. “Now that we’re alone, we can begin.”

“Marsha…”

She struck me with a stinging slap. Pain exploded across my cheek, the sting radiating outward like shattered glass.

“Silence. You will only talk when I ask you a question. Nothing more.” She loomed over me, her face inches from mine, close enough that I could see the merciless glint in her eyes.

I tasted copper as my tongue found the small split in my lip. She circled behind me, her footsteps deliberate and slow on the hardwood floor. I gripped the chair’s arms, trying to keep from sliding off into a puddle of whimpers.

Marsha began to murmur words in a language I didn’t understand, her voice taking on a rhythmic, almost musical quality that belied its menace. The air in the room grew heavy, pressing against my skin like an invisible weight.

“Everyone has darkness inside them,” she whispered near my ear, making me flinch. “Yours has been sleeping. Let’s wake it up.”

She pressed her palms against my temples, her fingers digging into my scalp. The cold returned, but this time it sank deeper, past skin and muscle, boring into my very core. I tried to scream but couldn’t—my jaw locked shut as if frozen.

Something stirred inside me, something that had been dormant. It felt like hands clawing up from my stomach, reaching for my throat. My vision darkened at the edges, the bookshelves blurring as shadows seemed to leak from the corners of the room.

“ Umbra revelio, tenebris emergo ,” Marsha chanted, her face growing darker. “Reveal what hides, bring forth what denies.”

The pain built like pressure in a sealed container—expanding, searching for escape. My skin was too tight, like it might split open at any moment. The shadows around the room writhed and twisted.

Then came the first tear—not from my eyes, but from within me. Something ripped, a barrier I never knew existed suddenly torn away. I convulsed in the chair, a silent scream trapped in my throat as the shadows from the corners of the room began to move toward me.

The darkness gathered around me, responding to my distress like a living thing, cold tendrils wrapping around my limbs.

I sensed its pulse matching the frantic rhythm of my heart as it spread through me, flowing outward from my core to my fingertips with a shimmering tingle that made my hands tremble.

Marsha pinched my cheek hard, her nails digging into my skin like talons. “Now I know what you are.” Her eyes gleamed with triumph, a hunter who’d finally cornered her prey. “You’re an Unseelie.”

I panted. My mind struggled through the fog of pain. The word echoed in my skull—Unseelie, Unseelie—foreign yet somehow triggering a deep, unnamed dread. Sweat beaded on my forehead as I fought to control the trembling that ran through my body.

“You have the power to control shadows, and now you’re ours to control.” Her lips curled into a smile that revealed too many teeth. She looked at my hands with barely disguised greed, as though they were precious gems she’d just acquired.

An Unseelie? The word tasted wrong in my mouth, bitter and impossible.

I shook my head, the movement sending stabs of pain through my temples.

She was wrong. She had to be wrong. My parents were human—ordinary people with ordinary lives.

I remembered my mother’s garden, my father’s laugh, the normal childhood I’d had. This wasn’t true.

The shadows in the room continued to respond to my emotions, quivering at the edges of my vision, growing deeper and more substantial.

The darkness between the bookshelves stretched toward me, eager and alert.

A cold sensation pooled in my stomach, a horrible certainty growing inside me that Marsha might be right.

If she was telling the truth, then everything I thought I knew about myself was a lie.

I had to know. Louis DuPont, my father, had been a good man, a cop, before he was possessed. I needed to know the truth.

My hands clenched and unclenched in my lap. I watched in horror as tiny tendrils of shadow curled around my fingers like affectionate pets. I tried to pull away, but they followed, connected to me by invisible threads I couldn’t break.

“No,” I whispered, the word barely audible. But even as I denied it, part of me—some buried, previously dormant part—stirred in recognition, hungry for the darkness that now answered my call.