Page 109 of Twisted Ties

But it’s too late, he can’t stop me now.

I grip both sides with the tight vise of my magic and I rip them apart.

She screams, her hands flying to lock around my wrist, her body jolting against the wooden floorboards.

“Phoenix!” Azlan yells. “Stop it, stop it now!”

His words mix with her scream and the loud noise that floods from the broken halves of her memories. She keeps screaming, her grip tight on my wrist as the memories flood through her mind. Dark memories. Nasty memories. Violent memories. Memories that would have been better off locked in her mind forever.

I see them all cascading through her head.

35

Rhi

We’re running.Running so fast, grass and brambles scraping against our legs, branches catching our hair.

Her hand is tight in mine and she’s pulling me, forcing me to move my legs.

“I can’t,” I call out, my little legs so tired, not wanting to run any more.

“Come on, Honey,” she urges, “we have to.”

But it’s no good. I’m too slow and the thunder of heavy boots behind us grows louder and louder.

She swings us to a stop by a tree and lifts me into the branches, beckoning me to climb higher and higher. She follows behind me and I peer down.

“Keep going, Rhi, keep going.”

And then she screams and I watch as she falls through the air, down, down to the men waiting for her at the bottom.

I wake screaming.My body shaking. My skin swimming in cold sweat. My nightgown stuck to my tiny body.

“Rhi,” she says, by my bedside, gathering me up in her arms, cradling my body to hers. She kisses my damp cheeks and my forehead, hushing against my skin. “Just a dream, my darling, just a dream.”

“They’re coming again. They’re coming.” I sob.

“No, no, just a dream. Just another dream.”

I sob harder, as fear racks through my body. “No, Auntie, no.”

The man pinsmy arm painfully behind my back. He’s huge, a giant, his face cruel and twisted, his breath loud somewhere above my head.

“Tell us,” someone shouts. Another man. Just as big, just as frightening. He’s yelling down at my aunt, on her knees in front of us.

“There’s nothing to tell. Nothing,” she says, her left eye swollen and puffy, blood on her lips.

I struggle against the man’s grip, wanting to fly to my aunt’s side, wanting to stop all this, wanting to hold her in my arms.

“You’re lying.” The man smashes his hand across her face and she falls back, meeting the hard floor with a sickening crack.

I’m tremblingin my nightgown. Standing on the landing.

“Make them stop. Please make them stop.” My aunt kneels before me. An old bruise marks her cheek bone and on her lip is a scab where a cut is healing.

“I’m trying to find a way, my darling. I’m trying. You need to be brave for me. You need to be strong.”

I bunch my little hands into fists and slam them against the sides of my head. “Make them stop!”