Page 3 of Wings of Lies (Daughter of the Seven Circles #1)

Chapter

Two

T here were three things increasingly odd about this dream: a purple hue tinted my vision, I invaded the body of a younger version of myself, and the dream seemed familiar.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to slam my door in her rigid face. The urge tore at my insides, burning and lashing out, growing more destructive as it gained momentum. I punched the wall. The pain cleared my head enough to resort to smashing my face into my stupid frilly pillow and screeching.

How could she?

All I wanted to do was to go into town and see what all the fuss was about. But no! I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere alone, and I couldn’t go with her because she didn’t trust people around me! Or she didn’t trust me . So, I remained stuck here, stuck in this damned house.

Was she punishing me? Was this still all because of him, and what happened ?

The first three years, I understood. We were on the run, jumping from town to town.

I followed her lead as she protected me.

The Binding Rune locked away my powers, reduced me to a human, and helped to keep me hidden.

But we had no stability and no way of contacting anyone.

So, the lack of friends or the friends I left behind when he found out I went to public school hadn’t bothered me.

But now, after months of being in the same place, still blocked and safe, she continued to isolate me.

I couldn’t even use our phone to call my old school friends.

It was for emergencies when she had to go into town and left me at the house.

She suffocated me, keeping me captive, surrounded by fields and livestock.

My only entertainment included movies, books, and animals that didn’t talk back.

There was no one else. Public school was now forbidden.

She always said, “It wouldn’t be safe,” “We can’t, Lucy,” “What if the rune or amulet stopped working and you had an incident and he found us?”

Fine. Her logic made sense. Kind of. But not even allowing me to go into town with her? I was to be sequestered, never to see anyone else ever again?

Would this forever be my life?

The thought put pressure behind my eyes.

This wasn’t living!

I slammed my face into the pillow. My head and skin throbbed. Tumultuous emotions tore into my soul, sending a painful pressure and an itch from the top of my head to my toes. That should’ve concerned me, but I was so overcome by the foreign feelings I didn’t think about it .

I squished my face harder into the pillow, nails ripping at the chiffon fabric, and let out another screech. This time, it helped. The release eased some pressure on my muscles.

“Lucy!”

My head whipped up at her voice, eyes widening, unable to fully comprehend the situation as I gazed around.

I glanced at my wrist. The black rune had faded to white, resembling a scrawling scar.

I had felt the pressure and itch, but I assumed the release and the lessening of my anger had come from the amulet against my chest, which should’ve been the color of the elderberries surrounding our house.

Instead, my release came from the white and purple flames engulfing my body and bed.

Her worst fears come to life.

Never, not since I’d grown into my powers, had it covered me so fully. And never had the white mixed with such a deep purple.

Everything throbbed—my head, my skin, the crushing pressure on my chest. I fixed my wide, blurry eyes on my mom, needing her help. Her eyes flashed purple, and I waited for the calm. She tried again, and as the pinks of her cheeks paled, I knew she couldn’t penetrate my flames.

“Let it go,” she whispered.

My powers consumed my clothing, bedding, and headboard. Then it jumped to the wall behind me. The wood and fabric burned swiftly, but so did the brick.

Shock pierced my power and quenched the flames on my skin, but not the flames burning our house. I scurried off my bed. The moment my power left me, my mom touched my bare shoulder, sending a seed of calm into my pounding chest .

Things happened fast after that. She wrapped me in my night robe and hurried me from my room, steering me toward the kitchen.

“I’ll be right back,” she said, running to her room. Then she returned from the smokey hall, coughing and carrying two duffle bags.

It was déjà vu all over again.

“Let’s go. Hurry.” She herded me to our front door.

“I don’t understand.” My voice wobbled.

It took us three years to find this home, to stop bouncing from place to place. And it took five months for my built-up restlessness to ruin it—all because I wanted to go into town, all because of my anger over things I didn’t have and wanted.

I should’ve known when I felt my anger that the amulet was depleted. This was all my fault.

My mom touched me again. The same calm tenderly softened the sharp bitterness of my mind.

We rushed out of our small, burning farmhouse and jumped into the stolen, beat-up, green VW Bug.

She held out her hand. “Give me it.”

I unclasped the amulet and placed it in her outstretched palm. A lovely purple light surrounded the circular crystal and its intricate swirls of silver, changing the lavender back to the deep elderberry purple.

I glanced back. Our bushes burned, white smoke billowing into chemical gray. It almost looked like a normal house fire if you ignored the color of the consuming flames and how quickly they ate away at the structure. Half of the house was completely gone, and the other half caved in on itself.

The rising smoke was a beacon in the sky .

I stared into my palms, searching for my power and the stupid emotions that did this. A power I could no longer feel as the shock overwhelmed the weakening calm of her gift. Which she remedied by placing the amulet in my palms.

“Put it on, Lucy.”

I stared at it, knowing what would happen when I put it on. I desired it and, for the first time, questioned it.

“Do you ever think it’d be better if I didn’t wear it? If you stopped calming me?” She tamed me when my lows took me too deep, preventing me from experiencing the full spectrum and force of my emotions, like I did today. She calmed my rebellious desires.

Her forehead creased. “We don’t have the luxury of training you.

” And by training, she meant my powers because every day for the past five months, we had trained physically, which was why, as a thirteen-year-old girl, I was unusually toned.

Although my strength wasn’t even close to her caliber.

“The rune he forced on you was the worst and best thing that could’ve happened to us.

It helped keep us off his radar. But now…

” She peered at the rear-view mirror. “This can’t happen again, Lucille Chiara.

” I flinched at the use of my full name.

The soothing of her power did nothing to temper my guilt.

“We only have the amulet now to keep your emotions on lockdown and your powers at bay whenever I’m not around. We need to be extra careful.”

My mom was right, and I didn’t want to give up the calm. It was so much easier than feeling all the horror he branded me with.

“Especially now that your power has grown,” she said, shooting me a meaningful look before returning to the winding road. “In more ways than one.” It was a soft mutter, not meant for me. More secrets. But I didn’t care to press .

My mom would take care of everything. She always did.

Fiddling with the chain, I placed it around my neck, letting the calm take over.

My body relaxed. It was better this way—safer, peaceful.

As my adrenaline seeped away, the drain came.

After so long without using my powers, I had forgotten about the consequences.

In retribution, my eyelids weakened, and heaviness filled me.

Blinking, I awoke to a point of blinding light and a dull throb in my head. I pressed a palm to my temple as my other hand frantically searched my neck for my necklace. I didn’t remember what it looked like, who gave it to me, or why I needed it, only that I did.

The bitter smell of iron nagged me from my hunt. Shielding my eyes from the light, I sat up, facing the door and the melted handle I had forgotten I destroyed. Dizzy, I cast a wary gaze at my flameless hands.

I shook my head. It was time to leave.

I tensed, then pushed the door open. My shoulders sagged. The larger cement room was doorless and empty, except for the eerie lights that buzzed above, interrupting the ringing in my ears.

Inhaling, I pushed myself off the table—and crumpled to the floor.

My forearms caught me before my face hit.

I glared at my traitorous legs. Black shorts barely covered my pelvis, and a white t-shirt hung loosely around my frame, leaving bone starved of muscle and dotted with blood. I looked like a three-year-old’s stick figure drawing.

With the help of the doorframe, I pulled myself up and took a tentative step. Each step faltered, my insides flinching in discomfort. But when I reached the next doorway and rested my sweaty forehead against the cool cement, I didn’t care.

I peered around the corner into a long, dimly lit hallway. One side led to a dead end, and the other led to a turn. Everything was solid cement, unadorned, and smooth.

No wonder no one heard me when I screamed. They held me in a cement room within a cement room within—based on the lack of windows—a basement.

At the corner of the turn, something tightened in my chest.

Why did it do that?

Along with the pressurized ache, the stabbing needle sensation was back, too.

I peered around the safety of the wall, and my stomach sank.

Stairs. Great.

Using the wall for support, I climbed. Sweat beaded on my forehead and underarms. My breaths came out in soft pants that I prayed no one heard. At the last step, I placed my hand against the brass doorknob and pleaded to whoever was listening that it wasn’t locked.

The knob turned.

As I pushed the door open, I entered an unlit hallway flanked by closed rooms, stretching towards an entryway and the front door. Beyond the glass, trees swayed, urging me to sprint toward them and escape.

Instead, I crept.

The bottoms of my clammy feet stuck to the polished wood floor.

I tensed with each suctioned step, moving down the sterile white hallway.

I was one step away from entering the foyer when I heard a snore.

My hand flew up to muffle my nose and mouth as I shrank back against the wall.

Pressure surged inside my body alongside the stabbing needles.

I knew I shouldn’t. I knew I should retreat. But I snuck one look.

A man in a cream cowboy hat slept in a recliner with most of his face covered. I panned between the door and the man. Twelve feet separated me from escape. I lifted my foot, cringing as my ankle popped, and stepped back.

Uncertain whether the door was unlocked and wary of the noise it’d make, I couldn’t afford to take the risk. I crept back down the hallway toward a room at the end and scurried inside.

Two floor-length windows faced a vast evergreen forest.

I stumbled over to one, relieved by the sliding tracks and easy locks. I grabbed the lip of the sill and pulled.

It didn’t budge.

My fingers grazed the top of the frame, flipping the locks, and I tried again. When nothing happened, I tried the other window with the same results. Why wouldn’t these damn windows open?

I sat down on the sill, taking stock of the furnished bedroom. There had to be something that could help me pry them open. Maybe something in the closet.

I slid open the closet doors and rifled through musty clothes. Hangers scraped against the metal pole, making me cringe. I dropped to the shoes, poking around for something useful. But unless I wanted to chuck high heels and sneakers at the glass until it shattered, I was screwed.

Although… I sat, found a pair of sneakers, and tied them as tight as I could. I didn’t want to run barefoot through a forest.

The warmth of the sunlight hit my face as I turned back to the windows. Why wouldn’t they open? Then something occurred to me .

It was me. I didn’t have the strength. My useless, bony arms couldn’t pull open the window.

I dug my nails into my palms, pacing in front of the pane of glass. If I didn’t escape, he’d lock me away again. I’d never find my mom. She’d never be able to tell me who I was or fix the agonizing pressure trying to take over.

I needed out. I had to find her!

The stabbing pressure surged against my skin, sending me to my knees. I hunched into myself, clawing at my chest.

“What’s happening to me?” I cried.

Hysterical, I slammed my fists repeatedly into the window, overcome with the stabbing pressure. “Make it stop. Make it stop,” I whimpered.

After the third pound, a white flame burst from my hands. They plunged through the glass, melting a hole through the window faster than they melted the doorknob.

Globs of glowing red slid off my shaking fingers and plopped to the sill, burning holes into the wood. As I pulled back, the rest of the glass shattered.

I jolted. If he wasn’t up before, he was now.

Ignoring the shards of glass, I dove through the window, hissing and dropping to the ground.

My flaming hands scorched the grass. I jerked them back and shook them as if that was their off button.

They mocked me, flickering higher instead of fading back into my skin.

Something banged inside the house.

Shit, was that a door?

I forced my unsteady legs up, keeping my hands away from my body, and through sheer willpower, I ran into the forest.

It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t graceful. It was hardly even running.