Page 25

25

EMBERLYNN

A s soon as Wylder leaves my room, I start to doze off.

Did he use a spell on me?

That’s the last thought I have before I plummet into the darkness of my nightmares.

“Emberlynn,” Shadow Man whispers. “I’m coming for you.”

I spin in a circle, scanning the darkness swallowing my surroundings. My heart is thumping maddeningly, and soft gasps of panic flee my lips. I open my mouth to yell at him, but a hand covers my mouth.

“Shh … He can’t find you. He just wants you to think he can,” my mother whispers.

I’m not sure how I recognize her voice, but it’s her—I can feel it in my soul.

I breathe in and out, wanting to ask her so many questions but too worried that if I speak, he’ll find me.

“Good. And remember that. He may say he can find you, but he can’t,” she tells me. “Not yet. One day, he’ll find you, though, so be ready ? —”

She lets out a blood-curdling scream.

“Mom!” I cry out, spinning in a circle, searching for her in the abyss I’m stuck in.

“Your mother is gone, my pet. She left you again,” he mocks me. “And those guys I’ve seen glimpses of in your thoughts, they’ll be gone, too.”

“No … they won’t leave me.’’ My lack of confidence reveals the cracks in my facade.

“Leave? Who said anything about leaving?” he asks. “We both know you’ll end up killing them. It’s what you do, my deadly pet. You kill. Your powers are death.”

I vigorously shake my head as tears well in my eyes. “No, I’d never hurt them.”

“Tsk-tsk. Do you remember anything about what I taught you? Good girls don’t lie. Bad ones get punished.” A snap of laughter, and then he says, “Guess it’s time for me to show you your punishment.”

Bright images ignite through the darkness and pierce my vision. Images of Kaiden, Nico, Wylder, and Phoenix lifelessly laying on blood-soaked grass, the leaves on the trees dripping with blood, the flowers around are splattered with red, and even the sky bleeds. And I stand in the middle of it all, blood soaking my hands and smearing across my floor-length white dress and veil. My eyes are black and hollow, my skin snaking with blue wisps that coil and slither out from me, reaching into the air and around the guys’ necks, squeezing tightly, as if seeking more death, more pain, more madness ? —

I awake in a startle, jolting upright and gasping for air. I don’t allow myself to calm down. I jump out of bed, change into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, pack my bags, and crack the bedroom window open.

Shadow Man has shown me images before like that, ones of me bloody and covered with the sin of murder. And it actually happened when he made me kill all of those people.

I won’t let it happen again.

I won’t hurt the only guys who have ever treated me like I was worth something.

I’ll protect them by taking my cursed existence as far away from them as possible.