This can’t be karma coming for me… can it?
No…No, I never deserved this life forced on me. I had to fight to survive. I refuse to believe I merit this.
“Don’t move, my sweet girl. We need to ring your boyfriend.” She adjusts my jaw andpopsit back into place.
The anger writhing inside me blazes so fiercely that heat springs to my eyes, unbidden. “Please…” My voice cracks, raw with desperation as tears spill down my cheeks, faster than I could ever hope to stop. “Leave him alone…”
Fuck—I should have never allowed him to get close to me.Fuck, fuck, fuck!
“What does it matter?” she asks as she runs a nail along my cheek.
“I beg of you… not him…”
“You will be gone for another seventy years.” Her words cut through me like a blade, and for a moment, I truly wish my heart would stop. “Neither he, nor anyone, will find you where you’re going. I shouldn’t have been so kind in my placement of you the first time.”
Tenderly, she drags her sharp nails along my hairline, brushing strands behind my ear before trailing them under my chin. “Why…” My voice fractures with a sob. “Don’t do this.”
“You are my only hope to stop our kind from going extinct.” Her tone is chillingly matter-of-fact, each word slicing deeper. “I can’t have you out here being selfish withmybody.”
Before I can react, her hand clamps around my throat, wrenching a sharp gasp from me.
“You will go back under until it is your time,” she hisses, her silver eyes blazing. “And when you emerge, you will serve your only fucking purpose.”
My vision blurs, but I can still see my chest heaving, rising and falling in quick, panicked bursts.
“Don’t fight it, Xeraphine. Just sit still,” she commands, her voice eerily calm now. With a sharp tug, she pulls me forward, forcing me onto my knees. She steps to my side, releasing her grip as if discarding me entirely.
I barely register her absence before Lars steps into view, towering over me.
“If you promise to be a good girl…” His voice drips with mockery as he straddles my legs, his grip on the back of my neck tightening like a vise. My body trembles under the weight of the pain, every nerve alight with agony. “You can stay with me,” he continues, his tone turning cruelly sweet. “I was always your favorite. You never fought that hard against me, did you?”
A deafening scream tears from my throat, raw and unrelenting, as I thrash against the invisible chains holding me down. My eyes burn with everything I despise, a rage so consuming it’s almost blinding.
“Fuck you, Lars, and the ship you floated in on,” I snarl, venom lacing every word. I spit in his face, and to my disgust he just laughs, low and mocking, while gathering it up with his fingers and shoving them into his mouth.
“Oh, I’ll fuck you. Your cunt is perfect with or without a head.”
My body shakes violently, overtaken by the wrath surging through me, obliterating every shred of a coherent thought.
I hardly process that I’m now sitting alone—Lars has walked away without a word. The world around me fades to black, my senses dulled to everything. Even when a hand wraps around my neck, the pressure feels like nothing more than a breeze.
“Keep your mouth shut about me, Xeraphine,” Tali commands.
I try to respond, but I don’t even know if I have a voice left to speak.
Kai… No… Oh my Gods. Please don’t do this. I can’t be without him. I won’t survive.
It isn’t just my Amoro that would die, but I truly believe my heart wouldn’t survive either. The weight of that truth crushes me, and I don’t know what will become of me when I finally emerge. Will I still beme,or will I be a shell, lost to the nothingness that’s waiting to swallow me whole?
One… Five… Seventy years from now… What would I be when…ifI come back?
I’ll lose myself if they take him away from me…
“What the fuck are you doing there, Marcos?”
I try to lift my head, but Tali’s fingers are threaded through my hair, forcing me to keep my gaze fixed on the ground. Every fiber of my being wants to look up, to find Kairhyse’s voice, to see where it’s coming from, but I can’t.
“You know I’m not going to answer that. You are just going to listen for a moment. Also, stay at that stoplight.”
