“Wait,” I realized, a pit forming in my stomach. “So, what is happening to Byrd then? How do we even know if she’s alive?”
“She’s alive. I promise. If she were dead, you would feel it. No matter how blocked your bond is right now, you would feel it if she were dead. I can’t speak for what’s happening to her otherwise.”
“What do we do then? How do we stop this?”
Rhois stepped forward. “We find her. Quickly.”
“How?” Simone questioned. “We can’t track her.”
“Well, if we can’t track her,” Journee smirked, their dark eyes twinkling with mischief. “We will need to ask her.”
Thorned Rose
BYRD
I’m so tired.
Everything hurts.
I miss Quinn.
I want to go home.
I hate it here.
I’m so tired of saying all of this over and over again, but what else am I supposed to do?
I’m just so tired.
I had no idea how long it had been. Hours? Days? Weeks? It could have been even longer than that for all I knew. Time no longer had any meaning to me. It was a liquid, oozing, pooling, and slipping through the cracks in my mind. I couldn’t hold on to it. I couldn’t chase it.
Instead, all I knew was this chair and cellar.
The chair had become my home as much as it was my coffin. The cushion of the chair was both too hard and too soft all at once as it molded to my aching spine, ass, and thighs while causing stinging sores there. I couldn’t seek relief or comfort without causing even more pain because of my restraints. My hands, arms, feet, and legs had long settled into something between numb and burning as I did everything in my powernot to move. My shoulders, elbows, hips, knees, and other joints cried out from being held in the same position for too long. The smallest shift or adjustment felt like invisible teeth gnawing and burning their way to my bones, feeding on as much blood as they could to keep me alive while robbing me of my strength. I couldn’t even cry for the pain the sobs would cause from the injuries, not that I had any more tears left at this point. Lilah’s blood magic did double-time on the open wounds on my stomach and my right shoulder. The wounds weren’t allowed to heal, only to remain open and bleed. Somehow, the magic knew how much I needed to survive and took everything else.
The blood magic knew a lot of things. I was only allowed to use the bathroom when the blood magic knew I had to. Then, it would carry me to a bucket on the far side of the room to go. When I was hungry or thirsty, food and water appeared from a glittery cloud of Lilah’s magic. Then, I was hand-fed. It was just enough. Only barely. Yet, the water tasted laced with some kind of spell that made my throat feel like it was coated in moss. The food, some soup concoction for me to easily swallow, was so bland that it didn’t even taste like real food. My stomach cramped with hunger, which sent more pain lacing through me to distract from the emptiness I felt.
Sometimes, the red smoky tendrils of the magic seemed to swirl and pulse in rhythm with my ever-slowing heartbeat. It was coaxing, tempting, like it wanted to hold my hand as we stepped into the darkness together to never return.
The silence was too loud when Lilah wasn’t in the cellar with me. The slow drip of water in the distance sounded fainter. The pounding of stillness and phantom noise made my ears ring. My thoughts were on a constant loop, and I felt like I was losing my mind. I didn’t miss Lilah when she was gone, but I missed having something to distract me from this waking nightmare of nothingness.
The wait was its own torture, distinct from what she did to me.
The moment Lilah walked through the door, she was manipulating my memories. She played with them like they were toys, opening them up, rearranging the pieces, slamming them together until they broke apart, and then she would do it over again. She found a new way to do it every time. I witnessed every possible version of the worst days of my life. In one, I died beside my mother. In another, my mother accidentally killed me. Or, I killed her. It was the same with my father, too. I had experienced Aunt Max and Uncle Everett turn to ash in my arms. I had died by Quinn’s hand in more than one way. My dragon had manifested and ripped me to pieces. Or, I had shifted and then killed the hunters, tasting their blood on my forked tongue and feeling their bones crunch under my fangs. Their screams haunted me as they begged for mercy, mentioning their families and life beyond this place. The last hunter had ended up being Quinn. When I backed away, I realized I had killed all of Quinn’s family.
Lilah loved that one. Her laughter still stung my ears when I remembered it.
She was relentless. Worse, each manipulation was more vivid than the last, each one morepossible.
I did my best to fight back. I constantly reminded myself:This isn’t real. These aren’t my memories. This never happened to me.
But, theyfeltreal.
Every sound.
Every breath.
Every pain.
