Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
“I’ll meet you at the car. I’ll hurry,” I promised.
Dread curled through his expression. “Don’t trust anyone, Aria.”
I gave him a tight nod, then hurried away. I could feel the weight of his gaze burning into my back as I rushed toward the hall that led to the restrooms just inside the entrance. My entire body buzzed with the energy that skimmed over my skin.
I knew the second Pax looked away, could feel it just as I reached the hall, and I turned course and gave myself over to the lure.
To the tether that pulled and pulled.
I quickly wound into the racks and displays, keeping myself concealed as I went. I followed the far wall before I ducked into an aisle stocked with dishes and kitchen utensils; then I cut across the store, following the wails of the child and the bleakness that seeped out like wisps of poison curling through the air.
She was up ahead, turning right down an aisle.
I followed her, tracking, keeping far enough behind that she wouldn’t feel me. So I wouldn’t incite more fear when she was already riddled with it.
So close to breaking.
She took another turn, this time into the baby aisle. She stopped at the diapers, pulled out a pack, wavered, then put it back.
The whole time, the voices howled, and the baby screamed.
“Do you hear his misery? You did this to him. Only you can give him the mercy he deserves.”
Agony radiated from her as she wound back around until she was in front of the dressing rooms. She unbuckled her son, brought him to her chest, and whispered, “Please.”
There was no attendant, and she disappeared into the rooms. I followed her. Energy crashed, and my limbs twitched with the intensity that coiled in my being.
She was on the floor when I turned the corner, her back to the wall and tears streaming down her face as she rocked and rocked the child.
Her eyes widened when they met mine.
“He wasn’t meant to be here.” She mumbled the confession. Her grief. Her torment.
I dropped to my knees in front of her and took her face in my hands.
Cold streaked through my veins, the air ripped from my lungs, while the connection burned.
A fire curled up my arms.
So hot I might as well have been consumed by flames.
A chill raced down my spine, and flickers of darkness encroached at the edges of my sight.
A barren plane. Vapors and mist. Shadows rose and lifted and swirled through the wiry elms. The night thick, the sky low. Evil prowled across the lifeless ground.
Thunder cracked, a whip of wickedness, the force of it strong enough that it nearly tossed me back. I had to fight to hold on to her. To keep the connection as a dark shadow raged and tore and thrashed.
I held firmer, and a rush of images and emotions battered against my mind.
The pills. The paranoia. The voices that had haunted her since she was just a little child.
Hidden under her covers.
Shaking.
Shaking.
No joy. No peace.
End it now.
End it now.
There’d been a flicker of joy. Her hand on her belly as she’d looked at the positive test.
Maybe she had something to live for.
But the child had cried and cried.
“You knew better than to bring him here. You should have killed yourself before you got into this situation. How could you be so selfish to think a child would change anything? You’re a fool, because he is cursed, too.”
Poison dripped from the slithering voice.
“If you love him, you’ll end it now. What’s waiting for him is so much better. You’ll see. You’ll see.”
Gasping against her pain, I tightened my hands on her face.
Her eyes blew wide open as I tried to push my mind into hers.
I leaned up high on my knees to get closer, squeezing my eyes closed so I could see.
And it was there. A shadow that thrashed and writhed, forever trapped in her mind. An aged Kruen of great strength. Its face contorted by the evil that made its shape. Its mouth gaping, a blackened hole of nothingness as it howled.
It hissed when it saw me, and a fiery tendril lashed out. It struck me in the chest.
At the contact, agony splintered through my body, but it was different from when asleep because I was already awake. And I held on, focusing with everything I possessed.
An orb of light swelled.
Glowing from the depths of me.
From a place that shouldn’t exist.
I pushed it out, through my middle, where the energy raced down my arms and to my hands.
Propelling it, urging it toward the Kruen that lashed against the chains.
The bindings that surrounded it.
It screamed and screamed, as loud as the infant who wailed.
But I didn’t let go.
I poured everything I had into destroying the beast.
An electric current rushed.
A bolt of lightning that lashed.
I felt it streak from my hands, and it struck the Kruen in its abdomen. It wailed in torment, the demon thrashing on the lifeless ground.