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“Your home is with me, child. With Ruth. With Niles.”
My guard softens for a second but then quickly hardens into agitation, disbelief, andhatred.
“They’re going to take you away.”
Get out of my head!
“No,” I say, looking into Warrose’s worried hazel eyes, then to Ruth, then back to Chekiss. My anger gets the better of me; it swells under my chest like a tumor, hardening my organs and burning through my bones fiercely. I can’t accept this reality as my own. I can’t accept that life goes on after Dessin. After Kane. After all of their alters.
“I don’t belong with any of you, dammit!” That acidic rage vibrates through my muscles, coating each syllable in deadly doses of venom. I begin stumbling back, heels digging in the dirt as my body screams to run, to hide, to put as much distance between me and this place as possible.
“Oh, Skylenna, please!” Ruth chokes out. “We’re sisters. We’re family.”
The urge to wound and harm the people I care about burns through my senses, scorching my verbal filter. “You. Aren’t. My. Sister,” I grit out, throwing each word at her as if it were a weapon that could easily puncture her skin. “I had a sister! And because of me, she killed herself! She didn’t even get a funeral. I’ll never be able to visit her grave because her ashes are scattered in the wind!”
Ruth is a withering flower under my murderous glare. But I won’t let the guilt in for what my words have caused. There isn’t room for any other emotion.
“You aren’t my family. And I don’t belong here.”
Unable to look in their eyes a moment longer, I spin on my heels and begin running toward the forest. Each step shoots life back into my limbs, and I’m sprinting as fast as I can. Only one other set of footsteps thumps behind me.
I nearly stop as Chekiss howls. “I’ll come with you, child!Please!”
Tears burst again from my eyes at his raspy sobs and that rough fatherly voice begging as he tries to keep up. But his lungs won’t allow it. His wheezing breath grows quiet as I put more distance between us.
And even as I disappear into the tree line, I can hear the cries of a father that has lost his daughter.
Again.
13. Into The Void
As I wander aimlessly into the Emerald Lake forest, I remember the taste of blueberry pie. Scarlett used to have the first sample of it after the pie cooled down. She’d stick her fingers in its center and scoop.
I focus on that smile. That rare, beautiful smile I’d only seen when she tried to cheer me up. If only she was here to make me that pie now. I’d give anything for a glass of milk and her arms around me. But the image of her sticky blue fingers, her sincere green eyes, that steaming pie held in her oven mitts… it darkens, loses its bright essence. Every good memory I try to conjure turns into something rotten. Something cold and decaying.
It’s not fair.
The only people that can make any of this less painful… are dead.
“Everyone dies around us,”the voice says quietly.
I press my hands over my ears. What is happening to me?
The sun sets, a blast of orange-and-gold rays cutting through the trees, glimmering off the dewy leaves, and warming my cheeks. Quick bursts of wind carry the scent of lilac, honeysuckle, and wet soil. I begin searching the trees for our tree house. I know it was in this forest, but I’m not even sure where I am, much less which direction to go in.
Stumbling in my black dress, I trip over vines, slicing up my ankles from thorny weeds and broken sticks. And I’m numb from the inside out. A cold river of blood flowing through my veins, forcing my heart to keep beating, and that’s it. That’s all I have left.
“Is this what you wanted?” I call out to the void. “For me to end up alone and angry? To find a nice hole in this forest to die in?” I’m not sure if I’m talking to God or any one of the people who has died.
“They all die.”
I throw my hands over my ears again and scream.
The sun sinks into the earth, and the cool-blue sky darkens. The winds pick up and coat my arms and legs in goose bumps. I stop walking, look out into the blue-and-green abyss of night draping over the forest, and I wonder how I’ve fallen this far. But even worse, I find myself waiting for Dessin to find me. To rescue me. My burning, tired eyes search the trees, praying I’ll see him standing there, waiting for me to run into his arms.
And with that dreadful thought and the unbearable reality crashing over me, I drop to my knees and curl into a tight ball. A spot in soft, moist soil. With sleep slipping over my eyes, I take a deep breath.
And pray that I don’t wake up.
