I offer him a thumbs-up because I can’t trust myself to talk and not cry simultaneously. Cautiously, while walking his way, I throw a peek sideways at the mirror next to me. It’s just my normal reflection. An exhausted girl staring at me with trepidation in her eyes.
I hesitantly walk over to it.
I raise my brows, and the reflection does the same. I mimic pulling the string of a bow and releasing an arrow, and the reflection follows.
With a heavy sigh, I lower my head. I feel stripped raw and grossly vulnerable right now.
“You will never wear the signia of a Veil. You aren’t pure enough, Norissa, and you know it.”
I stiffen but don’t look up.
“You may play pretend and act so pristine, but you can’t lie to me. Yourself.I know how very dark we truly are,” it hisses full of malice. “And soon, so will everyone else. Oh, how Mommy will be so very disappointed.”
I lift my head, heavy from the weight of the words thrown at me, and punch the mirror, causing glass to shatter all around.
Blood drips down my knuckles into the dark sand.
Drip, drip, drip.
“Finnley, let’s go,” I plead, staring at the broken shards of glass hanging from the mirror. I need out of this place.
But he doesn’t answer me. Lifting my head toward him, I see him just standing and staring into a simple-looking mirror rimmed with a burnished gold frame.
Dammit. Not him, too.
“FINNLEY! DON’T LOOK IN IT,” I shout, my feet already moving and flying across the sand. “LOOK AT ME!”
He continues gazing into the mirror, a look of agony tearing across his face. I’m close enough now that I can hear the words clear as day when he murmurs them.
“Don’t go. Please don’t go,” he begs, gripping the edges of the mirror hard enough that his knuckles turn white.
I push myself even harder.
Almost there.
He places his palm on the mirror as if he can touch the person he’s seeing. The next moment, he’s pulled through.
Chapter ten
Time is a fickle bitch.
Precious moments that you want to simmer in and relish are fleeting. Moments that test your resolve and push you to the brink seem to be eternal in their duration.
I stand in front of the mirror Finnley disappeared into for what feels like an eternity. I willed my reflection to come back and taunt me, shun me, anything as long as I could see something. Something other than the bloodshot eyes that stare hollowly back at me, appearing dark and sunken in.
I look more dead than alive at this point.
When that didn’t work, I screamed and then resorted to crying tears of anger and frustration. Sand still lies under my fingernail from grabbing fistfuls of it and throwing it at the glass while cursing it with every colorful word I could think of.
The one thing I didn’t do was break any more mirrors.
Perhaps this was my punishment for breaking the first one. Finnley being taken. He’s still alive, that much I am sure of. OrI’d be dead too. At least in death, I would know where he was. As it is, I’m just wandering around aimlessly.
I’m starting to wonder if we’ll spend the rest of our lives just wandering around this forsaken maze looking for one another.
After staring at myself for longer than is comfortable, I start blowing hot air onto the mirrors and drawing little sad faces in the condensation. Eventually, it gets too cold to remain idle, and I’m forced to move on. There’s always the off chance he’s not even in the blasted mirror anymore and just teleported to another section of this fucking never-ending maze.
I’ve come to realize through all of this that solitude is, in fact, dangerous. Just like I suspected. You can become addicted to it. Soak in your peace. No fear of loss or hurt. On the other hand, it can be a methodical form of self-torture. The walls close in on your carefully crafted world, and you bathe in the self-doubt and truths you’ve avoided. There is no noise or the chaos of others to block it out.
