I sat at the breakfast table, nursing my coffee and my hangover, wondering where I’d gone wrong. The guys hadn’t woken up yet, but I was thankful for the time alone to think. Memories from the night before drifted to the forefront. Atlas’s voice, deep, demonic, commanding. Wes’s eyes, dark and endless. The untenable rapture coursing my body, insatiable and reckless and terrifying.
I’d known flesh binding was going to be intense. I’d read stories about it before. But not like that. It should have drained me, the way the first ritual did. Instead, I was invigorated, like my skin was on fire and my blood was full of adrenaline and my nerves were firing faster than the rest of me could keep up. I could run a marathon if I needed to. I could scale entire buildings with one leap.
More than that, a flickering alarm kept blaring in the back of my mind, reminding me to pay more attention. I registered Atlas and Wes outside of me, their combined potency nearly overwhelming. The ritual had completed its intended effect, and if we kept going, it would work. I’d bet we were close enough now that I could draw on one of them if needed. But I sensed something else, too. A shadow in the bond. A lingering coldness that shouldn’t be there. It flickered like a lone candle at the end of a long tunnel, barely there, almost invisible, but undoubtedly present.
What is that? Where is it coming from?
This wasn’t right, and the more I ruminated on it, the more I feared Atlas might have had a point. Maybe we should have taken it slower. Perhaps I should have been more cautious. Something had been unleashed in us last night, something I should have seen coming. I thought we were prepared. I’d made sure we had every protection possible.
What am I missing?
I dug my palms into my eyes and bit back the sting of pain. I had no idea what I was doing anymore. Maybe we should stop this. Perhaps we should just accept that our lives were here now. Stuck together for eternity.
Words echoed in my mind, advice that seemed like it had been given to me centuries ago.
“The time has come when you must fight. You must forsake your rage at what isn’t, and focus on what is. You must channel your anger into faith, and faith into action.”
Rage into faith, and faith into action. Was it God? Was I supposed to fall to my knees and pray for help? How could I do that when I was still so angry at Him? He’d taken my parents from me and put me here, in some impossible situation.
“You will want to give up. You must not do this. You were given many gifts, mi hija. Do not let them go to waste.”
What gifts? After last night, I didn’t feel very gifted at all. No, I felt like a naive little girl playing with magic for the first time with no clue as to the consequences of my actions.
I thought about Tita’s advice again.
“You must pray.”
Would that really help? God and I hadn’t had a relationship in years, but what could it hurt? I crossed my hands in front of me and bowed my head, reciting old words that hadn’t fallen from my lips in over a decade.
“Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…” I finished the prayer and waited for some kind of response, some energetic exchange to tell me it was working. But nothing came, and I shook my head as that familiar resentment settled in my stomach like cement.
Día de Muertos would start at midnight. There was no turning back now. We needed to stick to the plan: finish the soul-binding ritual, open the veil, and push while my sisters pulled. I hoped they pulled. I was banking on Tita giving them my message. And if not, if we were truly on our own, we’d go down swinging. Would it be enough? I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
“Hey,” came a grumbled voice from behind me. Wes ran his hand back through his hair and limped to the cabinet with the glasses before going to the fridge to pour himself water.
“Hey.” I quickly wiped away my tears. “How are you feeling?”
He straightened and shifted his shoulders. “Suspiciously great. Despite the muscle aches. How about you?”
“Okay,” I said out loud. “It seems like the flesh binding is still holding up.”
“Uh-huh,” he agreed as he took a seat next to me, bouncing his knee under the table. “I’m not sure how I feel about you and my brother being in my head all the time.”
I laughed and shook my head. “Same here.”
“So…uh…about last night.” Wes cleared his throat and sipped his water, shifting uncomfortably like he couldn’t stay still.
“It was intense,” I said. “But nothing we can’t handle.”
“Right,” he said. “Do you feel any different?”
Like I could run from here to the moon and back? Like unsure about what to do next, combined with debilitating insecurity different?
“Exactly,” he said. I froze for a moment before I remembered Wes was inside my head. I was inside his. He’d heard my thoughts.
Wes licked his lips, and my focus dropped to the movement. I remembered that tongue doing wicked things to my skin, making me ache and plead and beg for more. “What do you mean you’re unsure about what to do next?”
“I don’t think we did it right,” I said. “I mean, we’re hearing each other’s thoughts and the energy in my veins… It’s intoxicating. I think I could maybe draw from one of you now, and that must mean we’re getting closer to the warrior bond. But…I sense something else. Something sinister. Something we shouldn’t have messed with.”
