She’ll talk!
You know she will!
Plus, she’s nervous, and people get dangerous when they get nervous!
She’ll ruin everything.
She’s a problem that needs to be handled now!
“Stop it!” I yelled wildly, clutching my head. “Just stop!”
Talia’s mouth closed instantly.
Not you, the voices whispered.
Haelyn, she thinks you meant her.
“I know she thinks I meant her!” I muttered irritably. “That’s because all of you started talking at the same damn time!”
“Haelyn… w-who are you talking to?” Talia asked, her voice cautious and shaky.
The voices erupted all at once.
Oh, no!
She knows about our existence!
This is exactly why we told you to stop answering us out loud!
Now she’s looking at you… at us!
Make her stop looking!
Great! Now she’s going to think you’re crazy!
Think? She already knows!
Should we hide?
Where? We live in her head, idiot!
They screeched over one another so loudly that I could barely separate one from the next. One was crying, another kept repeating that we were “doomed,” and a third had already decided Talia was going to expose all of us.
Do something!
Fix it!
She can’t leave here knowing about us!
Their panic swelled until it felt like a room full of terrified people trapped inside my skull, shouting, sobbing, and blaming me at the same time.
I hastily turned my back.
I wasn’t worried about Talia choking me or trying to knock me unconscious with something. Her hands were free, but herankles were restrained, and she was too far away to reach me without moving. The scrape of the chain against the floor would’ve warned me long before she got close enough to try anything.
I slowly scanned the room, studying every corner, every shadow, every place something might be hiding and listening. For a second, the darkness near the wall seemed to shift, stretching itself into the shape of a person before settling again.
“You shouldn’t say my name like that,” I spoke in an eerie tone.
