Maybe Irene wasn’t completely gone.
Maybe Masika could still reach her.
Irene leaned in closer. Her eyes darkened, brows cinchedtogether. When she finally spoke, her voice was low and rough, nearly trembling with anger. It was a quality Masika had never heard before—and it sent a shiver down her spine.
“You shouldn’t have come here.”
And then Masika’s best friend swung her arm down, thrusting the tip of her bow against Masika’s temple, and knocked her out cold.
34
WREN
First came a voice. It lifted her from the veil of darkness, guiding her toward the light. Wren wriggled her hands and felt damp earth shift beneath her, thin grains of dirt slipping between her fingers. She blinked and came back to her senses. Above her stretched a large expanse—a black sky dotted with brilliant azure stars. They twinkled and glided as if caught in an eternal dance. As if the world were spinning faster than her eyes could comprehend. When she sat up, she noticed she was lying in the same clearing as before…the one that had been haunting her in her dreams, calling to her.
The one where the Soulless One had first spoken to her.
A few yards in the distance, flanked by thick greenery and the carcasses of oak trees, stood the same statue. A chiseled, angular face. Sapphire eyes. It seemed to be watching her, an eerie sentience burning behind its eyes.
It’s time, my sweet catalyst.
The Soulless One’s voice reverberated through her like a dissonant gong. Wren tried to stagger backward, distancing herself from the statue, but when she tried to move, her legs wouldn’t budge, as though her muscles had hardened into stone.
“Please,” Wren choked out. “I don’t want this. I don’t—I don’t want to be the destroyer of Blackwood.”
Oh, but you will. With the truth, you will be reborn.
Wren shook her head. “You’re wrong.”
The Soulless One hummed. Wren could feel it. It trickled down her limbs, wrapping around the core of her soul. Something was happening to her. She was losing all sense of reality, her vision blurring under an oppressive weight.
Well…if you’re so sure, then…why don’t I show you?
Wren opened her mouth to scream, but it
was
too
late…
The patter of rain. Tires against asphalt. Static as an old folk song drifted through the radio. The sweet scent of vanilla perfume and the remnants of liquor lingering on minty breath.
Wren’s eyes shot open.
She was sitting in the passenger seat of her mother’s old Jeep Wrangler, looking down at her hands. The world around her tilted momentarily, blurring and refocusing as she came back to her senses.
“Mom is gonna kill us.”
I’ve been here before.
The thought shot through Wren’s mind like a rogue bullet.I’ve been here hundreds of times before.It was the memory of her death. The night she not only lost her own life—but her sister’s too. But Edith hadn’t been torturing her. She’d been…whathadshe been doing? How did she get here?
The Soulless One.
Awareness crept into Wren’s consciousness. She remembered now. He had brought her here, dragged her from the depthsof her mind. He wanted her to witness something. To see the truth.
Next to her, her sister sat in the driver’s seat, fingers drumming against the steering wheel. Wren wanted to tell her to stop, to pull over, but she knew that no matter what she did, the outcome would never change.
