Page 104 of Inextricably Tied

Flint’s voice sinks like lead into her stomach. She knows what that voice means. He’s bracing her for the worst. Her breath puffs dirt against her face. “What?”

He doesn’t respond.

“What is it?”

“There are horns behind you. From someone’s head.”

Bile rises in her throat. “Where?”

“Behind your right foot.”

“Is that it?”

Silence is the only answer.

“Flint.”

“They look like a faun’s. Bloody. There are other things scattered in the dirt. I can’t tell what they are.”

Harbinger’s face scrapes the ground, trying to focus on cold air filling her lungs. “Can I reach them?”

“What?”

“The horns: can I reach them?”

Flint inhales warily. “Harbinger…”

“Can I reach them?”

“Maybe. If you really stretch.”

She extends her right calf as far as she can before she brings her foot down. It strikes something hard. She fights the nausea, stretching further, curving her foot along the ground. With a grunt, she sweeps the dirt up toward her glove. “Did I get them?”

Flint hesitates. “You kicked one further away.”

Harbinger curses. Pressing the toes of her boot against the ground, scooting the hard formation toward her. She stretches her hand back toward her leg.

“You’re gonna make yourself sick,” Flint murmurs. She doesn’t stop. The hard shape shuffles closer. She kicks until her hand touches down on something smooth.

Thank the gods she can’t see. Still, she shuts her eyes, sucking in a breath before she presses the horn to her cheek and gags.

“Harbin…” Flint’s tone is a warning.

“It’s just — jarring. The last thing that happened. The first thing I see.”

She swallows the vomit creeping up her throat, returning the horn to her cheek and sinking into the vision.

There are far fewer threads than she’s used to. So much less time than she normally sees. It clenches in her stomach, but Harbinger rushes past the end and reaches back for the beginning.

The horn chipping during a softball game, its tiny owner sobbing, mollified by the game-winning ball in her hand. A cold rush of wind against the horn, two giggling girls running down a snow-laden street, a beanie tugged tighter against the chill. Lips pressing softly against the horn, a mother’s whisper above a smile tucked into bed. Hundreds of memories, bright and beautiful, spanning the girl’s life —

Until its sickening end.

The horn jamming into the trunk of a car. Scraping tallies into the wall of a dark room with no windows. Dragging across this cellar floor, a voice screaming to escape. Horrifying crunches as blood splatters and the horn snaps from the girl’s head.

“It’s one of ours,” Harbinger gasps. “One of the girls.”

“Who? Isolde?”