Page 158 of Storm Caller

Someone seizes me by the arm, and that’s when I completely lose it.

The fight in me rips free, exploding out of me with panic and devastation and fucking rage, giving me claws where I once had fingers. “Don’t touch me!”

More hands. More fighting. I scream. I shriek. My ears ring, and my voice cracks. I feel the air around me tearing apart.

My father approaches, his eyes dark and his expression grim.

“Poet, please,” he says, his voice low, pleading.

“Grady, deal with her!” I hear the general say. “If you cannot control her, I will have no choice but to dissolve our bargain.”

My father’s hand circles my arm.

I know that cold, firm grip.

My vision tunnels, smearing at the edges.

Sweat breaks out on my forehead.

My breath snips into pieces.

I thought . . . I thought I’d conquered this.

The fear. The sickening swirl in my stomach every time he touched me.

My surroundings darken as I see his hands reaching for me.

Pale against the shadows, delivering a biting sting of anger.

I hear the sound of bones cracking.

My mother screaming. Raine trying to drag me to safety.

I break from every string tethering me to this earth. I become nothing but a frothing ball of fire. A seething mass of deceit and confusion.

Teeth. Hair. Skin. And flesh.

“Don’t touch me!” I scream at him. “Don’t ever fucking touch me again!”

I feel a pinch, and then my thoughts swim.

“Poet, please!” My father’s voice turns distant. Muted.

But his pleas aren’t doused in that icy fury I know so well.

Instead, I hear his fear.

And that, more than anything, scares me the most.

I sway as the lights around me blur.

They’ve injected me with something. I try to run, but my feet won’t cooperate. They’ll take me away now, too. I was trying to help Rook, but I’ve fucked everything up.

The Veil is coming.

I need to tell someone. I need to protect my mother. Domino. Journey. The Fog.

I’ve let everyone down.