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Too bad I can’t see more of the place. Oh, well. The sparkles of light grew brighter and more insistent.
“There will be another time for that. I cannot restore you, but I will give you a chance. More chance than you had. I have taken the payment I wish for this already.”
Confusion muddled through me even as the light grew brighter, obscuring all else. Chance? Payment? No, not Ryan!
I heard a melodious laugh just before a ripping crack obscured all else.
Chapter 30
The void was nothingness. Not light or dark, but the absence of all reference. No color, no sound, no touch. I drifted for a time, seconds stretching to eternity, aware of the void and feeling the expectation, the anticipation of something more, something beyond the void.
But the nothingness swallowed sensation and thought alike, and I gradually ceased to wonder.
Come on, Sweets. You can’t stay. You don’t belong here. You need to keep going.
Going?
Yes, keep going through. Go on through, sweetling. You’re doing just fine.
I am?
You always have. I’m so proud of you.
Where am I going?
Through. Go on through.
Through?
He’s calling you. Just follow his call.
Too easy to lose the way.
Too hard to keep from unraveling when there’s nothing to remind you of who you are and where you should be.
Another eternity passes in the flick of an eyelash.
Kara. Kara, you need to come back.
A feathery touch on the edge of my essence.
Come on, Kara. Find your way back. You’ve been gone long enough.
A flickering awareness of self. Curiosity. Emotions and awareness creeping back in gradually.
Kara. Kara. Come back. You can do it. Come back to me.
The presence. A rich familiarity.
Kara. It’s time. Come back.
Come back? Where? Oh. Right. Through.
I felt cold in the nothingness, the icy tendrils wrapped around me noticeable only because I actually felt the cold. Then pain seared through me, staggering in the abrupt shift from nothing to razor-sharp coils of agony twisting around me. I screamed into the nothingness as the pain increased past the point where I was certain that I should cease to feel anything. No, I’m dying. I’m dead. It’s not supposed to hurt anymore! Molten lava swept through my veins, my bones twisted and shattered, only to be flung back together. A demon clawed and tugged at my belly, tearing me apart. I heard a ripping crack.
And then it was gone.
I took a dragging wretched breath in, lungs searing as if they’d never drawn breath before. I smelled ozone and felt a dull throb of pain in my right shoulder and cold floor against my cheek and hip. I heard shouts and voices around me and then felt hands on me. I fought to open my eyes, struggling to blink away the fuzziness that filled my vision.
