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He didn’t move.
Hunter approached from behind—I had no idea where Grant was—and Troy locked eyes on me.
The flames danced there, the ones that I’d seen, that had mocked me.
It can’t have him.
Troy was mine. The shadow could go back to hell as far as I was concerned.
I brought my forearms together, just as I had with Hunter, and thankfully it worked against Troy. His massive frame was thrown backward, but I didn’t give him time to settle. I rushed forward—hoping I’d stunned him long enough to reach him before he could swipe those claws at me.
I hit him at full speed and set my hands on his cheeks.
The mist came back to me, that memory, the bird.
The lesson…
I stopped fighting it all. I stopped trying to win by being something, by proving anything. Instead, I accepted it. Accepting what I was, even if I didn’t have a name, even if I didn’t understand it, I embraced it. The mist I’d run from, the fears of being different, I released them all.
The shadow that snaked through him tried to surge forward, to knock me free, but I wouldn’t let it. I reached into him, used whatever power I had to grasp that shadow, the wrapped my fingers around it and yank it free.
It scratched at me, clawing, leaving burning pain, but I didn’t relent.
It couldn’t have him.
Finally, I fell backward, not thrown like before but this time from pulling that shadow from him.
The shadow moved in the room, as though a fish thrown from its bowl, before it dissipated.
And I collapsed, my knees striking the floor and everything going black.
* * * *
Fingers stroked through my hair, gentle and sweet. They drew me awake, despite the throbbing in my head, the aches in my body.
I opened my eyes to find familiar amber eyes staring down at me. “You worried me.” Hunter’s long hair hung down, wild and so much like him.
A soft groan from the side made me frown, and when I twisted to find Kase seated, his back to the wall and his eyes closed, it all came back to me.
Troy. The fight. The shadow.
I scrambled up, despite the way it made me light-headed.
A quick count told me everyone was there, but it took a slower second pass to check on them all.
Someone had hung a heavy blanket up over the window, to keep the sunlight out, but the burns on Kase were still obvious. He opened his eyes, which had dimmed, then gave me a half smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
Grant stretched out on the floor, a cut on his lip and another on his forehead. Hunter reached out and kicked him, and despite looking all but dead, Grant lifted his hand and offered a thumbs-up.
Lastly, Troy sat in the corner, his legs crossed, his body hunched forward. He stared down at his hands—which had returned to normal, as had the rest of him.
I took a step toward him, wanting to reassure myself that it had worked, that he was okay, but as soon as I did, he nailed me with a hard look that froze me in place.
“Are you back?”
He huffed and looked down. “You should have run, Ava. That was a stupid risk you took.”
Him lecturing me was the best thing I’d ever heard. It meant he was really okay.
