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CHAPTERONE
NOW
Mirrors,I’ve found, are the most satisfying for punching. Because of the shattering, yes, but also because of the pain. It’s unique. Dynamic. It’s different every time, depending on how many shards pierce your skin and where. It can be especially exquisite if you manage to break a bone, but that’s more difficult than you might think.
I stare at the blood, the red vibrant and dramatic as it runs down the pale skin of my forearm. Maybe, finally, this time it will scar. This time, it’ll leave a mark. This time, it won’t just disappear like nothing ever happened.
Along with the blood comes the familiar burn of magic on my skin. The heat builds hotter, sharper, almost to the point of pain, the fire blurring from orange to white to blue. It’s dizzying, intoxicating,devastating. Somehow…morethan it’s ever been before.
“Fuck, Val, not again.”
I huff as Adrienne hurries across the room and needlessly fusses over my arm. It’s not like it won’t heal. My blood pools in the bathroom sink, a mosaic of broken glass and spots of crimson decorating the counter. The mirror itself is mostly intact—a few fissures and cracks with a single hole toward the center.
Underwhelming.
If she hadn’t walked in, I probably would’ve tried again.
She says something else as she grabs tweezers from a drawer, but I’m not listening.
It’s my fault, really, for doing this in her room. Not that I have anywhere else to go. But she wasn’t supposed to be here today.
“Let me see it.”
“It’s fine.” I try to pull away, but her grip on my shoulder is hard enough to bruise.
“What the hell do you think you’re accomplishing with this?” she mutters under her breath as she gets to work extracting the tiny shards from my skin. “I thought we were past this. Are youdrunk? It’s not even midnight.”
“Of course not.” I sway on my feet.
“Come on. Sit down.” She ushers me to her bed, her voice gentler now, and I hate it.
I hate the careful way she’s holding my arm, the worry creasing her forehead, the way her eyes keep flicking up to inspect my face.
I hate the way she’s tried to take on Mom’s role at eighteen.
I hate that she never gets mad at me, never raises her voice, no matter what I do.
I wrench away as she pulls out another piece of glass.
“Valerie—”
“Leave it,” I snap, but she’s right. The whiskey is catching up to me, and I blink, trying to force the room to right itself.
The whiskey was the first mistake. Nasty, barbaric stuff. But it was all I’d been able to find.
She wrangles me onto the bed again, though she’s given up on tending to the wound. Instead, she grabs both sides of my face.
She looks tired. There are dark circles under her eyes, and her hair is unwashed and pinned up with clips. The hard set of her jaw doesn’t relent. “I did not just get you back to watch you kill yourself like this.” Her voice is lethally quiet, and her grip tightens on my skull.
“Don’t be so dramatic.”
She couldn’t be more wrong. I haven’t fought so hard to escape death this many times just to go running into its waiting arms. The bleeding, the pain, it’s not killing me. It’s saving me. It’s so much easier to hold on to the anger, the fight, with it buzzing through my veins. Without it, the darkness threatens to creep in, the sadness.
And I’m sure as hell not going to sit around and waste time feeling sorry for myself, not after clawing myself back here.
I want this anchor.I need it.
“You’ve spent the last three years hating me anyway,” I mutter.
