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“Pin her down,” the shadow commands, and I’m kicking, trying to get away, but then the horseman is turning me over on my back, holding my arms above my head and pinning my wrists in place. The shadow man comes at me with a knife raised, his thighs on top of mine, the weight keeping me from bucking. “Easy, Kat, we’re trying not to hurt you.”
“Kat, Katrina,” the thing with no head says. “It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s Brom and it’s Crane.”
“No, no,” I cry, tears spilling out as I shake my head, my heart feeling like it will burst from my chest and run away because I can’t. “You’re not them, you’re not them.”
“We are us,” the shadow says. “Sweet witch, please, you have to choose to see us for what we are. We are not what you’re seeing, that’s fear. There are a lot of creatures around us right now sending you this fear, playing with your mind, because they love the way your fear tastes. You know us, you feel us.”
I struggle beneath them, but they’re too big and strong.
I am their captive.
I will die at their hands.
“Daffy,” the horseman says. “I’m not the horseman right now. I’m just Brom. I’m your Brom. Choose to see me. Look past it and see me. Please, daffodil, do this for me.”
The last please sounds so desperate that something inside me cracks.
And suddenly the image of the horseman starts to fade. Brom, my moody, dark Brom comes back into view, his head where there wasn’t a head before.
“Do you see me?” he asks, his face upside down as he peers over me. I nod frantically. “Do you see Crane now?”
I swallow and raise my head to see Crane pinning down my legs. It doesn’t help that he’s holding a knife in his hands, but at least there’s no shadow at all, just his pale, toned body lit by candles.
“I see you,” I whisper to Crane, relief flooding through me, trying to sweep away the terror. It’s him. It’s Crane, my teacher, my lover, with his thick black hair, his high cheekbones, that downturned mouth.
“Good,” Crane says, giving me a soft smile.
But the smile is fleeting.
“Now we’re going to keep you pinned down because this next part is going to hurt again, and I don’t want you running from the pain. We need to keep going. Alright?”
I nod, sucking in my breath and trying not to squirm despite what he just told me, watching as he takes the knife and presses it right between my clavicle and runs it down between my breasts.
“Ah!” I cry out, the pain even worse than before, and when I roll my head to the side to look away, I’m staring at all the dark spirits hovering on the other side of the salt circle.
Waiting for us to slip up.
Feeding on my pain.
“I’m sorry,” Crane says, the knife now going over my stomach, making me try and move, to escape the pain. “Please, try—”
The knife feels like it’s cutting deep, blood spilling over my stomach. I try to shift, to get up and run from it, but they keep me pinned down, and I’m bucking beneath them, the agony unbearable, taking over every part of my body.
I let out a scream, the sound echoing through the forest before Brom clamps his hand over my mouth. “We can’t call attention to ourselves,” he reminds me, and so I bite his hand instead.
He grimaces, but he doesn’t let up, even when I bite harder as Crane drags the sharp tip of the knife over my belly button where he finally stops.
The pain stops.
I close my eyes and exhale into Brom’s palm as my body lets go, turning into a rag doll beneath them. I sink into the grass, my heart rate spiking, a buzzing sensation inside me like I’ve been struck by lightning. The energy inside me roils and thunders, a storm of creation, a deluge of power there for the taking.
Brom takes his hand away and I hear him grunt, feel wet drops on my breasts as I realize he’s cut open his palm again.
I open my eyes to look at him and see his hand in Crane’s, clasped in a bleeding handshake over my body, the blood dripping down. They’re both looking into each other’s eyes with feverish intensity, a mix of pain and longing and love and history, and again I’m hit with the sting of jealousy. These men share something I don’t, they share secrets, they connect in shadows, their attraction to each other forbidden, their love even more so. There is a bond between them I can’t even begin to become a part of, but I want it all the same.
As if hearing me, Crane breaks away from Brom’s gaze, his eyes finding mine as they let go of each other’s bloodied hand.
