Page 94 of A Broken Promise

I was done with it now.

No more.

“What did you do to those guards?” I asked, sitting up on the ground, staring at my dust covered boots. Descending deep into the numb within me, while my world got torn apart in twisted realities.

“Oh them? Their brain just forgot how to function for a little bit. You’d be surprised how painful it is when your brain turns to mush,” Priya said feeling smug.

“I thought most Truth Tellers could only read thoughts, and skilled ones could alter memories. I don’t remember hearing about them turning brains to liquid,” I said, hiding my feelings, hiding my thoughtsfar behind the wall of anger. The creature awoke within me rattling its chain.

She threw her half empty bag of rolls on the floor, now scavenging the rest of the cupboards. I stood up, tugging on the ends of my ripped dress.

“Well turns out if you are any good at it, you can do a lot more than that. And I...” She pulled out a pack of cookies. “I am really,reallygood at it.”

A truth and a threat all in one.

The shattered heart within me ached. Not because she’d broken my trust, though that too hurt, but because I gave her that trust to begin with.

I cared for her.

Priya, twisted in her ways, was the closest thing to family that I had and maybe it was dishonest and even a little cruel, but she had saved me, she had given me a haven when I needed it the most.

I took a long breath, watching her shove cookies into her mouth one after another.

I cared for her.

“Come with me to find the Rebels, Priya,” I softly asked.

A lifeline.

One I deeply hoped she would take.

A chance for us to fix what was broken.

“I need to find the Rebels. Come with me. We could make a difference. We could make something good from all those killings.” I looked outside to an empty street, the Royal Castle far on the horizon. “Come with me, Priya.Please.”

Priya laughed. Gutturally. Wickedly. Her laugh landed like a knife, stabbing me.

“OhFreckles,Truth Tellers were hunted long before Magic Wielders were. Maybe for once we enjoy not being the center of attention. Plus, I have no desire to become some Rebel tool of war until I get my throat sliced in my sleep.”

“Priya. You havea gift. You could do so much good with it!”

“A gift? You think Truth Telling isa gift?!” She raised her voice asshe turned to me sharply, her brows bunched up and eyes narrowed. “Do you know how one becomes a Truth Teller? How one can obtain such agiftto be in someone else’s mind? Do you know?!”

I stayed quiet, watching hatred rise within her darkened eyes.

“No? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Somehow people conveniently forget about the most important detail. You have to betortured, but notone timekind oftorture, butcontinual, daily torture for yearssothat eventually your mind and body are so exhausted, wanting to die so bad yet unable, so you make the jump.”

My eyes slightly widened.

I didn’t know.

Priya scowled but turned her eyes to the empty streets covered by the darkness.

“You have to be so painfully close to death yet so strikingly craving for survival that one day your mind just can’t go on anymore, so it jumps into someone else’s body. Dissociates so far from reality that you find yourself free of pain yet drowned in someone else’s thoughts. But do you know what happens next, Finn?”

She paused, twisting her neck and scoffing at me.

“Even if you made the jump, you were now being completely choked out by foreign thoughts, their memories, their feelings, and you have to claw yourself out of the quickly suffocating swamp. Did you know that many make the jump, but not many come back? It’s a torture of its own. And each time you make the jump it’s still painful. Your mind and body being ripped apart.”

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