Page 154 of Wrath

My searching hands came up empty. Where were my weapons? I always kept them on me. Did someone take them?

“Surrender, Z. You belong here.”

Chills careened down my spine.

“Who are you?”

“Do you remember the day your human parents were killed?” the voice continued. “Do you remember how scared you were?”

Flashes barraged me.

A scream lodged in my throat as my mother placed her hands to her throat, which wept blood.

My father cried out, begging me to run.

All I could hear was the sound of my feet as I ran, ran, ran, ran?—

“SHUT UP!” I screamed, placing my hand over my ears as if that could somehow stop the voice from speaking.

“Do you remember when you lost S the first time? What about the second time, when you killed him?”

A tight rubber band constricted around my chest, hellbent on suffocating me.

“Shut the fuck up!”

“You bring death wherever you go, Z. The world would be better off if you remained here. Stay with me. Stay in the darkness.”

My breathing turned thready. Panic jangled my nerves. What the voice alluded to… It wasn’t true, was it?

“Who are you?” I whispered, straining my neck to see out of the pit.

“You haven’t figured it out yet?” The figure shuffled forward.

Abruptly, like a giant spotlight flicking on, a cloud shifted in the sky and revealed the moon. It illuminated the figure’s smiling face.

My breath caught.

That blonde hair…

Those blue eyes…

That sensual smile…

It wasme.

FIFTY-EIGHT

RYLAND

“Ry, are you okay? Answer me, dammit! Are you okay?” My father shook my shoulders, and I forced myself to look away from the hundreds of dust mounds scattered through the lawn.

Dad’s wild eyes studied me, taking stock of the scratch on my cheek and the blood on my hip. But what was one more scar in the grand scheme of things?

“I’m fine,” I told him, allowing my gaze to travel over his haggard form.

He looked like shit. Blood gushed from a wound on his head, and dozens of bruises marred his neck, as if someone had tried to choke him.

But he was alive and breathing, which was more than could be said about hundreds of others.

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