Page 80 of Synodic

Huddling up with my parents who hated each other, smiling fraudulently yet another year in a row for the charity photo-op. Keeping up with so many charades, I was losing count.

Wantonly and savagely, he lacerated my memories, making room for his own, not a care in the world for the irreparable pain and damage he inflicted on me.

I tried to shove him out again, but he was ravenous and plowed back into me with a jarring force. A muffled cry escaped my lips, and tears streamed down my face. Even if I could move my arms to grab the weapon at my side, it was useless against these phantom attacks.

I couldn’t even scream out to Rowen in my paralysis.

Takoda had been right.A fate worse than death.

I felt him go further into my mind, my head exploding with more unwanted memories.

Dodging another priceless vase to the head as Cate discovered I hadn’t truly quit my not-so-secret door of revolving women.

Disgusted, I threw up a wall around my thoughts, imagining the toughest, most impenetrable steel.

I could feel him just on the other side, banging at the wall like a deranged madman. “Let me in. I need you!” he wailed, clawing at me as if I were the last life vest on a sinking ship. And maybe I was, but I could never let him have me.

Black-tar anger fueled through me like gasoline. The Mercer deal had gone wrong, horribly, horribly wrong. All the bargains, lies, and false promises I made to preserve my own legacy. Meaningless.

Sitting astride my motorcycle, I started the ignition. Despite the weather forecast and grey storm clouds, I plowed my way forward.

Too far.

He was in too far. Already occupying a small part of me, his memories were mine. I fought to hold him at bay, but more and more memories from that rain-fevered night leaked through the cracks. My barricade against him was breaking.

I pushed harder and harder against the throttle, ignoring the pellets of rain in my eyes and the dangers of a slick road.

I already knew how this story ended, and some part of me was aware that if this memory played out fully before my eyes, he would own this body.

I slowed my breathing, calmed my thoughts, and set my intention.

Get him out.Now.

I could barely see. My headlight flooded with the hammering rain, obscuring my vision with a million droplets of water.

An oscillating pressure built beneath my skin. A push. A pull. A subtle glint of rippling light coursed through my veins like streaks of shimmering lightning.

I lost traction. My tires hydroplaning over the thin wet surface, my center of balance wavering.

The fluctuation intensified, cresting into a swell of polished pewter. It grew larger and larger, sucking me in like the tide and overcoming me.

I let off the accelerator, fighting against the inevitable. Careening dangerously, I could do nothing to stop my fall.

Completely out of control, I was overtaken by a molten mercury wave of surging power. It built and filled and flowed until it was all of me. All of me against…

Fear.

Pain.

Darkness.

…

…

A tidal wave of light shot from my body in the brightest flash of gibbous iridescence, swallowing the dark in a seismic blast of liquid diamonds.

It was all silver. I was all silver.

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