Page 33 of Awry
And suddenly my heart is in my throat.I get that it’s just my pulse thrumming through the veins in my neck, but it literally chokes me for a moment.
Presh hasn’t manifested as a shifter.
She’s … awry.
The running away and subsequent kidnapping make so much more sense now.
“Pleased to meet you, Rath,” the impostor says.Her sweet rasp is thinner, almost reedy now.No hint of the playfulness or that sudden scathing anger she sent my way on the phone.
She reaches for Presh.
I jerk forward, not sure if I mean to yank my sister away … or to crush the fake Zaya to my chest and beg her to stop looking at me as if I’m a fucking stranger.
They both frown at me for a moment.Then Zaya shakes her head a little and turns her attention back to Presh.“We should check these,” she says, indicating the healing patch that practically covers one side of Presh’s face.“Still tingling?”
Presh shakes her head in response, moving back to the bed.
The impostor gently peels the patch off, narrowing her eyes at the dark bruise across Presh’s cheekbone as if she could murder it with a single thought.
And maybe she can kill like that.I have no idea what sort of awry she is … unless the eye color is just part of her disguise —
Of course it’s part of her fucking disguise!What the fuck else could any of this be?
Fake Zaya peels the smaller patch from Presh’s temple.The wound there is puckered, partially healed but still raw looking.
“Ribs,” the impostor says.
Presh lifts up the sweatshirt-sweater thing she’s wearing that looks like it costs the price of a used car.Zaya peels the healing patch on Presh’s lower ribs away, nodding once as if slightly more satisfied.What I can see of that bruise looks days old.
That doesn’t help with the anger, though.
“Hip?”
“Motherfucker,” I mutter under my breath.
They both ignore me.
Someone beat the hell out of my little sister.I hope it’s the dead fucker on the beach.
No.I hope it’s fucking Chains.Because I am going to slit his throat myself, no claws needed.
The impostor peels the patch off Presh’s hip and nods again, somewhat satisfied.She reaches for a fresh patch.I hadn’t noticed the short stack on the bed beside her.Between those and the four pieces she’s already peeled off my sister, she’s casually tossed at least ten thousand dollars away on healing a stranger.
An awry like her.
Which makes a bit more sense.
Except the awry connection muddies the idea that the impostor is involved in this kidnapping scheme as some kind of attempt to worm her way back into our lives.So ignoring the fact that I wouldn’t think it possible to replicate the tumultuous energy underpinning her gaze, the eyes have got to be fake, along with the resemblance and the scent.That makes more sense.
And there is no ‘back into our lives.’
There is no going back.
Zaya Gage is dead.
While I just stand there like a seething chump — I don’t miss the confused looks Presh is darting my way — the impostor rips one of the new patches in half, then applies one half to Presh’s deeply bruised cheekbone.My sister sighs, then giggles quietly as the essence in the patch triggers.
I can smell it, and I know what she’s feeling.I’ve needed healing above and beyond my own shifter capabilities more than once.
