Page 184 of Fires of the Forsaken
“Aw hell no!” I whacked his hand. “You perverted—ouch!”I gasped as he shoved my head back further, threatening to break my neck.
“Those memories are still there.” Ramiel’s fingers dug into my breasts. “My brethren buried them, but they can’t be fully expunged from your soul. So…” he squeezed harder. Fucker felt like he was trying to push my boobs into my spine. “Let’s see what secrets your soul is hiding, shall we?”
The pressure at my chest changed. It was as though an unyielding metal hook had fitted itself around me. And it yanked me, hard, down, and down, and down…into that swirling, awful, trippy tunnel.
But the colors, sounds, and figures weren’t random figments this time.
They were memories.Mymemories.
Nineteen-year-old me shook with fury as Tom (aka, the twenty-eight-year-old “love of my life”) slammed his fist into the wall above my head.
“Goddamn you, Addie! Do you ever think of anyone but yourself?” he bellowed.
“You don’t want kids. Neither do I,” I spoke through clenched teeth. “So I took care of it.”
“You murdered it!”
“It’s better than the alternative. Trust me.”
I got wrenched down again.
Fifteen-year-old me sat behind the wheel of a junky 90s Camaro. Tears clogged the back of my throat. My hand trembled like a leaf as I clapped my palm over the bleeding gash above my left eye. A gift from Mark (aka, foster mom #5’s boyfriend). I’d thanked him by stealing his precious P.O.S. car and taking it for a joy ride.
No surprise I’d gotten pulled over.
“Kid,” the pudgy cop said as he leaned against the driver’s side door, eyeing up my busted face. “If you tell me who hit ya, I can try to help.”
“Your wife,” I slurred. “She’s got some kinks, let me tell you…”
“Otherwise,” the cop rubbed the back of his neck, “I’m gonna have to take ya in. Call your parents…”
“Ha! Good luck with that. They’ve been dead 10 years.”
“Orguardians,” he continued. “And have them come sort this out.”
I shoved my hands out the window. “Cuff me, baby,” I mumbled. “I’ll even call you daddy if you want.”
I gasped when the hook thrust me into another memory.
Freddie Hawkins stood over me, shoving my bloody underwear in my face. “Stupid bitch,” he snarled. “You couldn’t wait another year or two to start this shit?”
Because, y’know, a girl had full control over when her period started.
Adult me would’ve taken that underwear and smeared it all over his nose.
But thirteen-year-old me simply cried.
Stop!I yelled, although I had no voice.Jesus fucking Christ. STOP!I thrashed, busting my ribs against the hook, but I couldn’t loosen its grip.
“It hurts, doesn’t it?”Ramiel’s voice drifted through my mind as I got hauled out of that wretched memory and shoved into a new one. “Your soul has known darkness. More than you’re even aware of.”
Five-year-old me wandered down the carpeted stairs, still hiccupping from my earlier tantrum. Black shadows enveloped the house.
My blood immediately ran cold.
I’d relived this eveninghundredsof times in my nightmares. The night my parents died.
But this time, everything was different.
