Camille coldly hissed, “I know what you all did, Michelle. You need to
reverse it.” Pacing back and forth, she continued her rant, “This is my life that
you’re ruining. You need to give me back my magic. My life depends on this.”
Michelle put her hand on Camille's arm. Her despair was apparent. “You
know we can't do that. We made a promise…you made a promise. We cannot let
you continue to use this gift the way you have been.”
Camille twisted her wrist and dug her long, polished nails into the flesh of Michelle's arm. “You will return my power. You will give me back what is
mine.”
Michelle jerked herself away from Camille. “I don't have the power to do
that alone.”
I flinched at the sight of the blood flowing from Michelle's wound. I touched my arm, recalling the painful cut that had just healed.
“Then, you need to convince them, or I'll destroy your family,” Camille
snarled.
“You can't do this. You made the same promise we made to protect,”
Michelle argued.
Camille slapped her across the face. “You will make it happen. You will
return what is mine, or I'll stop at nothing to take away everything you love. This
isn't a request, Michelle. You will make it happen.”
A surge of whitewashed over me, and I found myself inside a house.
Michelle was sitting at a table with a man. He had sandy blond hair and a kind
smile.
“We are leaving tonight. I cannot risk what Camille will do to you or our unborn child. I spoke to Viv, and she gave us some money to help us leave. You
know she will not give up until she gets what she wants. She's a Drygen now.”
Another wave of white washed over me. This time, it took me a moment to
find Michelle because she had aged again. I saw her braiding the hair of a small
girl, who I guessed to be around seven years old.
The girl began to bounce up and down as she begged, “Please, let me go. I
promise I won't go far, Mommy. I'll be careful.”
Michelle kissed the child on the cheek. “Don't be gone long, Eva.”
As the happy child opened the door to go outside, the sun glowed intensely. I
raised my hands to shield my eyes from the glare. With no relief, I closed my eyes and waited for the light to soften.
The sound of laughter told me I was no longer in the same place. I opened
my eyes and saw a large group of women looking in the direction of one person
– Michelle. She was a mature woman now. Her dark hair was pulled up in a delicate bun. She wore a dazzling smile on her face as she sat next to a young
woman who was holding a baby boy with curly blond hair.
“He looks so much like your father.” Michelle tickled the belly of the
grinning baby. “Don't you, Elliott? You’re going to be just as handsome as my Samuel, aren't you?”
Elliott? Is that my father? A wave of nausea rolled through me.
Overwhelmed, I needed to sit down. I turned to find somewhere to sit and
ended up face-to-face with a woman and a boy. Panicked, I swung back around
