He looks down at me as his hands work. “I have wanted different things my entire life. Ephemes can live without hiding. I want that. You should want that.”
“Clearly, all humans do is hide everything about themselves. It’s just what we do. Every one of us. It’s the way the world works.”
He stops moving, clenches his jaw, and looks away seeming lost. I try to peer into his eyes, but he turns too far away. Yet then he continues like nothing has happened and chains me to the metal grate behind me.
“You hate them.”
Finally, this angers him, and his face flies to mine. “You’re right, I hate them. But so does every man and woman working with us. We’ve all lost something from their hate.”
The inflection in his voice makes me dig deeper so I cock my head empathetically to the side, “What have you lost?” He is so close to me I can feel his chest hit mine. He looks me over.
“You look like your mother,” he says quietly.
When I refuse to look at him, he grabs my chin and forces my eyes to turn. Yet the moment we connect I am aware of his Trace. My defenses are down. How do I figure out where he is? What he is searching for? I start to chant within my thoughts, “Listen to your own voice—your own voice—your own voice—”
He’s testing, poking and prodding, which is uncomfortable and draining. Colors begin to swirl in my eyes, so I shut them tight. Then in between my breathing comes a voice . . . a whisper. He has gotten in.
“Remy. I will kill him if you don’t look at me,” he says. Rage warms my body as I open my eyes. He’s not actually speaking or moving his lips, instead this voice comes from within me. “It’s no secret that I want you with me or I need you out of my way. You have been against me from the beginning.”
“Then why don’t you just do it?” I growl. He is quiet for a moment, which allows me to read some vulnerability. “Because you can’t kill me. You can’t kill me because it’s Remy you want.”
“You’re weak right now, the weakest you’ve ever been. But believe me, if I can’t get in your head, then I will destroy you.”
“I don’t—” my voice drops when the pain in my head begins. Every time it is always the same. My eyes roll and my knees weaken until I nearly hang from my hands.
“Navin . . .” A woman’s voice. She’s come into the room. I strain to open my eyes and get a hold of my body. The woman is nearly my age and everything about her is uncomfortably familiar. Navin notices me looking at her and instantly my head swells, and I cry out in pain.
“Leave now,” Navin warns.
She watches me inquisitively. Her thin face, deep-set eyes, and dark blonde hair—despite a few differences, she looks like . . . me. Even down to her age and the way she holds her hands. However, I realize age is hard to tell with the Velieri.
“Mom?” My voice cracks.
Navin delves deeper and I can no longer see her clearly due to the pain in my head.
“Japha and I can change your world, what it was like, who you loved, what you saw, what you did,” Navin threatens. “We don’t have to leave anything the same as when we find it in here.”
The room begins to close, like a wormhole is enveloping me. The woman becomes a blur.
Suddenly, I am in darkness. There are no walls, ground, or sky—only black—like I am kneeling in space. Fear engulfs me—Willow’s instinct. I need something solid, something tangible, something that will provide me safety from nothingness. I think of Geo’s words. There must be a rhythm that I am missing, a slight sound that I can’t hear because my emotions are controlling everything. If I can just be calm and listen—hear the quiet and reach for peace that will allow me to use the skills he taught me. I will count and concentrate on that.
Before I can try, voices fill my head. Then, as if rewinding, images begin to pass. I can’t tell whether it is just in my head or whether I can reach out and touch these images. It is tempting to watch every second that passes. It may remind me of a life I have yet to remember. Then I realize the history that I am being shown isn’t anything I want to know. One passing memory stops just before my eyes. I am in San Francisco, walking along the sidewalk. I have seen this nightmare too many times to forget. The man breaks the bottle on the brick wall, then moments later lunges at me. I can’t watch.
“Stop!” I yell, but the abyss swallows my voice. The images keep flashing, further and further back in years.
Memories pass by slowly. One feels so familiar that I can feel the pain from the handcuffs on my wrists and the chaotic suffocation of a large crowd in a court room. Then it becomes so real that I am no longer watching Remy in handcuffs but living it myself. People with angry eyes and hateful slurs yell loudly through the crowd, while a host of others stand with devastation in their eyes. I walk to a chair, made especially for criminals during their execution. The guards surround me, making it impossible to say anything to Briston and Elizabeth as I pass. My father’s tears streak his cheeks. Leigh is within arm’s length. He bids the executioner to come to my side and I feel the warm tears fall off the end of my nose as the executioner dons gloves and pulls out the syringe to take my life. A loud yell fills the air. Arek rushes in, his face already bruised and swollen. Several guards run to him, but he easily fights them away. It isn’t until the other Protectors come to aid against one of their own that he is unable to do anything. They finally wrestle him down. Leigh nods as Arek cries out. The executioner covers my eyes with a cloth. My chest rises and falls rapidly in panic. Then all goes black.
I don’t want to see any more. “Stop!” I beg.
The further they go, the less control I have. Geo’s face comes to my mind. If I can think of Geo, then it’s not completely hopeless. Quickly it becomes a fight to not immediately turn back to the darkness. I try to think of specific memories, yet they are disintegrating. If this is what it is to age, God save us all.
“Arek, Sassi, Kilon, Geo, Peter, Beckah, my father . . .” I chant and try to picture them. If their images are in my head, then I won’t have to use my voice and Navin’s beat will be clearer. For a moment this works—gentle images pass and the pain in my body begins to subside—then my body jolts, like lightning has struck. Within me burns, every organ and tissue writhes with fire. Breathing deep feels impossible and I lie in the darkness convulsing for air. The strength against me has just doubled. Japha. I know instantly he has joined in the effort to strip me of everything.
There’s nothing to do, but fight. Find a rhythm. Just do it, Willow. An image flashes of people running, screaming, dying . . . and the pain of it claws at me in the black abyss. Anger tears at my soul and shakes my body. Geo’s voice returns, “Picture the pain and chaos rolling off my shoulders like raindrops.” I close my eyes and listen. It takes a while but eventually, I hear a low hum masked by ambient noise. It is a fast rhythm and I try to match it. After a few moments, I do.
Then I adjust my own vibrato, trying to break up the monotony of theirs. I’ve never concentrated so hard on anything in my life. My fingertips are tense from the strain. I must figure out how to separate Navin and Japha, but I am losing. There is no way that I can win this—not by myself. The only other option is to give up.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Time doesn’t exist in a black hole. Just like any dream, the passage of time is infinite—either minutes or days or longer. Navin and Japha have me right where they want me. Fighting only seems to make things worse.
“You’re going to want to give up, Willow,” Geo had told me.
When my mother went through continuous recurrences of cancer, one day she whispered softly in my ear while protected by a large quilt, “I’m done. I’m tired.” This angered me. Enraged me. “No, you’re not!” I assured her. But in the end, she was too tired.
Yet, here I am so weak. How little I’ve fought compared to her. She was the warrior. She was the woman of strength. Perhaps if I just lie still, I will find more peace?
Flashes of memory—good and bad, Willow’s and Remy’s—keep coming through the dark abyss with the shining stars fading in and out.
Just as quickly as the darkness came, it recedes and I am back in the room with Navin and Japha, still trapped.
Navin cocks his head to the side. “You really aren’t Remy?”
“No,” I whisper.
“You have no fight.” This seems to bother him. Instantly this makes me wonder. Does he need me to fight to do what he wants to do? Navin thinks for a moment. He and Japha speak quietly to each other until Japha leaves.
Then he angrily grabs my chin. “Where’s that emotion, Willow?”
