Page 77 of Shadows in Bloom

My eyes widen, nerves fluttering rapidly in my chest. “Wh-what are you?—”

The second she twists her head away, and tugs the collar of her shirt down to reveal a thin flesh-colored square bandage, my words die right along with any hope I had that what happened this morning—what’s wrong with my hand—is anything short of tied to her, to us, to what happened that night three years ago.

Her next words confirm as much.

“I first thought it was soot.”

It starts in my fingers—a bone-deep numbness that spreads up my arms. Spreading everywhere…

Except the side of my hand where I’m marked.

There, it burns.

Ophelia begins to peel away the bandage, revealing just a hint of what’s underneath, when I throw out my hand, stopping her. “Don’t.”

Her fingers pause, brown eyes flashing to mine, and I give a short shake of my head. Brows knitted, she drops her gaze to the hand hovering the air between us—the hand with the burning black substance oozing from my pores. I follow her gaze, half-expecting to find smoke lifting from my skin, it burns that bad now.

In fact, the closer I am to her, the worse it gets.

“Yours is hurting too,” she murmurs.

Our gazes lock together.

A silent conversation passes between us. One made up of everything I’ve tried so hard to forget; everything I’ve tried to atone for. One made up of questions I don’t even want to consider finding the answers to. I just want this to go away. I just want to rewind to this morning, when I made the decision at the base of the church steps to turn left.

“This isn’t happening,” I hear myself say.

This time, when I shove past her, shoulder-checking her out of my way, she doesn’t try to stop me. Not physically. Instead she uses her words—wielding them like a blade she knows will cut me right where it hurts most, right across my chest, tearing my heart in two.

“Yeah, that’s right. Bolt. It’s what spineless little bunnies do best after all.”

I freeze with my back to her, one hand wrapped around the door knob.

“You know, I don’t even know why I bother sometimes.” She scoffs. “Ever the fucking victim…”

She might as well have slapped me.

Closing my eyes, I will back a sudden rush of tears.

“You’d think you were the one who lost everything that night.” Her voice is raw and filled with so much pain—so much hatred—my knees nearly give out from the force of it. “When you lost nothing!”

The knob creaks under my grip.

“You deserve what’s coming. I hope you know that.” Her voice quakes, deepening into something guttural.

Sniffing, I scramble to unlock the door and throw it open. Not sparing her a single glance back as her final, ominous words chase me into the hall. It’s her voice…but not. It’s all wrong.

“God won’t save you now.”

Wiping the back of my hand across my nose, I race for the stairs at the end of the hall, her parting words replaying on a horrible loop in my head, one I don’t think I’ll be shaking any time soon

Ever the fucking victim…

Choking back a sob, I round the corner, out of sight and fall back against the wall.

A single tear spills from the corner of my eye, and I wipe that away too.

“Sssssshe’s not wrong…”

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