Page 8 of Winterfall Destiny

I’m the loner. Never giving a shit because everybody shunned me until I fell into a life that created the twisted thing I became. The Tobias with a violent past stretching back before Ravenhold; one I can't remember how much is true after Confederacy screwed with my mind.

Adeline cursed me but at the same time blessed me with something that's now slipping away, and I refuse to lose what I've found. The future Adeline thought she'd filled with despair and misery became one filled with hope and happiness. Not only with Maeve but because Ibelong.These people know what I've done, who I still am, but embrace me as their own despite everything. If I lose just one of this family I've found, I'll help Maeve with tearing into the world.

Once I finish ripping apart everybody who ever has, or ever will, threaten that family's future again.

4

MAEVE

The shadows aren't pulling at my body, but something's dragged me into a void. This place is beyond darkness—a nothingness pressing down until I can't pull air into my lungs, where my scream is soundless, and I can't escape. Escape what? Pressure builds from the tight band around my head and builds into an agonising grip until my mind implodes and fills with voices and faces. They're distant and echoing at first until they speed closer, forcing me to watch as if my eyes are now pinned open.

And I see something.

Not anything I witnessed first-hand or a vision, but something that I'm dragging from another's mind.

Andrei. Blood. Tears that aren't mine and a fury that would fuel my Blackwood magic for days. The image flickers over and over as if I'm the one now standing over Andrei, but can't touch the guy whose death slices through my heart and soul.

Death.

The soundless scream comes again, and I grasp around for a way out, trying to find who's calling my name. Finally, air forces its way into my lungs and my eyes open into a different darkness.

"Maeve." Cool hands wipe across my face, and I focus on another's—Tobias looking down at me. "Breathe. You're okay."

They were his thoughts. How?

Nodding, I gulp in breaths, too quickly as I dizzy again, and Tobias talks me through in the way people once did when others believed my visions were panic attacks.

"I had a nightmare," I tell myself and him, my voice tiny and lost. "I dreamed..." How is this Tobias? I twist my head to where the window should be on my left in the bedroom at Lex's place. Where's Jamie?

"What's happening?" I ask and try to sit. "When did I come back to...?"

Tobias continues to stroke my hair, slowly, gently. "Looks like the Winterfall won't let me interfere with her thoughts, just like she'd fight me if I went too far physically."

My head bangs as if I spent the night drinking and I press a palm to my temples, hyperventilating.

"Careful," he whispers. "Steady your breathing and thoughts. Slow them both down."

My lungs and mind do the opposite as they fly into action. I know how I'm here. Everything Tobias must've tried to take away falls, like a house of cards collapsing inwards. Andrei.

Tobias's gentle touch and murmured words as he soothes the nightmare from my mind does nothing. Last night's events tumble towards me, a rock gathering speed ready to smash my body and heart apart.

"Andrei. The blood." I'm shaking, clinging to Tobias with one eye on the bedroom door. "Is he…?"

No. Because the heartbeat I'd connected to through the blood Gabriella gave Andrei beats above us, slower but a steady beat in my mind every few seconds.

"I can't," I whisper. "Tobias, I can't."

"What can't you do?" His gentle fingers stroke my damp cheeks. "Because nobody expects you to do anything you don't want to."

I squeeze away the image of Andrei that's clearing in my mind's eye. "I can't walk out of that door. If I stay here, nothing's changed out there."

Tobias's emotions choke me as much as the shadows could, but the magic stays away. Did Tobias do something to me? I’m fooling myself—I can't hide in here from what's outside that door because whatever memories are behind his eyes brings everything into this room with us.

"You found him," I say, sitting. "You found Andrei. Did you save his life? Will he be okay?"

Tobias's eyes squeeze closed and the barrier to his thoughts grows. "Don't look into my mind."

"Will he?"

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