Page 1 of Gift from the Wing

One

Willow

I’ve been struck by lightning.

That’s the only explanation for the ruthless attack happening to my body right now.

The bolt of electricity rips through my mind and travels to my chest, searing every nerve with a flare of unbearable heat and light. Every heartbeat is a painful aftershock that leaves me stunned, breathless, and shaking so violently I’m surprised I don’t burst out of my skin.

My ears ring with piercing static and my thoughts—memories—scatter like sparks in a storm. The intensity of the strike tears them apart left and right, and they’re battling to figure out where in my mind they’re supposed to be.

Everything’s spinning.

I search Aurora’s kind eyes for some semblance of grounding. The calm, gentle nature seeps from her, beckoning me to latch onto the lifeline, but whatever’s going on with me is acting like a shield, blocking out her attempts to protect me.

My back bows as my mind fractures—Iswear the force splits my skull in half. For a fleeting, blissful blip in time, there’s nothing. I see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing, taste, smell, you name it.

Nothing.

The reprieve is over far too fast. The life I was beginning to know and grow accustomed to comes crashing down around me.

Barrier after barrier in my mind crumbles like poorly constructed buildings after a cataclysmic earthquake. There’s no stopping it as memories splinter in from all angles, yet I haven’t the slightest clue why they’re bringing me such devastation.

But that’s all I feel.

My heart is shattering beneath my tightly clenched fist as though it’s me who’s reaching in and carving it out. The fingers that’re running soothing circles on my cheek flinch as an anguished scream rips from my throat and glass pelts the floor as it explodes all around me.

“Guys…Tillman…Someone please make it stop. Make it stop,” I beg, but there’s no answer.

Nothing can penetrate the havoc.

Elementra, please.

If this is the peril the memories bring forth, I don’t want them.

I don’t…

“I don’t want a shot. No, please, please,” I shout at the top of my lungs as my father wraps his arms and legs around my trembling body.

“Enough, Willow. If you can’t stay still, I will hold you down. Do you understand me?”

“P-please. I don’t need a shot,” I beg quietly as the tremors course through me, fierce enough to make my teeth chatter.

My current subconscious shoves its way to the forefront of my mind, and I glance through the blurry eyes that I know to be mine.

Only, they’re twenty years younger.

I try but fail to rip myself free of this moment. I want to rip six-year-old me out of the arms of that monster, but I can’t break away from the lock on my mind. Restraints I can’t see trap me in this particular memory, and I don’t want to relive this.

This daywill forever haunt me despite the growth I’ve had.

“Enough,” my father commands, shaking me slightly and silencing any more of my begging.

A man standing above the chair my father and I are sitting on grips my wrist so hard I gasp. That inhale swiftly turns into a scream at the piercing pain of a needle shoved into the crook of my elbow, and my body naturally reacts to the fear pulsing through me.

Hot liquid runs down my legs at the first sight of red pouring through the tubing connected to my arm, and I sob harder as my father grips my arms painfully.

“You vile child,” he barks, causing me to flinch and tense, but my bladder won’t stop. I can’t make it stop. “One bag will be enough for today. My daughter has a lesson she needs to learn here and now.”

---