Page 3 of Visions of Darkness

It was only a bad dream.

I might have been able to convince myself of it if it weren’t for the fiery pain that seared across my back, starting at my right shoulder and slashing at an angle to my lower left side.

And I knew somewhere in this world, someplace I could never see, Pax was suffering the same affliction. I wanted to reach out. Touch him in this realm. Find the one my heart loved with every part of me.

But I could only ever have him while I slept, and never in the way I truly wanted to.

Reaching up, I touched the top of the wound on my right shoulder, wincing at the sharp sting at the contact. It was open, as I knew it would be. Venom dripping poison into my body. When I drew my hand away, I was able to make out the dark, charred blood that coated my fingertips.

Proof of this nightmare.

My reality.

The secret I fell into every night.

Chapter Two

Aria

It was the dead of winter in Albany, New York. Forever cold and dreary. At this time of morning, darkness still clung to the house. Heat hummed from the vents, but it was no match for the chill that seeped in from outside.

I eased downstairs slower than I normally would. My long, black hair was still wet from my shower, and the strands fell around my shoulders and dampened the fabric of the black sweater I wore.

It was baggy enough to cover the makeshift bandage I had fabricated out of an old white tee and duct tape. It wasn’t like I could keep industrial-size bandages under the counter for times like these.

Mornings when I woke with a burn were always hardest. When the physical pain was so great that the only thing I wanted to do was turn around and climb back into my bed and sleep for days. The exhaustion was close to overwhelming, the toxins I could feel thudding through my veins with each beat of my heart, making it nearly impossible to face the day.

But I would.

I had no other choice than to protect this secret with every breath that I had.

To remember my purpose.

To accept it for everything it was.

The blessing and the curse Ellis had promised it would be.

I hit the first-floor landing to the clatter of activity that carried from the kitchen. Voices shouted and laughter echoed through my childhood home.

My chest tightened in a rush of affection.

These sounds? They were always a buoy to my spirit.

A spirit that could so easily be crushed if I didn’t hang on to the things that mattered. If I didn’t recognize the price that was paid for this peace.

No, my family could never understand it. I’d accepted that years ago. But the life of a Laven could not be understood. When I awoke each morning in my bed, I hardly understood it myself.

Hell, there were so many times that I questioned it.

When I wondered if the therapists and the doctors were right.

If my sanity had been stripped.

But I felt the truth of it pierce me like an arrow as I moved through the living room and stopped at the edge of the kitchen to take in the familiar scene.

A perfect chaos.

To the left of me, my mother stood at the stove, scrambling a giant skillet of eggs, frazzled the way she always was. She wore pajamas and her robe, and her brown hair was tossed in a haphazard knot on top of her head.

---