Page 83 of Claiming Sarah

“Stow your knife first.”

I shoved the blade back into the sheath strapped to my thigh under the water. “Now?”

“Hold up your hands.”

Shoving my fear and misgivings aside, I obeyed his order, raising them up out of the water. Rex put his hands against mine. At first, I felt the pressure of him, since he was a ghost. But then it faded, as his hands became my hands. His presence felt warm, like a summer rain that dripped up my arms as he entered my body. He turned, aligning his torso with mine, andthat summer rain feeling washed over me until we were one and he was completely inside of my body.

He quickly pulled my bone knife from my thigh holster, using my hand. “Don’t fight my movements, just let me control your body. Don’t watch what I’m about to do, Sarah, you don’t want those memories for the rest of your life.”

In my mind, I said,okay.

He climbed back onto the catwalk, and the slaughter began. He was right—I didn’t want those bloody, gruesome memories for the rest of my life, so I retreated from my eyes and tumbled into the combined well of memories that was both of us. It felt like the moment before I fell asleep at night—inevitable, sucking, but welcoming.

My mind was a fractured mess, trying to figure it all out as I felt my body jerking about as Rex fought the enemies coming for me. With him in my body, I could see his memories, too, but his mind was like a filing cabinet—orderly, with places for everything. Like he had cleaned up for guests.

The memory of Rex’s brother burning his favorite pet cina was neatly filed in his childhood anger, a collection of terrible thoughts from his youth. A girl who told him he was ugly when he was three. His mother choosing his brother over him, when he had asked who her favorite child was. So many hurts and devastations.

I wondered whether it was a violation to keep looking into his psyche. I had stumbled into our shared well of memories on accident, but if I kept looking intohismemories, was that a betrayal of any kind of friendship we had built?

I tried to pull away from the memory well, but I couldn’t. Rex’s self-loathing and rage, the things he kept an emotional mask on for, sucked me further into it. It was too powerful to fight. I tried to think of anything that wasn’t Rex’s—any happy thought of my own.

Deacon and Jac.

Deacon’s face flashed in Rex’s memory. A young, handsome Deacon. As I focused on him, the picture surrounding him became clearer. Rex had some kind of weapon drawn. I had never seen it before, but I knew the feeling of pointing a weapon well enough to know that it was. Deacon stood in front of someone, shaking his head.

When I focused hard enough, I could hear Deacon,“…not letting you do this. Not again.”

“You don’t have a choice. We have our orders.”

“I don’t care. Fuck the orders. Fuck the general. The war is practically over, Rex, we don’t need to do this!”

“Are you a soldier or are you a coward?”

Deacon’s jaw clenched. “I am not a murderer.”

Rex tried to brush past him, but Deacon grabbed his arm and twisted it until Rex was on his knees, yowling in pain. I felt it—the sharpness of having my shoulder almost ripped from the joint.

Deacon snarled, “We’re not doing this.”

“The fuck we’re not.” Rex maneuvered out of the hold and spun around on Deacon. They fought hard, and Rex ended up on top.

Watching him bloodying Deacon’s handsome face made me want to cry. I couldn’t even look at him. But since I was in Rex’s memory, I wasn’t sure ifIwas the one who felt that way or if Rex did, too.

When he was done, Rex stood up over Deacon and said, “I’m sorry, my boy. This is the way it has to be.” He turned and looked at the little girl that Deacon had been shielding. “Sorry, kid.”

He aimed his weapon at her. Something sharp stuck me through my back and into my heart. The weapon never fired. It hit the floor.

Deacon grunted, “I’m sorry, Rex.”

Rex collapsed to the floor, seeing two more fallen bodies in the room. A woman watched Deacon take the little girl away, before she smiled at Rex with blood on her teeth.

She hissed at him, “You failed.”

Rex coughed as he watched Deacon leave with the little girl. Blood poured out of his mouth as he choked out, “Yeah. I did.” Then everything went dark.

In that darkness, something grabbed the nape of my neck, yanking me through the black, until it dropped me into the middle of another one of Rex’s memories.

His first meeting with Augur.“…control us. Physically and mentally. It’s every conduits’ nightmare. Bad enough when it’s a Mother who controls us, but the contra can hold power over every part of us.”

---