Page 206 of Seer Prophet

I said other things. Some were about Kat.

Some were about him being just like Ditrini. I accused him of wanting to hurt me, to break me, like Ditrini wanted, so I’d be soft, too.

I felt my words hurt him, but he didn’t let me go.

He also didn’t stop.

The pain worsened after I thought it couldn’t get any worse.

I felt him in my light. He was deeper in my light by then, pulling on it, pulling and tugging on me, coaxing me open. He didn’t stop, even knowing it might mean me hating him more. I felt him slide into the cracks forming around my shield––around that pain that had been throbbing in my chest for the past two days, the one that started on the beach before I’d gone on that walk with Kali. I’d tried to force it down deeper, but it just sat in my chest, smoldering, not going out but filling my light with smoke.

My pain flared hotter.

It started to hurt more than his hand.

It started taking over my light, hurting me, hurting my chest and belly and throat, blindingly hot, until I couldn’t speak past it, couldn’t breathe.

I remembered Kali on the beach.

Pain twisted my insides, what must have been memory. I remembered them, both of them. I remembered––

Gods. I remembered Dalejem.

I remembered him leaving me under that overpass.

He left me there.

I loved him, I trusted him––and he left me there.

I remembered screaming, crying for him in the dark.

And then I was in the dark again, after Cass cut me open and left me. I remembered her face, her smiling face. She’d been so happy about hurting me. It made herhappyto cut me open, to leave me like that.

I remembered Revik reading to me, trying to reach me through that dark––

Revik let out a gasp over me.

I realized it was a sob, but I almost couldn’t hear him.

I got lost there again, lost in that place, that darkness and pain with no end. I remembered being lost, of being so far away, from everything and everyone. No one came. There was no light. I screamed for Lily, screamed for Revik.

I screamed for my parents.

I screamed for Dalejem.

No one came.

Gray metal struts overhead, the sound of cars on the overpass, their flickering shadows echoing by the heap of trash where he left me. I smell human piss, vomit and fetid breath on my face. Someone is touching me. Insects bite my skin.

Jon was there. He yelled at me, blamed me.

They all left me. Sooner or later, they all left.

Kali wanted to take Lily from me again.

They wanted to take my baby.

I let out a choked sob. That one was closer to a scream.

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