Page 80 of Mostly Shattered

I can’t breathe. This is the night the amulet broke. I reach for my neck, thinking I might feel it. It’s not there. I can’t go back to this timeline. This has to be a mistake. My heart pounds, and I look around in panic, desperately searching for Paul.

No. No. No. Not again. I can’t do this again.

I turn around, looking for the mirror portal that brought me here. It’s gone. There is no labyrinth, only this house.

“Anthony?” I whisper. “Costin? Get me out of here.”

They don’t answer. They’re not here. In this world, they’re already dead.

“Yoo-hoo, Tam-tam,”the disembodied voice repeats louder than before. “This way.”

Conrad.

“No,” I beg the universe, barely able to get the word out. I refuse to look toward the sound. I can’t do this again. My heart aches in my chest. This is my hell.

The universe doesn’t care.

“Yoo-hoo, Tam-tam. This way.”The voice sounds caught in a loop as if it’s waiting for me to press play on this version of the past.

My breathing sounds abnormally loud. I think of everything that’s happened to me since this moment when my timeline reset—Conrad’s death and subsequent haunting, Paul and Diana’s life without remembering me, un-meeting the birth mother I just found. Then there is Mortimer engaging me to Chester Freemont, the worst possible option. Costin, who I’m starting to really care about, who thinks what every other supernatural creature thinks about me, that I’m delicate and incapable of doing anything great on my own. And the prophecy.

Even with all of that, I would not trade my current suffering for this version of reality. Here, I lose everything—Paul, Anthony, my parents, and even Costin. None of them survived this timeline.

“Yoo-hoo, Tam-tam. This way.”

I’ve relived this moment in my mind a thousandtimes, and I’ve tried so hard to forget it a million more.

If the labyrinth is sending me back here, to the time before the amulet broke, maybe it’s giving me the chance to change things. But this timeline doesn’t fix the past. By this point, everyone but Paul is dead, and Paul will be joining them soon.

What if I stay here? What if fixing the amulet means accepting this fate?

I don’t know what to do.

If this is a test of courage, I’m going to fail. I’m terrified.

“Yoo-hoo, Tam-tam. This way.”

I hate his voice, hate everything about Conrad.

“Yoo-hoo, Tam-tam. This way.”

It’s not going to stop. I can’t stay frozen in this spot forever.

“You’re in the hall of mirrors,” I tell myself, my voice shaky. “This is a trial. You just have to do it.”

All that may be true, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t real.

I wish I was normal. This is as far from normal as a human can get.

“Yoo-hoo, Tam-tam. This way.”

I hesitate before slowly turning to look. The room is no longer empty. Ghosts from the past sit in solid reality, like actors taking their places within the scene.

Conrad is dressed in a style preferred by young vampires, in a silk shirt and dress pants. He always tried to impress them. He even went so far as to try to become one. Now, he looks in my direction, eyes glassy and wild like he’s high on something. I turn my attention to the gun in his hand before looking at the couch where he’s pointing it at Paul and my birth mother.

Lorelai is terrified. She’s what I imagine I’ll look like in twenty years. We share the same hazel eyes and curly hair. However, Lorelai’s hair has a wild, untamed quality that Astrid would never let me get away with. Lorelai prefers a more natural style, without makeup, and favors an artistic Bohemian flair.

Paul’s soulful brown eyes are tinged with fear. His wavy brown hair is messy. We’d made love earlier in the day, and I want nothing more than to rewind to that moment. He looks so handsome. It makes my heart ache.

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