Page 8 of Shattered & Returned

I pulled the door open a few inches. Before I could pull it further, Dante recovered and yanked me back. I kicked the window and screamed, “Help! Help me!”

A little boy turned toward the tinted window as the vehicle raced by.

Morrigan laughed and pushed a button. The car door locked automatically with a click.

“Let me go!” I screamed, kicking at my captors. “You have no fucking right to do this to me!”

“Calm down!” Dante barked. “Don’t make this difficult, Carrot! I mean it.”

“Bloom, Miss Bloom!” Orren called. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

“Bag her, Orren,” Dante barked. “Now!”

Orren apologized, leaned over, and pulled a gray hood over my head, plunging my world into pitch black. In seconds, my wrists and feet were bound by shackles.

Air vanished. My lungs screamed. I twisted, clawing at the hood with phantom hands. My body convulsed; my skull cracked against the seat as I collapsed. Thrashing, I whipped my head from side to side, desperate to dislodge the suffocating darkness.

Fire burned in my chest, every gasp scraping like sandpaper. This van would be my coffin. Yet a frail comfort remained: I hadn’t been taken far from the French town, from my cabin. Close enough, perhaps, for a ghost, if such things wandered, to find its way back to Mom.

“She’s still convulsing!”Orren’s voice cut through the hood.

“She’s faking it,”Dante said.“Carrot seems shrewd enough to sell hell as a vacation.”

“Look at her. That’s not fake!”Orren shouted.“Something’s fucking wrong!”

The van screeched to a halt.

“Take off the hood,”Morrigan barked.

“But she will—”Dante started.

“For fuck’s sake!”Morrigan’s snarl left no room for debate.

Light flooded my vision as the hood was torn away. Morrigan hovered above me, her face a blur of cold calculation, but my lungs refused to obey. My body grew leaden; even my thrashing was little more than twitches. Eyes rolling back, I clung to one jagged thought:After nineteen years of survival, I’ll choke out my last breath in the back of a van.How pathetic.

Mom’s terror—that I’d never see adulthood—hadn’t been paranoia.

It was prophecy.

“Fuck! Her face is blue!”Orren’s hands hovered over me, useless.“I told you she wasn’t faking. Carrot, breathe, please breathe!”

“Cut her loose.”Morrigan’s order sliced through the van.

Two pairs of hands unshackled me.

Dante’s bravado cracked.“What’s wrong with you?”His voice edged toward panic.“Say something!”

“In… inhaler—”The word barely escaped my lips. My fingers twitched toward my nightgown pocket.If it was gone, I was dead.

Morrigan didn’t hesitate. She plunged her hand into my pocket, yanked out the inhaler, and shoved it between my teeth.“Breathe.”

The first gasp was agony—fire and glass. The second dragged oxygen deep, unclenching my lungs. My body sagged against theseat, tears streaking my cheeks. The wheezing didn’t stop, but the van’s gray ceiling swam back into focus.

Silence. Then?—

“Fuck,”Dante muttered. He hauled me up, suddenly careful, and wedged me against the window.“She’s got a goddamn medical condition.”

Morrigan rolled her eyes.“Maybe check next time before you kidnap someone.”

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