Page 45 of Shattered & Returned

My vision swam with fractured images:two figures locked in an embrace, their features blurred as if seen through frosted glass. Before I could make them out, a blade of searing light tore them apart.

Pain lanced through my ribs. Agony, raw and bottomless, hollowed out my chest.

“Bloom?”Sindy’s voice sounded distant.

I staggered toward the bathroom, one hand clutching at my sternum as if I could physically hold together whatever was unraveling inside me.

“You okay?”Sindy called through the door, her voice thick with sleep.

“Just stomach cramps,”I lied.

“Did you know,”she yawned,“there hasn’t been a Weaver here in a hundred years?”

“Go to bed, Sindy.”

“Night.”

“Good night, Sindy.”

The lock clicked behind me.

The razor blade glinted in the drawer where I’d hidden it last night. Cold metal bit into my fingertips as I pressed it to skin, just beneath my left breast, where no one would see.

One quick slash.

Blood welled in a thin, precise line. The pain was clean. Immediate.Real.It dulled the nameless grief gnawing at my bones—that ancient sorrow with no source, no name, just the weight of centuries I had no right to carry.

Nero’s face flickered in my mind. I banished it.

Mom never knew about the lattice of scars hidden under my clothes.

I pressed the inhaler to my lips. Air rushed in, sweet and medicinal, washing some of the darkness and anguish away.

Chapter

Sixteen

Bloom

Blood and Bone

“Let us in!”

The dead scratched at my window, their pleas echoing like those from the first night, their fingernails dragging against glass. The gothic arches above melted into shadow, fog condensing on the stained glass like ghostly breath.

Rumors claimed Forsaken Academy sat atop Hellgate. Was that why the dead seeped through stone and glass?

It couldn’t be me.

Dante’s words slithered back:“You woke the dead.”But Dante was a kidnapper. Why trust him?

“Go away!” I hissed.

Their wails dissolved, only to be replaced by a scream raw and terrified that sliced through the night before cutting off withsudden finality. I flashed my eyes open, gasping for air. My body reacted before my mind could process what had happened.

I jerked upright, satin sheets tangled around me, heart slamming against my ribs. Cold sweat slicked my skin.

“Did you hear that?”Sindy’s whisper slid through the dark.

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