Page 13 of Witch Unbound
“Stay here and you will become that.” Simone jerks her thumb at the apparition who’s now shuffling in circles, muttering to himself.
He was a person once. Someone like me, trying to claw his way back to loved ones. Trying to get home.
Doubt settles on my shoulders like a shroud. I don’t want to lose myself, but it seems as if staying here could be worse than taking a walk through the door, back to a life that seemed like a dream. At least there I’ll be solid and real. I’ll have a life, but…There’d be no Cora. No memory of her. Nothing. There’d be an emptiness where she belongs.
Staying here and trying to find a way backisa risk. But one I’m willing to take. “I’m going home.” I smile at her. “I’ll find the way.”
She blinks sharply. “You really love her, don’t you?”
“More than I could have imagined, and I want to tell her. I need to tell her.”
An emotion I can’t define crosses her features. “Fuck it.” She flicks her wrist, and the door vanishes. In its place is an archway filled with rippling, iridescent color. “You’ll have a greater chance of finding your way home through there, and if you fail…at least the end will be quick.”
There’s a sincerity in her tone and a truth in her eyes I can’t untangle. It speaks to me on a primal level.
“You could come with me.” I’m not sure why I say it, only that it needs to be said.
She looks surprised and then she laughs softly. “Oh, Rune. You’re a good person. I hope you find your way through. Now go, before thepowers that berealize I’m breaking the rules and close the portal.”
I stride toward the arch and pause by her, leaning in on impulse to drop a kiss on her temple. “Thank you.”
I dive into the portal and light surrounds me, thick and viscous. It cradles me, holding me in place. I sense I need to give my body direction, but which way should I go?
I close my eyes and reach for my connection to Cora. She’s a light vibration in my chest that’s weakening with every passing moment. I grasp it and tug, and I’m propelled forward. I tug again and I veer right. This is working, but the connection is dimming.
There’s a time limit, and I’m not sure how long I have left. My mind is clear, my memories sharp, but my body is in the real world. It must be waning. I spot a light up ahead, different from the thick material around me. It’s sharper and edged in gold.
Home.
I need to get to it, but the atoms that saturate the air here cling to me, slowing me down.
I’m running out of time. A pit of despair opens inside me. I’m close, I can taste home, but I won’t make it.
A low humming drifts toward me and something latches on to my connection to Cora. It tugs hard. For a moment nothing happens, and then the viscous material around me suddenly snaps, letting me go, and I’m flying forward, hurtling toward the light.
* * *
CORA
Wren’s humming intensified and he began to sway, but his paws remained in contact with both Rune and me.
“What’s he doing?” Leif asked.
“I don’t know.” But no way was I interrupting him.
“You think he’s connecting to Rune?” Tor asked.
Once again, “I don’t know.”
Tor paced back and forth again, hand at his nape in a white-knuckled grip. “I can’t take this.”
Wren’s humming got louder, and my stomach rolled.
“Something’s happening.” I sat forward. “Guys.”
Rune sucked in a lungful of air and sat up, eyes wide and unseeing.
Leif let out a bellow of surprise and Tor made a strangled sound. I stared at Rune in shocked disbelief, blood pounding in my head as a bullet burrowed its way out of his skull and soundlessly hit the sofa. The wound closed up and he blinked in a dazed manner, as if disorientated.
