Page 17 of Summoned
I sink onto the velvet stool in front of my mirror, the black dress still wrapped around me. In the mirror, a pair of wide eyes meet mine, ringed with smudged mascara, sharp with the residue of fear.
The face of someone terrified to her very core.
The vial. The light. My own voice clawing to escape me. Harvest 290.
Did it really happen? Was it… magic?
A detached part of me realizes I never let go of the bunny ears. They’re tangled in my grip. My purse dangles from my shoulder.
Come forth from the darkness to hear my wish.
Silence settles over me. But it’s not true silence. It’s a murmur that slithers under the surface of sound and wraps around my nerves. It counts down the seconds until I fall apart.
I notice movement out of the corner of my eye—shadows shifting when I’m not looking directly at them. They remind me of the shadows from school, haunted me for months, whispering their cruel jokes.
That was when I was silent. Fragile. Before I realized that the best defense is to attack first. Laugh louder. Cut deeper. Before I became the girl no one could mock again.
Come forth from the darkness to hear my wish.
Through the fog in my mind, I manage to open my laptop. My fingers tremble as I type: “Harvest 290.”
Nothing.
I try again: “The Black Joker,” then “legend of the Black Joker.”
The results are all about a Batman film.
“Voice in a bottle,” I type.
I dig my nails into my palms, scrolling past headlines like: “Mariah Carey Opens a Bottle With Her Voice” and “Mayor Attempts to Buy Election with Wine: Three Bottles per Voter.”
Unbelievable.
Fucking hell.
A sharp sound cuts through the darkness. My breath falters...It’s just an incoming message notification.
Then my heart starts pounding again—louder, faster.
Come forth from the darkness to hear my wish, Bunny.
Anger flares in my chest. I’ve worked too hard to build the current version of myself—layer by layer, scar by scar.I won’t let him undo it with a few cryptic messages.
I snatch the phone from the table, jaw clenched, bracing myself for whatever his next message is.
Niiiiiki where’d u goooo babewe didn’t even get to gossiping bout my man last nite lol
Boyana.
I’m being hunted by a psychopath who plays with shadows and souls, and she’s texting me about “her man.”
I pick up the phone, prepared to throw it against the wall.
But then I remember the man she’s talking about… is Branimir. We’re supposed to have a date tomorrow.
Can I go and pretend tonight never happened?
The bunny ears, crumpled on the floor, remind me I’m still wearing the dress with the fluffy tail. It clings to me like something foreign and wrong.
