Page 35 of A Hint of Delirium

“I know. Don’t worry about the price. Just get it done.”

If what I predicted was correct, that little iron anklet Vi wore wouldn’t protect her much longer. Any strong emotional reaction could set her off, and that anklet would get torn off like a cheap bracelet from a twenty-five-cent machine. She needed something stronger to keep her safe.

19

VIOLET

Istared at myself in the mirror, pulling at my eyelids to get a better look at my eyes, but there was nothing different that I could see. They looked just like the same brown color they’d always been, mirrors of my mother’s.

What did she see?

I stretched my eyes open, nearly popping them out of their sockets, but there was nothing different. I had my mother’s eyes. There was no doubt about it.

Shaking my head as I left the bathroom, I rubbed my eyes, trying to work moisture into them because they were so dry from not blinking. I bumped into my mother as she was coming out of her bedroom.

“Oh! Sorry,” I mumbled and tried to go around her.

She was dressed in pink scrubs, getting ready to leave for work.

“Violet?” she called out to me. I turned around to look at her. “How long are you going to stay mad at me?” she asked, clearly frustrated.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe until you stop lying to me.”

She sighed. “I told you everything, Vi. There’s nothing left to tell. The best thing for us to do is leave. I’ve told you this a million times. A fresh start somewhere new—”

“No,” I said adamantly. “I’m not going on the run with you.”

“I’m not telling you to go on the run, Violet.”

“That’s exactly what you’re saying!” I exclaimed. “The minute they find us again, you’re going to want to run. We’ll never be safe anywhere!”

“I’m just trying to protect you, Vi,” she said, sounding more tired than she ever had. She’d spent twenty-five years hiding me. It couldn’t have been a walk in the park. I knew I probably didn’t make it easy for her, but if she had just told me the truth, maybe it would have been easier for both of us.

“You’re not running to protect me, Mom, you’re running because you’re scared,” I said. “Just tell me the truth.”

We were eyeing each other, neither wanting to be the one to look away first, when the doorbell rang. We continued staring at each other when the bell rang again. My mother sighed, breaking eye contact and striding toward the door.

“This conversation isn’t over, Violet,” she said as she passed me to go toward the door.

“Of course it’s not,” I muttered under my breath, already on my way to the kitchen to make something to eat. My head was crammed inside the refrigerator when I heard a loud bang, like the door had been slammed against the wall. I popped out of the fridge with a frown when I heard my mother scream.

“Violet, corre!” my mother shouted in Spanish.

Violet, run!

I froze for a split second, unable to move from where I stood in the kitchen, then my flight or fight instincts took over. I grabbed a kitchen knife from the butcher block on the counter and darted toward the front door, where two men were trying to drag my mother out of our apartment.

One of them had their back to me so I stabbed him in the shoulder, eliciting a sharp howl of pain. When blood blossomed across the back of his shirt, I realized he was probably human. This wasn’t a fae attack. Then again, I didn’t know if the fae bled like us. I was too new to their world to know the difference.

I pulled the knife out just as he turned around to attack me and stabbed him in the gut, though not before he tased me. Electricity zipped through every muscle, locking my joints in place. I gritted my teeth through the pain and plunged the knife in deeper, taking us both to the floor. As his strength bled away, he released the taser and I fell in a heap on top of him, gasping for air. I couldn’t move even if I wanted to, other than the involuntary twitches that rocketed through me in fits and spasms. I think I even cracked a tooth. In the midst of it all, I heard my mother’s frantic screams and cursed my helplessness.

Slowly and with great effort, I lifted my head in their direction and watched as a burly stranger lifted my mom over his shoulder like she weighed nothing. I flopped my arms in front of me to lean up and try to stand, but kept flopping down, my arms and legs made of Jell-O.

I watched in horror as the man pulled out a syringe and injected my mom’s arm. She fought and flailed her arms and legs, valiantly trying to get away, but suddenly she stopped and went limp. I froze in horror, wondering if he’d killed her. Just as he was about to step across the threshold with her hoisted over his shoulder, he stopped in his tracks.

“And where do you thinkyou’regoing?” Ansel asked from the other side of the doorway.

Without hesitation, the man pulled a taser from his pocket and electricity sparked from two prongs. Lurching forward, he went to strike Ansel while still holding my mother.

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