the last few days floods through, fills me, overflows—too much for my skin to hold inside.
His coat comes next and my fists clench against the floorboards as it slips down his long, lanky arms and joins the discarded hat on the bed.
Quinn reaches for Rebecca and she steps forward, their bodies melding together with a rightness I can’t deny. A cry of dismay builds up in my throat and I grit my teeth shut against it.
I hear Benson behind me, but only vaguely, like an echo from another world. Someone I used to know.
I should turn—I should listen, but my eyes are fixed on the excruciating, sweet pain of seeing Quinn hold someone else. His hand cups her cheek, his thumb traces her jawline. I reach my hand up to my own face, as though I can will those hands to be on me instead of her.
My heart races, then immediately slows, and every breath is an effort as I wonder if agony or ecstasy will kill me first—I’m certain one of them is going to. I can’t bear this much longer.
Just as I realize agony is going to win, I feel as though my soul is ripping from my body and then I’m looking down on myself.
But only for a moment.
I’m settling.
Settling into a familiar place.
I’m home.
Where I belong.
A cool metal is heavy against my throat and my eyelashes rise to meet a white-shirted chest in front of my eyes. Insistent fingers are tilting my chin up to meet warm lips, while an arm pulls me close.
Of course. My mind sees it before I do and my heart rushes to catch up.
He’s holding this woman.
He’s caressing Rebecca.
He’s kissing me.
Quinn’s lips are indescribably soft on mine, and I’m half afraid I’ll die from the burst of ecstasy that surges through me. Inside I’m quaking, but Rebecca’s hands, my hands, are steady as they find the ends of his cravat and pull gently. A raw wanting floods through me as the length of cloth loosens and the knot comes apart under capable fingers.
I look up at his face.
And everything comes together in a flash of insight. My fingers, my eyes, my mouth.
My Quinn.
Rebecca’s thoughts flow through my brain. My thoughts. Not now; they were my thoughts. I try to fight them, to block the invasion of my brain, but it feels too right, too familiar, and finally I relax and allow myself to just be Rebecca.
Again.
I’m helpless to resist when my hands—Rebecca’s—pull Quinn’s face down again, his gritty stubble velvet under my fingertips. His head snaps up and I try to force him back to me, but my hands won’t obey. I’m not in control—this is something that already happened, two hundred years ago. I can’t change it; I can only play my role, think the same thoughts she thought.
Once I understand that, our consciousnesses blend, and instead of feeling like I’m watching a movie, I’m there, in the scene. I run to the window beside him and gasp in fear as his arm tightens around me. A semicircle of at least fifty men on horseback surrounds us, their faces masked, torches burning. Each man has a rifle on his shoulder; many have two. I don’t know if they’re witch hunters or Reduciates; we’ve faced down both.
The problem is if it’s the Reduciata, they actually know how to kill us.
I cling to Quinn, watching through the windows as the riders spread out and close the circle around the entire house.
There will be no running.
Tears sting in my eyes and I have to take deep, gulping breaths to push them back. Not because I’m afraid—we’re far from defenseless—but because this means we’ll have to leave. We’ve lived here together secretly for more than a year. It has been a haven.
A heaven.
It’s always a fight for Earthbounds to be together, but here we’d won that fight. We found each other and unlocked a love most humans can only comprehend in blissful moments of sweet dreams.
And it’s been our reality.
These men—these beasts—are taking it all away.
Quinn’s hands are in my hair and his lips murmur, “Be strong.” His nose brushes my earlobe. “I need thirty seconds.” My fingers clench fistfuls of his shirt, drawing on his strength to feed my own. One more breath and I look up to meet his eyes.
It must be now.
I tear myself away and fly to the door, bursting out into the frigid night. The icy wind slaps my cheeks and I pull frozen air into my lungs, only to cough on the winter-kissed chill.
With my arms wrapped around my aching chest, I raise my head to the snorting horses surrounding me.
And the black gun barrels.
Dozens of them, pointed at me, their horses shoulder to shoulder in an arc so tight I cannot escape.
My eyes rise past the guns to the faces of the mounted men. They’re well covered, but even a mask can’t hide their eyes. These eyes—all of them—burn with hatred.
With murder.
Not a spark of mercy.
Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty. Please, gods, let him be ready.
I spin back to the house, my braid flaring out in the darkness, the end stiff with cold. Without letting myself hesitate, I turn my back to them, praying they will give me the three seconds it will take to close the door.
I hear amused chuckles, and though anger slices my belly, I know their heartlessness is what will ultimately save my life.
I slam the door shut and the slam is drowned out by the explosion of guns from everywhere. My mouth opens in a piercing scream, then a steely hand wraps around my wrist and yanks me downward. A soft cloth covers my mouth to stifle the sound, and Quinn’s leaf-green eyes meet mine, calming me in an instant even as the roar of gunshots continues over my head.
Suddenly, his eyes roll skyward and we’re encased in total blackness.
“No,” I whisper, and it echoes in my mind instead of coming out of Rebecca’s mouth.
I can’t see him. He’s gone!
“No!” I cry louder, but it only makes my head hurt as my skull fills with the echoes of a scream that can’t escape my mouth.
My soul rips away again and I’m back in Tavia’s—my—broken body, surrounded by the ruins of my—Rebecca’s—home. Something’s restraining me and I thrash against it, trying to get free.
Trying to get back to him.
Quinn!
“Stop. Tavia, it’s me.”
“No, it’s not—it’s not you,” I sob. “You’re gone! Come back.” The keening sound is loud in my ears again instead of trapped in my skull, and somehow I figure out I’m in the present again.
