by Sierra Dean
“Can you tell who it is who cursed me?” I asked.
She looked from the bowl to me, then back to the bowl. After a long, contemplative moment, she nodded gravely. Now I extra didn’t like how her face looked, and the wan expression she wore.
“Who?”
Clearing the distance between us, she paused, then pressed a finger to my chest. “Tu.”
Chapter Fifteen
Tu.
You.
I stared at her, not comprehending the meaning of what she was saying. Yeah, we already knew I was the one who was cursed. Now I needed to know who had done it. Had I not been clear about that part?
She tapped my chest again and gave me a sad smile.
Then it clicked.
Me.
“What?” I got to my feet in a rush, skittering away from her as if just by touching me she was making things worse. I didn’t want to accept the truth of what she was saying, because I simply couldn’t understand how it could be true.
“What did she say?” Wilder was standing now, too, watching me move around the room.
“Me. She said it was me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She says I’m the one who placed the curse.” My heart was pounding a mile a minute and suddenly I was painfully aware of the fact we were trapped inside a tree and there was no easy way to get back outside to the fresh air. I felt hot, sweaty, and claustrophobic.
I paced back and forth, gasping for breath, and the entire time, Memere just watched me do it. I could tell from the expression on Wilder’s face he wanted to do something to help me, but there was nothing he could do.
I still didn’t understand how what she was saying was possible, let alone true, but I felt the truth of it in my blood. I knew she was right even though I couldn’t explain it.
Finally I worked myself up into such a tizzy I was on the verge of hyperventilating and sat down on the dirt floor, burying my head in my hands and trying to pull myself together.
Wilder crouched beside me and put a strong hand on the back of my neck, his cool skin bringing me a small amount of calm that I had otherwise believed to be impossible.
“I don’t understand,” I mumbled into my hands.
They both said nothing while I grumbled incomprehensibly, and then at last, when I simply didn’t have enough energy left to feel sorry for myself, I stared at my hands, trying to figure out how they had managed to betray me like this.
“You’re such a smart girl, Genie, but I fear your powers are so much greater than either of us ever realized.” Memere pulled her stool up again, as Wilder and I gaped at her. She’d spoken, and in perfect English.
“This shouldn’t be possible,” I argued.
“What is and is not possible with magic?” She held up a hand and reminded us where we were. “I am a hundred and forty-five years old. Tell me what is impossible, please.”
I was briefly taken aback by her declaration. I’d known she was old, and probably older than I imagined, but in my wildest dreams I wouldn’t have thought that age was an option. I shook off my stunned surprise and circled back to the bigger issue. “But a spell like that, to cast it without knowing? How would that even work?”
“When you destroyed all of Callum’s cabins, did you know you were doing it?”
“No.”
“There you go.” She stood in front of me, brushed her fingers through my hair, combing it back out of my face. “I brought you here because of what I knew you could be, my girl. I saw the potential brimming inside you and knew with the right direction you could surpass even myself in pure potential. But you left me too soon.”
“I was here for five years.”
“You learned so much in that time, I know. But as soon as your sister took you away, you had no time to adjust. I see it all in your blood, the fear, the danger, the changes you went through. I never should have let you leave.”
A deep frown creased her features, and I realized she blamed herself for what had happened to me. Meanwhile, it had been me who agreed to go with Secret when she’d found me here all those years ago.
“This isn’t your fault, Memere.” Somehow I was comforting her, even though I’d been the one to place a deadly curse on my own head.
“I should have done more for you.”
“You did plenty,” I offered her. “I know so much more than I did as a kid. I can control it.”
“No you can’t. If you could control it you wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t have done the things you’ve done.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You thought this was a quick action. That someone who hated you snapped their fingers and said, there is now a curse. But no, chere, no. This was slow magic, burning in your veins for years. You did things you won’t let yourself remember, but the soul knows. The soul saw it all. And the guilt for things you didn’t know you’d done ate you up. That guilt, combined with your power, and that’s what brought the dead back.”
Okay, now she was seriously making zero sense at all. Things I wouldn’t let myself remember? Guilt so powerful it could form itself into a curse? She was off her rocker.
Even as I was shaking my head she leaned close and pressed a palm to my forehead. It hit me like a bolt of electricity and sent me staggering back onto the floor, right on my ass.
Then everything went dark.
I knew I wasn’t in Memere’s tree when I opened my eyes and the edges of my sight moved and churned like ink on water. I must be dreaming, because everything had a surreal vibe to it.
The strong smell of smoke wrinkled my nose, and brutal heat licked my cheeks. Wherever I was, there was a fire nearby.
I got to my feet and pushed down a hall that looked like it belonged in a hotel. There were several identical doors on either side of me, and the carpet under my feet had an innocuous pattern that would hide high traffic wear and tear.
A glass light fixture next to me popped, debris flying everywhere. The creamy wallpaper peeled back, its edges blackened and melting.
The scene had a vaguely familiar feel, and yet I couldn’t put my finger on why I knew it. My heartbeat pounded and I swiped at my eyes, which were running thanks to the choking black smoke that roiled overhead.
When I emerged in an elevator lobby, I froze.
I’d come upon a tableau, frozen in place. It wasn’t just that everyone was still, it was as if time itself had stopped.
I stepped closer and inspected the scene. A lean woman with a dark bob haircut was aiming a gun at a tall, handsome man with blond hair. He was leaning into the empty opening of an elevator shaft. I knew him immediately.
Lucas.
Lucas Rain.
Memories of him crashed into me, sucking the breath from my lungs, and I suddenly knew exactly where we were and what moment this was. Secret, my sister, was also near the elevator shaft, her hands lifted as if saying hold on a minute, even as Lucas stared into the darkened abyss of the open door.
My memories of this moment were fuzzy at best.
I’d been sent to Lucas’s hotel during the undead invasion of New York to help take out a necromancer. My group had succeeded, but I’d ended up stuck in an elevator on the brink of falling to the basement with me inside it.
Lucas had gotten me out.
I didn’t remember this part though. I inched forward, confident they couldn’t see me, since this was just a memory and not really happening. As I got to the dark haired woman, I could see over her shoulder into the elevator shaft.
And there I was.
Me, all of eighteen or nineteen, an expression if panicked terror on my face and my hands outstretched reaching for Lucas, for Secret, for anything.
She pushed me, my memory provided. Morgan pushed me.
That was her name, the dark-haired werewolf who was pointing the weapon at Lucas. Bits and pieces were coming back now as I watched the scene unfold.
Then, inexplicably, while everything else stayed frozen, Secret began to m
ove. She knocked the gun out of Morgan’s hands, sending it flying into the open pit below my mid-air body. God, this was so weird.
Secret, foolhardy idiot that she was, climbed down into the open shaft and seemed to be assessing the best way to drag me back in. She grabbed my shirtsleeve but couldn’t quite maneuver my frozen form, so I floated back into place mid-shaft.
She swore.
I came to the edge of the door so I could watch her work, utterly engrossed that I was being granted an opportunity to see this moment unfold, even if I wasn’t sure why.
The second time she tried, she was able to get hold of my body, drag it back up to the ledge, and push me over so I was near Lucas’s feet. I moved my dream self away as if I might be in her way as she clung to the edge of the elevator shaft. She looked younger, this version of my sister, but she also looked like she was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.
Secret, now, had a lot more reason to smile than this version had.
The scene unfroze.
Morgan gaped angrily at her empty hand, which had contained a gun a moment earlier, and Lucas had to pull himself away from the edge of the pit when he realized my body was no longer falling, but rather back on solid ground. He looked equal parts stunned and relieved.
Past-me, the one living through this, had scrambled away and was sobbing. I couldn’t blame her. Me.
Secret yanked Morgan’s ankle, sending the woman crashing to the ground with such force she didn’t have time to brace herself, and her face smashed into the carpet. I had a lot of trouble feeling any pity for her.
“You fucked with the wrong goddamn pack. You’re going to wish you stayed in Siberia,” Secret snarled at Morgan.
Lucas, who was trying to help Secret back onto solid ground, said, “ Secret, stop. We don’t have time for this.”
But Secret had that crazy look in her eyes she gets sometimes. The one that said, bitch, I’m going to kill you. And it was fixed right on Morgan.
Fire and smoke inched closer to us, and I saw Secret’s expression soften as she relented to Lucas’s assistance. Once she was up, she gave Morgan a kick, and made a beeline for my huddled body on the floor. “We have to go.”
When I looked up, both memory Secret and real me gasped in unison.
Past me, the one who had just been saved from certain death, had eyes glowing bright ember red.
“No,” I whispered to myself. This couldn’t be right. I didn’t remember any of this. Surely someone was just projecting these memories on me.
“Incendemus te,” Past-Genie said. “Propter peccata vestra.”
“Is that Latin?” Lucas asked Secret.
I didn’t speak Latin.
“Yeah,” Secret said, and judging from the way her complexion had paled, she wasn’t too excited to hear me speaking it.
Past-Genie’s hands had started glowing red. I swallowed hard. I’d seen what happened when they did that, when my power seemed to act for me, and used my body as a vessel. It had happened back in Franklinton when I’d needed to break myself free of captivity.
I thought that had been the first time.
Now I knew how wrong I was.
Lucas looked terrified of the girl on the floor, the same one he’d just been so desperate to save. “Secret, run,” he instructed.
“I’m not leaving without her.”
Go, you dummy, I thought.
He pushed a bag into her hands and said, “Go.” It was easy to understand why he’d once been the werewolf king. I wanted to listen to him now, his voice was so commanding.
The version of me on the floor was hunched over like a Gollum, a sick grin twisting my lips, and my glowing red eyes totally focused on the woman still lying on the carpet.
A sick knot twisted in my guts.
I didn’t want to watch this.
Past-Genie gave a faint, chilling laugh, then said, “Ustulo.”
Morgan, who hadn’t even been able to sit up, was suddenly engulfed with flame. She started screaming, and the agonized sound of it speared into my heart. I looked away, my hand going to my mouth, and bile rising in the back of my throat.
No, no, no.
This wasn’t real. It was a bad dream.
I couldn’t have done what I just witnessed. To do that to someone? Even someone who had tried to kill me first? No.
Morgan continued shrieking, and against my better judgment I looked back at the scene. Her skin had peeled off, exposing melting fat and bone. Charred flesh.
Charred flesh.
Past-Genie held her hand up in a fist, then opened it wide.
Morgan exploded.
She actually fucking exploded. And still all the pieces of her wriggled and screamed as if even in this state she could feel every bit of the pain.
Tears were streaming down my face.
Secret and Lucas, who had been blown back by the explosion, were staring at the past version of me with naked horror. Never in my life had I seen Secret look at me that way. If this had actually happened, how could she stand to be in the same room with me? How could she see me as anything other than a monster?
I stared down at my feet and looked at the charred, ruined face of the woman I had killed.
Past-Genie slumped to the floor, the power having ridden her to exhaustion.
Now I understood why I had chosen to bury this moment so deep.
I wish it had stayed buried.
But it seemed nothing in my life did, these days.
Chapter Sixteen
I came to on the dirt floor of Memere’s tree gasping for breath.
Wilder was at my side in an instant, though he had rumpled hair on one side and the faint impression of blanket marks on his cheek. He’d been sleeping. How long had I been out?
Memere was sitting on a stool near the door, and though her eyes had been closed she now fixed both bright blue orbs on me.
“She remembers now,” she said to Wilder. “She knows.”
I sat up, and wiped my cheeks, which were wet with tears. My body was trembling and I couldn’t decide if I wanted to throw up or start bawling. Neither option would help anything, but they might make me feel better.
How could I ever look at myself in a mirror again, knowing what I’d done?
I roughly swiped away the tears that continued to fall, angry with myself for being so out of control of my own emotions. Wasn’t that precisely how I’d gotten in this situation? I’d let my fear and anger conquer me, and as a result I’d killed someone.
There had been plenty of times in my life I’d wondered if I might not be better off if the witch inside me had never woken up. My powers had caused me no end of troubles, but they’d also been there to save me when I needed them. The truth was, no matter how difficult being a witch had made my life, it wasn’t until this very second that I wished I had no powers at all.
If I hadn’t been a witch, Morgan would still be alive.
A flash of her burned skin came to mind and I sucked in a deep breath.
She had tried to kill me. She certainly wasn’t innocent, and there was a very good chance that if I hadn’t killed her, Secret would have. I’d seen that look of pure homicidal intent in my sister’s eyes, and knew only the burning building had saved Morgan those few extra minutes.
But no one deserved to die the way I’d killed her. That had gone beyond inhumane. It was chilling. It was so far past something I could imagine being done, let alone something I had been capable of doing myself.
“Are you okay?” Wilder helped me up into a sitting position, but I recoiled from his touch.
All this time I’d worried he would see something in me that would send him running. Now I’d seen it, and I knew he couldn’t be near me. How could I let him love me when I knew what I really was? What I’d done.
“I killed her,” I wheezed, my throat inexplicably hoarse.
“Killed who?” He looked to Memere for help explaining this, but she was silent again, offering nothing else beyond her initial
declaration. She was done giving me answers.
“The woman on the highway.” I climbed to my feet, brushing dirt from my hands, and carefully avoiding his touch. “I remember it all now. I killed her.”
“The burned woman?”
I nodded solemnly. “Her name was Morgan. She was a werewolf in the Eastern pack, and when the necromancer invasion happened in New York, she was with us. She… she tried to kill me, and I did that to her.”
Memere wasn’t looking at me. Her eyes weren’t closed, but she was looking at the wall now, as if it pained her to meet my gaze. I couldn’t blame her.
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”
“Because I didn’t remember any of it before,” I snapped. I knew none of this was his fault, but did he have to be so fucking nice to me right now? I was a goddamn monster. “I tortured her, Wilder. I made her suffer in unimaginable ways. No wonder she wanted revenge. She deserves it.”
“Genie.” Instead of a soft, comforting tone, he sounded annoyed. I was surprised. “Stop this. Right now.” His voice carried the same intense, undeniable command to it that Lucas’s had in my memory.
An Alpha’s voice.
I bristled.
“I killed her,” I said again, as if he hadn’t understood my words the first time around.
“I don’t care.”
“You should care. I killed her, I killed someone.”
“She tried to kill you. I’m not trying to make excuses on your behalf, baby, but I think that’s a pretty damn good reason to kill someone.”
I shook my head. “It’s not okay.”
“No, it’s not. But you’re still blaming yourself for something you can’t even remember doing. I can smell the guilt coming off you. No wonder you cursed yourself. You spent all these years carrying this around without realizing it, and you haven’t given yourself a single opportunity to be forgiven.”
“I don’t deserve forgiveness.”
“Oh shut up. Seriously.” He grabbed me by both arms and held me firmly so I couldn’t pull away. “You are blaming yourself for something you did without even knowing it. Do you blame yourself for the rabbits you kill when we hunt? Do you blame any sensible animal for defending itself with whatever means are on hand?”