Page 176 of A Moment of Weakness
“The memories felt so real.” The confession escapes me on a shaking inhale, but the creature laughs, a sound like bones snapping underfoot.
“Oh, child. You should know better than anyone.” Its face inches closer. “Never trust your own memories.”
Pain detonates in my skull. I clutch my head, trying to hold the pieces together.
“The story,” I gasp through clenched teeth, recalling Ares’s voice, the ache in it, the plea woven between the lines. “The raven… that was us. He-” My voice fails. I try again. “My father took him from me. Replaced him. Rewrote him.”
“And who,” the Fetch breathes against my ear, “do youthink gave him the idea?”
Everything inside me freezes. The creature drags a single claw down my spine, laughing, savoring how the truth shatters through me.
Then...impact.
A violent thud echoes through the trees. The Fetch jerks forward with a strangled shriek. Althea appears behind it, hair wild, eyes burning, stabbing downward with feral precision. Ares crashes into the monster next, ripping it from her grip and yanking it into his own. His rage is incandescent. He pins the creature beneath him and tears into it with raw, desperate violence, clawing at its face with his bare hands. Every strike is personal. Every blow is history.
The Fetch convulses, its death cry rattling the air. Liam collapses to his knees as the spell on him breaks, Theo hauling him up with shaky arms. The world feels tilted, too small, too loud, too fast. My lungs seize. My thoughts dissolve into static.
Someone grabs me, hands on my arms, hauling me upright. Sebastian. His voice is soft, coaxing, strangling me with care I cannot trust anymore. “Harper, it’s okay, I’m here-”
“Please, Sebastian,” I choke out, jerking away from him, panic clawing at my ribs. “Let me go-”
“I’m trying to help,” he insists, tightening his hold.
A hand lands on his shoulder.
Ares.
Then chaos. Ares rips Sebastian away from me, slamming him into the ground with a snarl. His face is streaked with blood, his hands torn and raw, his body trembling with fury. Sebastian shoves back and they crash into each other, two forces colliding with enough heat to burn the forest down. Althea lunges between them, trying to pull Ares off. Theo cries out. Liam’s breathing is still uneven. Everything spirals.
And then, the world narrows.
A cold arm hooks around my throat.
Not rough.
Not clumsy.
Purposeful.
Terrifyingly familiar.
Scars brush my skin.
A scent I know far too well chokes the air.
Everyone freezes. Ares goes rigid. Sebastian’s face drains of color. Liam lets out a broken noise. Theo covers his mouth.
“Your thoughts are so loud, my dear,” my father murmurs behind me, voice soft as poison. “You practically called me to you.”
The forest itself seems to recoil.
He points a finger over my shoulder, straight at Ares and Sebastian, both boys suddenly stricken with utter confusion, horror rippling through them.
“I told you to stop her from remembering,” he says, voice lowering into disappointment.
They don’t understand.
I do.
And the realization almost kills me.
“Shame,” my father sighs, turning me in his arms, forcing me to look into eyes darker and older than the ones in my memories. A cruel smile carves itself across his face.
“Now no one gets you but me.”
The world collapses into darkness.
