Chapter 23 #2
The last thing I heard before the pressure hit was his voice, low and almost gentle.
“I’ll be careful.”
“Just relax,” he whispered. “Remember, we can stop at any time.”
I nodded and attempted to ease my breathing. As I lay back on the bed, it amazed me how much and changed. Last time he had tried to break through my mind, I had been terrified, but this time? I was willingly letting him do it.
Was I actually starting to trust Thorne?
“I want you to imagine you are in a big hallway. At the end of the hallway is a door. I want you to walk towards that door, breathing slowly. As you do, you will go back in time. One year, two years….”
His voice had taken on an ethereal quality around me. I did as he said. I felt he world around me fade until I was deep inside my mind.
“Can you see the door?”
“Yes.” I said.
“Tell me about the door, Elira.”
“It’s red, like blood.” I said, but my voice seemed far away. “And it looks heavy.”
“Keep going. Each step takes you further back in time. How old are you now?”
Images flashed before my eyes. I saw Finn on the streets. I saw the shadows hiding me as I snatched apples and fish from the markets. I saw myself tending to Finn. It was like a movie of my life along the walls of the hallways. And still the door sat there.
“In your hands, you hold the key. Walk toward it.”
I looked down, and sure enough, a long iron key sat in my palm. Twisted with strange markings. Ancient. Familiar.
My fingers closed around it.
I moved forward.
Each step felt harder than the last, like the air thickened the closer I got.
Something in me screamed not to continue.
“I don’t think I’m supposed to open this,” I whispered.
“You’re safe,” Thorne murmured. I felt his presence like a tether at my back. “I’m with you.”
I lifted the key.
The door pulsed beneath my touch, like it was alive. I slid the key into the lock. It resisted. Fought me.
But I pushed.
Click.
The door groaned open an inch, and the hallway plunged into shadows.
“Elira?” Thorne’s voice cut in, a touch more urgent.
I looked through the gap.
And I saw… myself.
But not as I was.
A child. Pale, hollow-eyed. Standing in a cage with metal bars and chains at her wrists. Her shadow writhed behind her like a second creature—twisting, shifting.
A man stood outside the bars. Bloody red eyes glowed in his face.
I started to shake.
“No…”
“Elira, tell me what you are seeing.” I could hear Thorne. “I can’t see you!” He sounded frustrated.
My whole body was rebelling. I wanted to be sick. The man loomed over me, his face hungry.
“Don’t hurt me. Not anymore, please.” I whispered, but my voice was so young. It was reedy and thin.
You’ve been a bad girl, Elira…
“I’m sorry!” I cried out. “I didn’t mean to.”
I have to punish him now. You know that…
“Don’t!” I yelled. “Don’t hurt him! Please! I’ll do anything!”
“Elira! Wake up! Elira!” Thorne yelled. I felt hands on my skin, on my forehead.
My eyes burst open and I hurled myself off the bed, before getting brutally sick on the floor. My breakfast poured out of me in a foamy pile.
Thorne jumped up. “Are you ok? What the hell happened?”
I couldn’t answer. My hands were shaking so violently I couldn’t wipe my mouth. My throat burned, my body trembled, and for a moment all I could hear was that voice again—You’ve been a bad girl, Elira…
I curled inward, gasping for breath.
Thorne knelt beside me, his hand hovering like he wanted to touch me but didn’t know how.
“Elira—hey. It’s okay. You’re safe.” His voice was low, rough, shaken. “You’re here with me. It’s just us.”
I still couldn’t look at him.
His hand settled on my back, firm and steady. Not controlling. Not demanding. Just there.
I choked out, “He hurt him… I couldn’t stop it. I tried—I tried—”
“Who?” Thorne asked, but gently now, like any louder question might shatter me again. “Who hurt who?”
I shook my head, burying my face in my arms. “I don’t know. I can’t remember his name. His face was wrong—his eyes—they glowed. Like blood.”
Thorne was silent, but I could feel the tension roll off him like heat.
“The man outside the cage?” he asked carefully.
I nodded. “He made me watch. I begged him not to, but he said it was my fault. Said he had to be punished because I was bad.”
Thorne swore under his breath. I felt the mattress shift as he stood, pacing. I could hear the sharp sound of his boots on the stone.
“That wasn’t just a memory,” he muttered. “Something... something pushed back. It didn’t want us there. It knew we were watching.”
I finally dragged myself upright, wiping the vomit from my lips with the back of my hand. “Then maybe it’s best we don’t try again.”
Thorne turned sharply. “No. Elira, whatever that was—it’s important. It’s yours. And someone buried it deep for a reason.”
I stared at him. “I know why. Because remembering hurts.”
He didn’t argue. Not this time.
The silence between us stretched until I couldn’t stand it. I got to my feet, even though my legs felt like water. I needed to move. To get the memory out of my head. Out of my body.
“I need air.”
“Elira, wait—”
But I was already walking.
Down the hall, past the guards who barely blinked, out into the open corridors that led to the training grounds. I needed to feel something solid under my feet. I needed to hit something. To burn off the tremor in my bones.
I didn’t notice the shadow slipping in behind me.
Didn’t notice Kyra until it was too late.
“Hello princess,” She sneered before something hard whacked the back of my head.
I blacked out.