Lord of Embers(The Demon Queen Trials #2)(37)

Lucifer?

But he vanished into the shadows with Orion and Tammuz, leaving me alone in the forest.

Snow swirled around me in wild vortices, then melted. Icicles turned to water, and the earthy smell of spring filled the air. The elms around me turned into pines.

I stared at the landscape, recognition dawning. The gentle roll of the hill and the rocky overhang to my right—this was where it had happened. The same exact place, in a different time.

I felt split in two. Half of me wanted to run from the buried memories of that night, while the other half needed to know what had happened. I needed to know who had killed my mother.

Time slowed. The wind caught in the pines, and the boughs strained. Raindrops slid slowly from the sky.

Fear stole my breath as a figure moved through the shadows. She moved closer, and I saw myself. I was running, red hair frizzy and sweat gleaming on my cheeks.

But where was Mom, and why weren’t we together?

I watched myself running, moving in slow motion now. My arms pumped through the air. I ran alone with the precise form of a varsity athlete.

Storm clouds darkened the night sky, and lightning cracked the shadows. A loud clap of thunder rumbled over the forest. Rain hammered me as I ran, and rivulets streamed over the earthy forest floor.

Had I realized how far ahead of Mom I was? Had I even known what I was running from?

Mom couldn’t keep up with me. She was a demon without her powers, and I was a trained athlete.

I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn’t. Tammuz wanted me to see this.

What if, when something so devastating happened, it left an imprint on the world? What if horror lingered forever—like Pompeii’s victims, eternally contorted in their final moments, tormented tragedies perpetually encased in stone?

At last, Mom ran from the shadows. She looked younger than I remembered, her skin gleaming. Rain drenched her dark hair.

She wore a large backpack, too, and it looked heavy on her shoulders. I remembered now—she’d always kept it by the door, filled with food, water, and a knife. She had a gun at home as well, locked in a safe, for all the good it did when someone came for us. I remembered it all now—there hadn’t been time to get the gun.

The forest thinned around me, and a new scene emerged—one with warm light and a familiar blue sofa. My heart ached. We were back now in our house, the bottom-floor rental in Witchcraft Point. With the sound of rain gently pattering the windows, a cozy scene emerged. Fairy lights were strung above the windows. I saw myself on the sofa, surrounded by books, trying to cram for a math test. I sat cross-legged and relaxed.

One of Mom’s crocheted afghans in light blue lay draped on the sofa behind me, just as it always had been. From the next room, the radio was playing Mozart on a low volume.

This teenage version of me had no idea of what was coming next.

I glanced at the clock on the wall—ten-sixteen at night. The second hand ticked loudly in the room, each strike seeming louder.

This had been my last minute of peace before the world changed completely.

Mom came into the room with a bowl of popcorn. Lightning lit up the sky outside, and she froze, staring out the window, her blue eyes wide. I’d seen those eyes recently— She dropped the bowl of popcorn. “Run,” she screamed. “Get out! Get your shoes on and run for the car.”

I leapt up, trying to see what she’d seen, but nothing was out there except the dark, crooked street in front of our house. Back then, Mom always seemed to be freaking out over nothing, convinced that people were out to get us. In my high school psychology class, I’d learned about paranoid schizophrenia, and I’d wondered if that was what she had. The self-defense classes, the bug out bag, the constant fears that people were watching or following us. And here she was again, screaming that something evil was coming for us. I thought she was imagining it.

I’d argued with her, saying that I wasn’t going to leave the house because she

she saw something outside, not when I had more th ou gh t

important things to do. I wasn’t going to let her paranoia ruin high school for me. As I looked back on myself now, I wanted to scream, Listen to h er, you fu ckin g id iot!

A math test?

what I’d been worried about?

T h at’s

I felt sick as I watched the argument unfold. Finally, I’d gotten my shoes on, a furious look on my face. We’d left the house through the basement, running into the rainy night. But the argument had flustered her, and she’d forgotten her car keys.

“He’s coming!” she’d screamed. “Run into the woods. I’ll be right behind you.”

My younger self had stared into the shadows, peering from behind a tree. My face paled, jaw dropping open when I glimpsed someone who scared me. I ran, then, sprinting down trails I knew like the back of my hand—every turn, every crook of the path memorized.

Mom started behind me, but she didn’t know the way, and she wasn’t in shape. She bumped into trees in the dark, her arms grasping at shadows. She couldn’t keep up with me, and I’d cost her precious time arguing. On top of that, she’d forgotten the keys, and that was my fault.

And there I was, my younger self, blithely leaving Mom behind to save my own ass. I’d assumed she was right behind me as I ran, but I hadn’t stopped to check. Nor had I considered that fact that she couldn’t run a five-minute mile like I could, or that she didn’t run trails.