Page 68 of This Shattered Star

Her breath cooled the wetness trailing down my cheeks as she spoke.

“Powerless. A cursed monster.” My father crept closer, and it was then that I noticed the knife in his hand. “And now you will pay.”

I couldn’t do a single thing as he dragged the blade across my exposed collarbone. My throat was already raw, but somehow it managed to hold the scream that erupted from me.

His lips no longer moved, yet I heard his voice in my mind, over and over.

Your fault.

You did this.

“Stop!” I begged. “Please, Mother, let me go!” She ignored my pleas.

This was all wrong. I’d never done anything to deserve this.

Something beckoned at the edges of my mind, similar to the fog I’d experienced right when I’d woke in the garden. My mind flailed, trying to grab onto whatever it was, but an opposing force slammed against my efforts with the strength of a battering ram, pounding against my temples once again.

Another slice, this time on my left forearm. My parents leered at me like they were complete strangers. Like they’d never held my hand as we paraded through the night markets, bellies full and smiles wider than life. Like we’d never sat by the hearth in our living room, reading stories in hushed voices during rainstorms, a cup of my mother’s favorite tea in hand while mountains of blankets protected us from the rest of the kingdom.

I had to do something—had to escape.I wouldn’t die here.

A pressing urgency nagged at me to move.

Because no matter who—orwhat—stood before me, they were going to kill me unless I killed them first. The certainty of it reverberated down to my bones. It didn’t matter how I knew. Just that Iknew.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, before snapping my head forward, right as my mother bent down again.Acrackresounded echoed across the empty space.

I would not allow guilt to suffocate my bravado.

My father’s grip slackened, distracted by my mother’s yelp of pain. Quickly, I pulled his arm straight out above my shoulder with one hand and slammed into the opposite side of the crook of his elbow, as hard as I could, with the other. Popping the joint out of its socket.I would not die here,I reminded myself as he cried out, cradling his arm now bent at an odd angle. At least he’d dropped the knife.

Someone spent hours teaching me that maneuver. Someone relentless and headstrong. If only I could remember what they looked like.

“You have to wake up.”A warning, miles away yet intimately close, from a voice that tugged on another brittle strand of memory. Their urgency battled my own.

But it was still the three of us in this building. Dread pooled at the bottom of my stomach.The shadows.They must’ve decided to play, too.

I had to getout.

In one smooth movement, I swooped down to pick up the knife, and slammed its hilt into my father’s temple with a strained grunt. His eyelids fluttered like a hummingbird’s wings before he crumpled to the ground with a thud. I didn’t dare check his pulse.

I then faced my mother, blood spurting down her nose like a faucet. It coated her lips and teeth as she snarled at me like a rabid beast, and dribbled down her chin when she charged at me. Her movements were sloppy, tainted with her pain. Dodging her with practiced speed, I kicked my leg out in a wide arc, taking her feet out from under her. She collapsed mere feet away from my father’s unmoving body.

I’d practiced that, too. But when? My head swam, bringing with it a wave of nausea so potent that I retched, but nothing came.

Tears kept forming, blurring my vision despite my best efforts to blink them away. I straddled her, pinning her arms down with my knees, and fought against every part of me begging to bolt, to run from this warehouse and never look back. This had to end now.

“I’m so sorry, Mother.”

“Abomination! Monster!” she screamed, kicking and writhing.

Closing my eyes as tightly as I could, I cranked my arm backwards, readying for the final blow. Somehow, I knew exactly where and how hard to swing. But I was too much of a coward to watch the knife sink into its target.

Invisible chains wrapped along the length of my arm, begging me to not follow through.

A roaring battle cry destroyed what was left of my throat.

I swung.