Page 105 of Light

Yeah. This bullshit needed to be diffused five minutes ago.

“Mama?”

A truth expressed, in all its raw agony, by my sweet little Miseria. I know it’s her, along with the hundred other ways I’ve learned to differentiate between the girls. Outwardly they’re identical, but in the last week I’ve started to learn their souls as well. All the little things that make them unique people in their own right. All the special ways I’ve come to claim each of them as my dazzling, amazing, extraordinary daughters.

My daughters.

I’m already grasping the miracle of it with my mind, but beholding their faces, locked with wide eyes and O-shaped mouths as that bitch imprints her filthy fingers across the columns of their necks, I know my soul is suffused with that truth as well. Every corner of my heart sings with it. Every instinct in my body is ready to fight for it.

And yes…if I must…to kill for it.

Regrettably, this isn’t going to be that simple.

To win the game against this witch, I’ve got to dance to a few bars of her tune. I already hate myself for it, but getting my children back is worth every agonizing second.

“Well.”

Faline cocks her head, emitting a sardonic chuff. I have to admit, the look is one of my cutest. “Well, well, well.” But she’s instantly back to being ugly, her lips twisting and her nostrils widening as she rivets her cautious gaze fully on me. “I must admit, you’ve got a snappy bunch here. You all figured this out quicker than I thought.”

I mirror her little look, likely to the letter, but am heartened to see the slices of recognition in both the girls’ eyes. If Faline’s neck-snapping grips didn’t give her away, I know that this face-to-face has confirmed the truth to them, once and for all. They know me. They feel my energy. Most of all, they recognize my love.

“Don’t underestimate yourself.” I want to hurl after handing her even half a compliment. “The move was daring. Impressively so.” Yep. The Taper’s reflecting pool is about to have chunks of floating barf. I have to swallow several times to keep the bile from coaxing it all up my windpipe. “But as you already can see, we’re snappy—and you’re trapped.”

The bitch tosses her head back, gushing out a laugh. But when she lowers her face, it’s not fast enough to hide her truth. At the edges of her neck, along the outer undersides of her jaw, I watch the shell of my skin peeling away, exposing the porcelain flawlessness of hers again.

I’m getting to her. Maybe just a little—but it’s a start, and I’ll take it. Any edge right now is a weakness that can possibly be exploited…a fear that can be drawn out…

“Trapped,” she echoes. “So that’s what you’re calling this?” She chuckles again, and I fight not to betray how it wigs me out. I didn’t exactly wake up this morning and brace myself for the weirdness of hearing Faline Garand speak and laugh through my lips. But dealing with that chunk of Freaky Friday isn’t as crazy as watching what’s happening to her now. Our battle is clearly diverting her energy from maintaining the face morph, and she’s losing her grip on me as if she’s left a cosmetic mask on too long. Parts of my face are falling away from hers in growing flakes of faded color.

The freak show isn’t easy to surmount—but after looking at my girls’ terrified faces again, I’m willing to converse with a talking pig if I have to. At this point, I think I’d actually prefer the swine. “It’s time to cut the shit, cariña,” I spit. “Trapped is exactly what you are.”

“Hmmm. Well.” She attempts a breezy head flip, but the move loosens half my nose and the majority of my chin. “Perhaps that is how you say it in snappy land—but from where I am standing, it seems you have secured me inside a tiny little circle with my pretty, perfect treasures…”

“Not yours!” I go at her with furious steps and balled fists, though they’re both already casting several inches worth of a dark-gold glow. I’m ready to freaking melt the rest of her skin off her disgusting bones if I have to.

“And who stole what from who, my little querida?” With her incensed snap, I’m on higher guard but also greater consolation. The peels on her neck have crept up both sides of her face. At this point, I’m beyond the creep factor of the sight. The sooner my visage isn’t on top of her skanky little body, the better.

“So you want to go there with this?” I rebut. “Fine by me. You milked Tyce Richards for half these kids already. And sure, that still makes you their mother—but I’m not sure any court across the whole globe is going to sit well with learning a mother forced her children to live in an underground bunker, being used as emotion-suction machines so she could invade and then hijack human minds.”

“Minds I would not be able to hijack if the human race were not so pathetically weak!”

“Not your call to make, bitch. Ever.” I take two more huge stomps forward before parting my stance into a forceful A-frame. I square my shoulders. Hike my chin. Bring my hands up, curling them into defined, fist-sized suns. Their intensity doubles with heat that bursts out in a six-foot-wide perimeter—all the way up to the edge of the cage. “Not a call you were ever intended to make!”

The witch cackles out another laugh. Her derision is longer and louder this time, making me grit back the craving to push forward, reach through the bars, and simply melt the rest of my face away from her. And as long as I’m at it, the real one underneath too. But Faline’s already handling the first task for me. In bigger and faster sections, my features are falling away, and her own evil, odious features are emerging from beneath. Her thin lips, no longer plumped by all-day lipstick, are an angry line that looks drawn by a three-year-old. Her skin is taut and pasty. Her hair is a sweaty, dirty mop. Her eyes are couched in dark-gray circles. The only life in her face is the glitter of insanity still clinging to her dark irises—which shine even brighter as she looks out over all of us, laughing long and hard again. The bitch might be silently conceding the first battle, but she clearly still plans on winning the war.

And right now, I’m not certain she’s completely wrong.

With my two girls still securely in her grasp, the woman cocks her leering gaze with renewed confidence. “Ohhh, sweet little Emmalina,” she croons. “Still so full of all that righteousness, are you? Along with him?” She jabs her chin toward Reece, who steps up next to me at last. I have to admit that I’ve wondered where he’s been, but the answer is clear after one glance—and it’s not one I expected.

Holy shit.

He’s exhausted.

Not just figuratively.

I even dare a surreptitious double-take just to be certain of it, because I don’t think I can remember a single occasion over the last three years when I’ve seen his pallor this pale, his vigor so draggy, his steps so plodding. But fortunately, I think I’m the only one who sees all of it. He’s making the plods look like stomps, and every one of his fingertips is still sparking with blue combustion. I just hope we don’t need to really blast Faline to pieces. Or even to pulse a piece of paper her direction.

“Do you two really think you are changing the world?” At the moment, we’re safe, since Faline is devoted to spouting the idiocy of her manifesto. If her ramblings keep her here in front of us, still with Mis and Ira scared but unhurt, then I’m willing to let her have it for a few catchy bars. “Do you think you are doing anything but being the glorified criminal clean-up crew?” She snorts at what’s clearly her idea of a joke. “Team. Bolt.” Both words get her official stamp of Fa-Fa scorn. “One day you will be able to even buy the billboard for yourselves.” She rolls her head as if reading said billboard. “‘Proudly tidying society’s messes for twenty years.’” A new snort. “Or…you can choose to see it my way, team.”