LOGINTwice, the scar flared up without warning, hot as a brand. It hurt like hell, just as the healer—Juniper, she said her name was—had warned. But Nyx got stronger every day.On the sixth morning, the door flew open again, and a girl about my age bounced up the steps. She had a sunburned nose and looke
Mira’s POVAfter so many nights shaking in the sand, it took me a while to understand what the feeling of warmth even was. I was laying in a narrow bed built into the back wall of a camper, under a heavy wool blanket woven in faded reds and oranges. Sunlight leaked in around a curtain made out of an
It shattered against the stones. Blood splashed across the floor and up the front of her white coat.Seraphine shrieked and leapt to her feet.“Fine,” she spat. “Starve, then. Rot down here for an animal who is never coming back for you.”She snatched up the contract and stormed out.I let my head d
Damon’s POVThe guard came down with his lantern once a day—at least, I was pretty certain it was once per day based on the timing and my own thirst, although I had no way to see the sky—to make sure I was still breathing. I counted his visits for a while. After the third, I stopped bothering. I was
Under the table, I touched my side, and my fingers came away red. The wounds in my shoulder and leg were barely scabbed over, and the one in my side still wasn’t closing at all. The skin around it was even hotter than the rest of me, and I was burning up with a fever, shivering in a diner that had t
Mira’s POVSometime after midnight, the bus pulled into the gravel lot of a diner with a buzzing neon sign. It was just off the highway, the buzz of cars and trucks whizzing past audible from the parking lot.“Twenty minutes, folks,” the driver called out.I followed everyone else off of the bus, on
Mira's POVTwo months ago, Jason Reed was my boyfriend. Now he had his tongue down my sister's throat, and she wanted me to watch.I stood in the doorway of the classroom, bag over one shoulder, and waited for the twist in my stomach to pass. It didn't.Jason saw me and pulled back, and the tips of
Mira's POV****Dream****I'm small.The walls are dirt and they go up too high and there's no roof, just a square of gray sky way up at the top. My knees are scraped. Something is crusted on my arm and I don't want to look at it.There's a boy in the pit with me. He's pale, even paler than me, and h
Damon's POVShe let go of my hand like I'd burned her."I'm so sorry." The words came out in a rush — tripping over each other, barely finished before the next one started. Mira Hale stepped back, color flooding her face, her hands pulling at the cuffs of her hoodie like she could disappear inside i
Mira‘s POVI froze.Every word I'd prepared vanished. I'd planned the whole speech for a stranger. I had nothing ready for this. For him. My arms were still around his neck and I couldn't make them let go.Damon didn't move either. He just looked down at me, frowning, like I was a math problem that







