CHAPTER 3

Amara

I have died two times and I am waiting for the third. My head feels like it is full of heavy stones, and every stone is a memory I don’t want to have. I am standing in my kitchen in this third life, but my brain is pulling me back to the second one. The second life. It won't let me go. It wants me to remember why I am so scared of the door.

"Amara, sit down," my father said.

He was a Beta. That means he was strong and people listened to him, but he wasn't the boss of everyone. He was just the boss of making sure we were safe. He sat at our wooden table and pointed at the door.

"Tell me how many ways there are to get out of this room," he said.

"The front door and the window by the stove, Papa," I said. I was only seven then.

"Try again," he said. He didn't sound mean. He sounded like he was telling me a secret. "Look at the floor. Look at the roof."

"The loose board under the rug?" I asked.

"Good," he said. "And the crawlspace above the pantry. Now, Amara, look at my hands. What am I doing?"

"You are just sitting there."

"No," he said, and he moved his thumb just a little bit. "I am reaching for a knife that isn't there. Always watch the hands. People talk with their mouths, but they tell the truth with their hands. If a man says he loves you but his fist is tight, he is lying. Do you understand?"

"I think so," I said. "But why do I need to know? You’re here. You’ll fight the bad people."

"I won't always be here," he said. He picked me up and hugged me. He felt like a big, solid tree. "I am teaching you how to stay alive when the world gets loud. You have to be the one who sees everything first."

I thought he was just playing a game with me. I didn't know he was giving me the only things he had to leave behind. He went to a battle three months later. I didn't see him die. I just saw the man come to our house with a piece of his cloak. It was muddy and torn.

The house got very quiet after that. My mother didn't cry loud. She just stopped moving. She sat by the fire and watched the wood turn to ash.

"Mama, we need to eat," I said. I was eight then.

"I know," she said. But she didn't get up.

"Papa said I should watch the doors," I told her. "I'm watching them, Mama. I’m doing what he said."

"Your father is gone, Amara," she said, and her voice sounded like a paper getting torn. "Watching the doors won't bring him back. We need a roof."

Eight months later, a new man came. He was tall and he had a face that looked old. His name was Kael. He wasn't a warrior. He was a man who owned land.

"He’s coming to stay," Mama said. She was wearing a new dress. It was blue. She hadn't worn color since Papa died.

"I don't like his hands," I said. "They stay in his pockets. Papa said..."

"Stop talking about your father," she snapped. "Kael is giving us a life. Do you want to starve in the woods? Be grateful."

But Kael didn't look at me. He looked at the walls. He looked at the food. He looked at my mother like she was a nice chair he had just bought. When he did look at me, it was like I was a fly he wanted to swat.

"Is the girl always this loud?" Kael asked one night at dinner.

"She’s usually quiet," Mama said. She didn't look at me. She looked at her plate.

"She stares too much," Kael said. "It’s creepy. Tell her to stop staring."

"Amara, look down," Mama said.

"But Papa said to always watch..."

"Look down!" Mama yelled.

That was the first time I realized love was something that could just run out. Like water in a jar. She used it all up on Papa, and then she used the rest on staying safe with Kael. There was none left for me. By the time I was sixteen, I was a ghost in my own house. I did the chores. I cleaned the floors. I watched the exits.

One day, Kael came home with a man I remembered from my first life. It was a man who worked for Corvus. I felt the cold go right through my bones.

"She’s almost of age," Kael said. He was pointing at me while I was scrubbing the hearth. "She’s healthy. She’ll work hard."

"The Alpha wants her," the man said. "He’s been looking for a girl with her face."

"Take her tonight," Kael said. "I don't want the drama."

"Mama?" I whispered. I looked at her. I was begging her to see me. "Mama, please. You know who Corvus is. You know what he does."

My mother looked at me. For a second, her eyes got soft. Then she looked at the big pile of gold coins Kael was holding. She looked at the warm fire and the thick blankets on her bed.

"It’s a good pack, Amara," she said. Her voice was flat. "You’ll be a high-ranking mate. You should be happy."

"You’re selling me," I said.

"I’m saving us," she said. And then she turned her back on me.

They tied my hands. I didn't fight. I knew how to wait. I remembered what Papa taught me. I waited for the man to get tired. I waited for the moment to run. But as we were walking through the dark woods toward the Alpha’s camp, something weird happened.

I felt a pull in the air. It felt like a door was opening somewhere close by. It felt like two people were running toward me. I didn't know who they were, but I felt like they were mine. Like they were coming to take me home.

"Who is there?" the man holding my rope shouted. He pulled his sword.

I felt it. They were so close. Just behind the next row of trees. If I could just scream, if I could just wait ten more seconds...

Then the air turned black. Corvus stepped out of the shadows. He didn't look like a man; he looked like a nightmare. He looked at me and his eyes got wide. He recognized me. I could see it in his hands. They started to shake, and then they turned into claws.

"Again?" he hissed. "How are you here again?"

"I don't know what you mean," I said. I tried to pull away. The feeling of rescue was right there. It was so close I could almost hear their heartbeats.

"I don't care if I have to kill you a thousand times. I will not let you grow up."

He was faster this time. In my first life, I died slowly of a broken heart. In this life, he didn't give me time to breathe. He moved... and the world snapped sideways before I even felt the impact.

As the light went out of my eyes, I felt those two people reach the edge of the clearing. I felt their scream more than I heard it. I died angry. I died because I was two seconds away from being saved.

I blink.

The memory snaps away like a broken rubber band. I am back in my kitchen. The third life. My hands are shaking.

The air in the room changes. The pressure drops, just like it did before the storm in the woods. I feel a pull in my chest.

It is the same feeling I felt in my second life right before Corvus killed me.

Two people. Two heartbeats. Not his. Never his.