3

I should have apologized. I should have lowered my head. I should have done anything except what I did next.

But then someone behind him muttered, “No wonder. Witches are dirty bitches.”

My mother’s face came into my mind so clearly that it hurt more than my broken hand. Her fingers combing my hair. Her voice telling me not to show my eyes. Her arms holding me on nights when thunder made me cry. They had taken everything from her, then spent years trying to make me repeat their lies.

I moved before fear could stop me.

I lunged at Alex.

It was a stupid thing to do. I knew that even as I did it. He was taller, stronger, and surrounded by wolves who would never take my side. But I threw myself at him anyway, hitting his chest with my left shoulder and shoving him back one step.

“My parents were not traitors!” I shouted.

Alex grabbed me by the arm, but I twisted hard, ignoring the pain, and swung my left hand at his face. My palm struck his cheek with a sharp sound that seemed to crack through the whole kitchen.

Slap!

His head barely turned.

Mine did.

For the first time that morning, he was not laughing.

“You little...” He raised his hand, but I did not wait for the blow. 

I pushed forward again, clawing at his shirt, trying to reach his face, his eyes, anything. I was not thinking anymore. I only knew that I was tired of hearing them spit on my parents while I stood there.

Someone grabbed my hair from behind. Another pair of hands caught my waist. Alex shoved me hard, and my back hit the table, sending cups and plates rattling.

“Say it!” he shouted, his face twisted with fury now. “Say your parents were traitors!”

“No!” I screamed back, even as two girls tried to pull me down. “They were not traitors!”

Victoria appeared at the edge of the crowd, her pretty face tight with disbelief, as if the idea of me fighting back offended her more than anything I had said.

“Hold her,” she snapped.

They forced me down onto my knees. Alex kicked me in the stomach, and the air burst out of my lungs. I bent forward, gagging, though there was nothing in my stomach to vomit. Someone grabbed my neck and pulled me upright again.

“Look at her,” Alex spat. “A witch’s child pretending she has pride.”

I tasted blood in my mouth, but I smiled.

It probably looked awful. Maybe mad. 

“At least I have something to be proud of,” I said, breathing hard. “What do you have, besides Victoria’s shadow?”

The kitchen froze.

Alex’s face darkened so fast that I knew he was really going to hurt me this time. Victoria’s eyes flashed, and she stepped forward as if she wanted to punish me with her own hands.

“You filthy thing,” she hissed, raising her hand.

“That is enough!” Luna’s voice cut through the kitchen before Victoria could touch me.

Everyone stopped at once. Victoria lowered her hand immediately, and the others stepped away from me as if they had not been laughing a moment ago. 

Luna stood at the doorway in her breakfast dress, her face calm and cold. Her eyes swept over Alex’s red cheek, the mess on the floor, and then me, kneeling there with blood in my mouth and my hands still curled into fists.

The children’s “game” had disturbed her meal. That was the only reason she had come.

“Leave,” Luna said.

No one dared argue. The crowd dispersed quickly, and I forced myself to stand. My legs shook, but I still bowed to her before leaving the kitchen. Luna did not look at me again. To her, I was not a wounded girl. I was just the dirty thing that had made too much noise before breakfast.

The basement felt almost peaceful after that. It was damp, dark, and cold, but at least no one was waiting there to spit on my parents’ names. I wrapped my broken hand with twigs and rags, then crushed the herbs I kept hidden under the floorboards and pressed them against the swelling, just as my mother had taught me when I was little. 

No doctor would ever treat the daughter of traitors, so her lessons had kept me alive more times than I could count.

When the pain dulled enough for me to breathe, I reached beneath the loose tile near my bed and pulled out the only thing I had left from my old life.

It was a small silver brooch, shaped like a compass.

The metal had gone dark at the edges, and the glass over the needle was scratched, but I still held it as carefully as if it were made of moonlight. My mother had pinned it inside my dress on the night everything changed. I had been six years old, too young to understand why her hands were shaking or why my father kept looking at the door.

“Keep this hidden,” she had whispered, closing my fingers around it. “When you are old enough, follow where it points. No matter what they tell you about us, remember this. We loved you. ”

She never had time to explain more.

After they were executed, the compass became the only proof that my parents had not simply left me behind in this nightmare. On the worst nights, when hunger twisted my stomach and Victoria’s voice still rang in my ears, I would hold it against my chest and pretend I could feel my mother’s hand there too.

The needle had never pointed north.

That was the strange part. No matter how many times I turned it, no matter where I hid it in the basement, it always leaned toward the same direction, beyond the border of Black Moon, toward the forest no one entered unless they wanted to disappear.

My eyes moved to the calendar on the wall.

Three months.

Only three months until I turned eighteen.

I touched the bright circles I had drawn around the remaining days, one by one, then closed my fist around the silver compass until its edges bit into my palm. 

My parents had left me a direction, and when the last circle on that calendar was crossed out, I would follow it.

**

When I woke up, it was already noon.

For a moment, I only lay there, staring at the damp ceiling of the basement while my body reminded me of every place they had touched me. My face still hurt, my ribs burned when I breathed too deeply, and my right hand pulsed under the ugly splint I had made for myself. 

School was impossible that day. If I went, I would only have to deal with books thrown down the stairs, chairs pulled away before I sat, or another afternoon trapped inside a locker.

My clothes were not any better than my body. They were still stained with dust, grease, and dried blood from the kitchen, and if someone saw me wearing them again, it would become another excuse to punish me. So I gathered them into a basin, pulled my worn-out pajamas tighter around myself, and slipped out toward the river.

The path was quiet at that hour. Cold grass brushed my bare ankles, and the wind kept tugging at my hair, forcing me to lower my head so it would continue hiding my face. By the time I reached the river, my breath had become thin from the walk, but at least there was no one around. I knelt near the water and began scrubbing the clothes with my left hand, while my broken right hand rested uselessly against my lap. 

The work was slow and clumsy, but the sound of the river softened the silence around me, and for a few minutes, I almost felt as if the world had forgotten to hurt me.

Then footsteps crushed that fragile peace.

I looked up and froze.

Dominic stood a few steps away, watching me with that familiar look that always made my stomach tighten. His gaze traveled from my tangled hair to the old pajamas hanging from my thin body, then stopped on the basin beside my knees.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.