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Chapters (42)
  1. TITLE PAGE
  2. COPYRIGHT PAGE
  3. DEDICATION PAGE
  4. CONTENTS
  5. ONE
  6. TWO
  7. THREE
  8. FOUR
  9. FIVE
  10. SIX
  11. SEVEN
  12. EIGHT
  13. NINE
  14. TEN
  15. ELEVEN
  16. TWELVE
  17. THIRTEEN
  18. FOURTEEN
  19. FIFTEEN
  20. SIXTEEN
  21. SEVENTEEN
  22. EIGHTEEN
  23. NINETEEN
  24. TWENTY
  25. TWENTY-ONE
  26. TWENTY-TWO
  27. TWENTY-THREE
  28. TWENTY-FOUR
  29. TWENTY-FIVE
  30. TWENTY-SIX
  31. TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. TWENTY-EIGHT
  33. TWENTY-NINE
  34. THIRTY
  35. THIRTY-ONE
  36. THIRTY-TWO
  37. THIRTY-THREE
  38. THIRTY-FOUR
  39. THIRTY-FIVE
  40. THIRTY-SIX
  41. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  42. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

“Come on, Jen, you’re killing me. What’s going on?”

Finally, she met my eyes. “Your mother came to my office today. She’s filed a request to see you.”

EIGHTEEN

EIGHTEEN

THE MAZIKIN WANTED TO talk. And they were going to use the body of my mother as their mouthpiece. That well of pain at the core of me turned cold, a column of ice along my spine.

Jen squinted at me. “Are you all right?”

Ketzler dove for the tissues and waved them beneath my chin. I looked up at her with dry eyes, and she cradled the box against her chest like she was personally offended by my rejection of them. Or convinced I was an emotionless psychopath. Diane’s warm hand closed around mine, which was chilled to the bone.

“Yeah,” I heard myself saying. “I should see her.”

Jen’s mouth dropped open. “Lela, just so you know, you don’t have to. You have every right to refuse. Rita Santos’s parental rights were terminated years ago, but we were legally obligated to let you know she’d made the request.”

And the Mazikin would have known that, because by taking over her body they had gained access to all my mother’s memories. They probably wouldn’t have cared about her past—until she recognized me last night. Until Rita Santos’s memories betrayed her own lost daughter. Now they knew they had something important, and they were going to try to use her against me.

I wouldn’t allow that to happen. I smiled at Jen. “I know, and I’m glad you told me. I want to see her.”

Diane squeezed my hand, but her eyes were locked on Jen’s. “Was Rita … all right?” She knew that my mom had been diagnosed long ago with schizophrenia.

I held myself back from replying. No, Rita Santos definitely wasn’t all right. She was trapped in the Mazikin realm—a place of fire and death—and I couldn’t get to her. I couldn’t do anything for her except try to liberate her soul by cutting the throat of the Mazikin occupying her body. Probably I shouldn’t do that during our first visit, though.

Jen grimaced. “Well, you know she has profound mental health issues, and that doesn’t seem to have changed. Lela, I don’t know if you remember her—”

I didn’t want to talk about this. It was irrelevant anyway, because the person who wanted to visit me wasn’t my mother. My mother, when she was alive, had never asked to visit me, as far as I knew. She’d never come for me. She hadn’t shown up to any of the planned visits. And finally, she’d just disappeared. Into oblivion.

“I remember enough,” I said. “And I’d like to plan the visit with her.”