A wave of emotion hit me, so strong it was like a physical blow. I fought to free myself, but the undertow sucked me into a roiling whirlpool, then spit me out into a nursery. A giant’s nursery, with soaring walls, stuffed bears the size of grizzlies, and a rocking chair so high I could barely have climbed into it. Across the room, a huge woman stood beside a crib.

“Momma!”

The shrill plea screeched from my throat. It wasn’t my voice, but that of a child, a preschooler’s, still at the age where it’s difficult to tell boy from girl.

“Momma!”

“Shhh,” the woman said softly, smiling over her shoulder at me. “Let me feed the baby. Then I’ll read to you.”

“No! Read now!”

She waved me off and leaned over the crib.

“No, Momma! Me. Me, me, me!”

The baby screamed. I screamed louder, but he drowned me out. I gnashed my teeth and howled, stamped my feet and roared. Still she heard only him. Saw only him. Always him. Hated him. Hated, hated, hated! Wanted to pick him up and smash him, smash him like a doll, smash him until he broke and—

The nursery vanished.

A cat yowled, the sound piercing to the core of my brain. I laughed. A boy’s laugh now, nearing puberty. Buildings loomed on either side, pitching day into night. An alley. I stalked along it, chuckling to myself. The cat yowled again, a shriek of terror, like a baby’s…like a woman’s. The cat had reached the end of the alley and was trying to climb the wall, claws scrabbling against the brick. The stink of charred fur filled the narrow alley. The cat’s tail was burned to the bone, but it no longer seemed to feel the pain, no longer cared, only wanted to escape, to survive. It screamed again. I closed my eyes, and absorbed the scream. My groin tingled. A new sensation, strange but not unpleasant. Definitely not unpleasant.

I looked at the cat. Then I flicked open the switchblade. The cat continued to screech, darting back and forth along the bottom of the wall. It saw the knife, but it didn’t react, didn’t know what the knife meant. As I took a slow step toward the cat, I thought how much better it would be if it understood what was coming.

“No!”

The part that was still me tried to block the vision. For a split second, the scene did go black. But then a fresh wave of hate hit me. Hate and rage and jealousy intertwined, inseparable, one feeding the other, growing like a snowball rocketing down a hill.

“Bitch! Whore!”