My father just stabbed me, Pandora thought, holding back a laugh. It wasn’t funny. Definitely not. Actually, it was incredibly painful. But she couldn’t help it. She laughed as the blade sliced through her skin, cutting into her right shoulder all the way to the handle—a crazed, maniacal sort of sound.
My father just stabbed me.
He actually stabbed me.
His daughter.
With a kitchen knife.
She was having an out-of-body experience. It was the only explanation. Because she couldn’t stop giggling. Even as the ache blinded her. As her muscles cried. As her vision cleared and she saw the face of her father looking down at her, undeniable, utterly sharp, utterly blank and devoid of any human emotion.
Malcolm Scott stared at her, determined.
And Pandora could do nothing but laugh as he slid the blade free and held it aloft for another plunging blow. Because her life was one big, horrible, horrific joke, and of course this was how it would end. In the center of the house she’d always dreamed of escaping. By the hands of the man she’d only ever wished would love her. While she clutched the last remaining object of the mother who’d abandoned her. And imagined the face of the only boy she’d ever loved, who, in the end, she always believed would try to save her.
What else was there to do but laugh?
But then two sets of hands grabbed her shoulders and held her down, held her steady, and the sound died on her lips. Pandora thrashed, trying to free herself, but the fingers were strong and immovable as they dug into her skin. She reached for the shadows, but they were far away, too far to touch, as though the blue fire had burned too bright and had devoured her power within its flames. So she kicked at her father like a caged animal, rocking her back to try to break her arms free. More pairs of hands stretched forward to hold her down. Two on her arms. Two on her feet. She bucked her hips, lifting herself a foot off the table, but two more titans came to hold her down.
She was surrounded.
Trapped.
Her world was still awash in blue.
The twelve titans who had been outside were around her now, power brimming, filling her childhood dining room with a sapphire haze. Ten of them held her down. Her father stood by her waist, apart from the group, the bloody knife still in his hands. She could see now that it was a dagger, ancient and engraved with a gold hilt. And above her head, another titan stood, a weaver. He moved his hands through the blue, dispersing it, folding and wrapping the twelve hazy strands, interlacing the power. She’d never truly understood what the weavers did until that moment—she’d known they wove the tattoos into a titan’s skin, but she’d always thought it was more symbolic. She’d never understood that there was power brimming in that midnight ink, power that buzzed and burned, power that called to her.
Intoxicating.
The more the glowing blue spun, the brighter it grew, until her eyes began to hurt with the light. But she welcomed the pain. Some part of her wanted it, ached for it. And when the weaver dipped his hand to her forehead, she leaned into his touch, welcoming the power, greedily pulling it in as though it belonged to her. The back of her neck burned as he carved the power, molding it with her blood, branding her. With each singe, her chest expanded, pounding as though there were fists in her heart, trying to break an invisible barrier down.
The titans began to chant.
All twelve of them murmured unintelligible words, soft and slow. At first, the sound had no effect, but slowly the air grew tighter, thickened. The pressure intensified, bearing down on her, so it felt as if a rock sat on her chest, holding her in place. The heat at the back of her neck throbbed, sharpening to small daggers that pierced her thoughts until her vision grew spotty and unsure. Pandora cried out.
They didn’t stop.
The hum of their voices droned on, inescapable as it filled the air, pressing in, wrapping around her, holding her tight.
Pandora reached for the shadows.
They were so far away.
She yanked and tugged on the darkness, cajoling it out from hiding. But her power wouldn’t come, not in droves the way she was used to. One small tendril slipped into view, sluggish. Pandora reached out, trying to drag the shadow to her, but it wasn’t enough—not nearly enough to slip into her secret world, to slip away, to escape.
Her father stepped forward, lips barely moving.
She opened her mouth, trying to say his name, trying to plead for her life even though she knew it was useless. Her voice traveled up through her throat, fighting and crawling its way free.
“Why?”
The word came out like a croak.
Not stop. Not help. Not please.
But why.
Because she knew she was about to die. And all she wanted in her final moments was an answer, a reason, anything to make the agony just the slightest bit easier to bear.
Her father didn’t pause his chant.
Instead, he lifted the knife higher.
The blade glinted in the blue light, edges sharp.
Pandora gaped, stuck beneath a blanket of hands, held secure by the very people who’d raised her, unable to fight her way free. Her vision narrowed as time seemed to slow. The dagger paused at the peak, high above her father’s head. Its only possible path was straight through the center of her heart.
Not like this.
She’d thought it before. Too many times before. She’d lived her life at the brink of death for the past four years, always running, always risking, always gambling.
This time, the bet had failed.
But she still held on to that plea.
Not like this.
Not before she understood why.
Her father paused, eyes flicking to hers for the briefest instant. Despite his best efforts, they glistened. For a moment, Pandora caught sight of the tortured abyss churning in his dark irises. But it wasn’t enough of a reason to keep her from fighting.
Pandora yanked on the little current of shadow edging its way toward her—her power coming home. She pulled with every bit of strength she had, until she felt the darkness respond. Not a lot. But enough.
Her father’s shoulders lifted in a deep breath.
The chants rose higher, grew louder, reaching a peak.
The blade fell.
And Pandora fired.
She wasn’t sure what she was doing. Her power acted on instinct. The darkness had a mind of its own, but Pandora trusted it to save her. The little bit of shadow she’d shot barreled toward her father’s heart and sank into his chest, digging right into the very center of his core, burrowing deep and disappearing.
He convulsed.
The point of the blade struck the wood by her throat, thrown off by his sudden movement.
When Pandora looked up, her father’s eyes were black. His body shook, limbs twitching, spine jerking. He slammed his hands onto the tabletop as though trying to hold steady. His body hunched, back bending over, fingernails scratching into the wood.
The hands holding her grew slack.
The titans were distracted.
She should go. Should run. Take advantage.
But she couldn’t move. She was transfixed.
What had she done? What had the shadows done? Why hadn’t Sam warned her?
And then her father stilled.
They all held their breath. The whole world seemed to pause.
His hands relaxed first, palms sinking calmly to the tabletop. Then his shoulders rolled, pulling back in a stretch. He leaned his neck from side to side. And then he looked up.
Pandora gasped.
Those hollow brown eyes she’d spent twenty years afraid of were gone.
They were now blue. Alarmingly blue.
And familiar.
Too familiar to Pandora, who’d spent four years looking at those same supernaturally bright eyes in the mirror every morning, wishing them away.
He lunged before anyone could move, upper lip pulling back as he hissed, revealing sharp fangs. He gripped the nearest titan—the trident, Paulette, a woman who lived across the street—and dropped his mouth to her throat, teeth ripping their way through tough titan skin. Her blood dripped to the ground as she came to life, fighting. The other titans surged forward in a wave, trying to control the man who had been their leader mere seconds ago. The blue light filling the room blinked away as the circle was broken.
Pandora’s shadows rushed forward, no longer blocked, no longer distant. But she didn’t reach for the darkness. She rolled off the table, then stumbled away as she shook her head back and forth, mind grasping for feeble denial.
I turned my father into a vampire.
The shadows. Me. We changed him. I changed him.
She couldn’t think.
Her back struck a wall, but she couldn’t turn around to leave.
She was immobilized by her own horror, trapped by it as she watched her father throw Javier across the room, watched him dig those sharp vampiric claws into another titan’s throat, watched him lick his lips clean, watched the red stain his cheeks.
He was wild.
Uncontrolled.
An animal.
A monster.
And she’d made him that way.
How? Why? I didn’t mean it. I didn’t—
One of the titans broke free of the fray, eyes frantically searching the room before landing on her and flashing with relief. That was enough to break Pandora from her trance.
Instantly, she dove forward and grabbed her mother’s brush in one hand and the dagger in the other. Then she called on the shadows, and they came, swirling around her in an ebony tornado, carrying her away. But she didn’t go far. She was too afraid to sink deep into the dark, afraid of her power for the first time in her life. Instead, she jumped to the backyard and released the smoke, keeping only the thinnest veil around her—enough to keep her invisible, but not much else.
And then she ran.
Pumping her legs, digging her feet into the dirt.
Part of her reveled in the heat filling her veins as her body flared alive with the movement. But another part of her was sinking farther and farther away from the light, traveling to a desolate place she’d never been before. Her body shivered, trembled, hands growing numb as her chest burned. The back of her neck stung. Pandora reached behind as she raced ahead. She ran her fingers over the sensitive skin just below her hair, wincing. It was raised. She traced the straight and curved lines, trying to discern the pattern. But her mind was too overwhelmed to focus.
In ten minutes, she was back at the meeting spot.
“Naya!” she shrieked.
The jaguar emerged from the trees, a squirming rabbit trapped between her jaws.
“There’s no time.”
Pandora threw the dagger at Naya’s feet, mouth gaping open in a silent cry as her shoulder screamed in agony. The moment the blade stuck into the dirt, she remembered it had once punctured her skin. The adrenaline was wearing off, and the pain was sinking in. She dropped her mother’s brush, letting it fall free of the shadows as she raised her hand to clutch the wound beneath her collarbone. It still bled, red and raw and angry.
Naya didn’t waste time.
She rose on her hind legs, transforming back into a girl as she clutched the wriggling, frightened rabbit in her hands. Gripping the dagger, she sliced the poor animal’s throat. Blood gushed, sticking to the fur and dripping over her hands before dropping to the ground. Pandora winced, looking away in shame as the life slowly drained from the innocent creature’s body.
Naya moved her lips silently.
Her eyes rolled back, white.
Her arms jerked, tossing bloody droplets in a ring around her body.
She knelt and dug bloody fingers into the ground, drawing patterns in the dirt. First a circle around her mother’s brush. Then zigzags and shapes and swirls in a motif Pandora didn’t understand. But as the necromancer’s voice rose, a light seeped through the soil, color the same silver ivory her eyes had become. Dull at first, but growing brighter, extending farther and farther up toward the darkening moonless sky like an opaque wall—a beacon to every titan chasing after them.
She’d only have minutes with her mother.
And even that much time would be a gift.
Naya came to a stop next to Pandora, eyes glowing just as much as the magic she called upon. “She’s here. She’s waiting.”
Pandora swallowed, fear a new knife slashing through her. Needing answers and facing them were two different stories. And with her father’s image acute, Pandora was no longer sure she was ready for the truth. Maybe death was easier. Maybe the titans had been doing her a kindness. But she’d come too far to chicken out now.
Do I always have to do everything the hard way? she chastised, using her humor as a shield, wrapping it tightly, before turning to Naya. “You should go. They’ll be here soon.”
“I need to stay for the spell to work,” the necromancer murmured, turning her head slightly as though searching for footsteps in the distance. “I’ll hold on for as long as I can, like I promised I would. Now go.”
Naya shoved Pandora.
She stumbled forward, crashing into the magic, and fell to her knees in the center of the circle. At first, she was blinded by the light, surrounded in white, unable to see anything else. But slowly, a face formed within the ivory glow. Wide eyes. Sharp cheekbones. Sleek hair. So similar, yet so different. The face of her mother.
“Oh, Pandora,” she whispered, voice soft yet so incredibly heavy. “My strong, stubborn little girl. What have you done?”