took a step toward her. “I’m sorry about your friend. But it wasn’t your fault. You don’t know how to control what’s happening to you.”
“Nothing is happening to me except my mind imagining things.” But she felt it, the energy within her. There was no denying how it kicked her heart up a notch and latched onto her anger, her sadness.
Among all these lies, that felt like the only truth she had.
Something was very wrong with her.
Without thinking, she turned and started running, ducking back into the trees. Branches whipped her face, causing a trickle of blood to drip down over her parted lips as she crashed through the woods, trying to get away from the man pursuing her.
She panted as she leaped over a fallen tree and burst past the tree line, stopping dead in her tracks at the sight before her. Rolling green hills stretched into the distance like a painting of a lonely land, untouched and wild.
Clear blue skies topped off the picturesque landscape without a cloud in sight.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Griff stopped beside her.
Her jaw clenched. “No.” Lies, illusions, were never beautiful.
She could barely make out a house in the distance surrounded by pastures where horses grazed.
“That’s home.” Griff pointed to the house. “I tried to get the portal as close as I could without scaring the horses with the energy it emitted.”
“Portal?” She shook her head. None of this made any sense. She walked back into the woods and sat down on the fallen tree she’d jumped over while trying to escape only moments before.
The events of the day played in her mind like a movie. Returning to school and facing the stares of her classmates. Myles’… death. The word sat heavy in her mind.
Then the police station and the man who took her away from there. How did it all fit together?
Griff dropped to the log beside her. “I know this is all a little much, but I promise you it’s real. I just need you to come with me.”
“I don’t even know him,” she whispered to herself. On her many stays at the institute, she’d spent hours and sometimes days with no company but herself. When she got scared or nervous, she talked to herself. At school, she worked hard to hide the habit, but now the words tumbled out. “What does he want from me?”
“I’ll explain everything in time.” He nudged her shoulder like they were old friends, like Myles would have done.
She scooted away so he couldn’t do it again. “I’m not going anywhere with you. Where’s the police officer? I want him.” Policemen were supposed to keep people safe, right?
Griff’s congeniality dropped away and he stood. “That was no human.” His eyes narrowed. “Lochlan is not to be trusted, do you understand?”
“And you are? I don’t know you. I don’t know where I am or how any of this is possible if I’m not just imagining it.”
“You don’t have a choice, Brea.”
“How do you know my name?” Back in the wintery forest, he’d said her name when he pulled her away from Lochlan.
“You’ll learn in time.”
Anger burned through her. In time? She deserved answers right away if he wanted her to trust him. Unable to control herself, she lunged from the log, springing toward him and taking him by surprise as she tackled him to the ground.
“I want to go home,” she yelled. A home she no longer had if her parents truly had signed over their parental rights. A home that no longer included Myles.
Griff struggled beneath her before finally flipping her off and rolling them over so he pinned her to the ground. “Calm. Down.”
“No.” She jerked her knees up, connecting with his crotch. His face twisted in pain, but he didn’t release her.
“Brea, stop.”
Light exploded from her just as it had before. The pressure on top of her vanished as Griff flew across the clearing.
Unlike her mother with the Christmas tree or Myles outside the school, Griff didn’t collapse to the ground. Instead, he landed in a crouch before straightening.
“Well.” He grimaced. “That’s something we will have to get a handle on. Get up, Brea.”
She refused. Her chest heaved as she stared up at him with wide eyes. “What’s happening to me? What did I do?” She buried her face in her hands.
She truly was a freak.
Griff sighed. “Cut it out with the self-pity. I want to make it home before dark.”
She lifted her face to him. “I’m not going to your home.” She had to find