to my mom. She was trying to protect me. She’d been trying to teach me how vile and evil his kind would be to me if I failed to kill them before they discovered what blood ran through my veins.
“The door will be unlocked tonight. I suggest you run, and don’t stop running until you’re free, Remington,” Winchester whispered, pushing money into my pocket with the E.V.I.E. flyer. “You’re not made for war, no matter what our mother thinks you are. You’re kind, gentle, and I’m pretty damn certain you couldn’t murder a bee, even if it stung you. E.V.I.E. is in Seattle, and you will be untouchable there. Everyone is going to sleep soon, and you’re going to run.” Her hand pushed the rib back into my chest, and I shivered. She slammed her hand against my mouth to hide my screams of pain. “Shh, my sweet sister. You’re okay. Do you understand what I am saying?” she asked, and I nodded. “Good. Call me when you get to Seattle. Once you are settled and accepted into E.V.I.E., you’re going to need to call mother to let her know you’re safe, but you won’t do it right away. Now, look at me,” Winnie whispered. My eyes lifted, and her hand touched my cheek. “You won’t remember what happened tonight. You will block all the bad memories from this place, only remembering the need to run because our mother smothered you. Remington, you’re an amazing girl who has an amazing future creating weapons, but you won’t hunt beings. You know your limits, and that it would hinder others. I want you to make weapons within the protection the compound will provide you. Don’t come back home. You will not leave the base until such a time in which you’re strong enough to fight back, okay?”
“What about us?” I asked, tears slipping from my eyes.
“I’ll find you when the time is right. I’m leaving Washington tonight to return to Paris. I can’t be here when she finds out you’re gone. I love you, Remi. Live, and don’t let her turn you into the monster she wants you to become.”
The scene changed, and I turned, gazing at the child version of me on the porch who wept as a man packed his belongings into a dark-colored truck.
“Why am I experiencing some of these memories as a passenger in my own mind, and others I can watch from a distance, like a movie?” I asked, knowing Rhys was beside me.
“Some memories scar too deep, and only return as nightmares you are forced to watch play out. Others are so deeply embedded into what you have become that you will always relive them as a passenger, through your younger self’s eyes.”
“I’m seeing memories previously lost to me. The fire must have cleansed more than my body when I reset. I’ve never allowed myself to lie amongst the flames for that long.”
Rhys was quiet for a moment, before he shook his head. “You saved a Van Helsing who returned your kindness with betrayal, and yet you still stepped between Cole and me.”
“In my defense, I thought Cole was the Van Helsing and totally planned to fuck him up,” I muttered, turning as my mother entered the scene playing out before us.
Winchester rushed toward my three-year-old self, lifting me into her arms. She whisked me away from my mother to the shadows of the porch. My sister’s eyes held hatred, but who she directed it at, I couldn’t tell. The hate burning within my mother’s eyes aimed at the man loading up his car, oblivious to the child on the porch who was begging him to stay. I inhaled sharply when he turned, and I realized the man was my father.
“Why is your mother’s image blurred, and her voice distorted in your dreams?” Rhys asked, taking in the silver hair and blurring face blocked from his sight.
“It’s a defense spell, so that if someone captured us, mind readers or other beings couldn’t learn that she had survived. She did it to protect herself and us from being discovered by your family and the other alphas.”
Silver shot through the air and slammed into my father as he tried to scramble to the car door. He went down hard, screaming in pain. Winchester tried to cover my eyes, but I cried for my dad. I hated this memory. I loathed it so much, but I forced my eyes to stay focused through my tears, needing to see what