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The curtains fluttered wildly, exploding toward me.

I screamed. My body jerked backwards so violently I stumbled sideways, my bad hip connected with the corner of the beside drawer. Agony tore through me. White fabric whipped through the room.

Snapping.

Twisting.

Dancing wildly in the wind pouring through the open window.

My chest refused to work.

Not curtains.

Not again.

For one heart beat… I wasn’t standing in Blackthorn.

I was back in the nightmare.

In that place he tried to break me.

Hinges groaned from the bedroom door as it swayed.

Darkness crowded in.

No.

NO.

I shook my head, tearing myself away from the terror and reached down. The bedside drawer waited. I forced myself to focus, opening the drawer and searched for my knife.

But it wasn’t there.

A sound escaped before I moved, stepping in front of it and bent down. It was just here… I know it was.

But the knife was gone.

Someone had taken it.

Someone had stood exactly where I was standing now.

My pulse hammered.

Get to the gun.

I was moving before the thought had finished. The ribbon twisted around my fingers. The Phantom clutched beneath my arm. I couldn’t leave either of them behind. Pain exploded as I spun. I swallowed it down and burst from the bedroom.

Every shadow became a threat.

Every doorway another place someone could be waiting.

Don’t stop.

Keep moving.

My feet carried me toward Alaric’s room. The hallway seemed impossibly long. Every floorboard groaned beneath me. Every breath sounded too loud.

I slammed through his bedroom door.