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She blinked until her eyes were clear enough to see Rose’s face, her fine features fraught with worry.
“What’s wrong?” Rose asked in a tone that made clear it wasn’t the first time.
How long her daughter had crouched in front of her, trying to talk to her, Hazel didn’t know.
“Hazel,” Rose said, squeezing her hand. “Mom.”
At that, Hazel sucked in a breath, her eyes lifting to meet Rose’s gaze. Mom. It was the first time she’d called her that.
Fresh tears sprang up, spilled over, a hot sob following on their heels. She was so raw, so sliced open from the fight, that hearing her estranged daughter finally calling her “Mom” only opened the floodgates further, her body incapable of keeping any emotion in check now that her defenses were trashed.
“What is going on?” Rose asked, her voice pained.
Hazel shook her head, pressing her mouth into a tight line. She couldn’t say it. It was too big, too deep, the edges so sharp she’d cut herself trying to put it into words.
Rose’s gaze flicked to the door behind her, then back to Hazel. “You and Tallak,” she said quietly, “you had a battle?”
“Fight,” Hazel whispered. “It’s called a fight.”
“With words, yes? Like when a couple doesn’t agree on something? They fight?”
Hazel’s breath hitched. “We’re not a couple.”
Rose regarded her silently for a few heartbeats. “But you were.”
It wasn’t phrased as a question.
Hazel met that gaze of indigo depths. “You knew.”
“Love always shows.”
Such a simple, simple statement. If only reality were just as simple.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Hazel said, her voice hoarse. “Not anymore.”
Because no matter how much she’d wanted to say yes to Tallak’s proposal, how much she’d yearned to shatter those restraints of hers that stood in the way of her happiness, no matter if she would have eventually succeeded at breaking through what held her back…the hurt his words had caused was too raw, the wound he’d inflicted too deep.
All the layers of herself that had unraveled for him, letting him touch her innermost core, they all curled tightly into themselves now, to better hide and protect.
The house phone rang, startling both of them.
“It’s okay,” Hazel said, pulling herself together by sheer desperate force of will. “I’ll get it.”
Heaving herself up off the floor, she shuffled over to the phone station on the countertop next to the fridge and picked up.
“Hello?”
Patricia’s frantic voice came over the line. “Hazel! Oh my gods. We’re under attack. Everywhere. I’ve been calling—we need more witches out here!”
Hazel’s heart stumbled. “What? Calm down. What’s going on? Where are you?”
“I’m at Laurelhurst Park. There are dozens of demons here. They’re running wild. Completely out in the open. Lenora and Tina are with me, but we’re barely able to keep them in check. But, Hazel—there are more in the city. All over. I’ve been getting calls for help. Other patrol teams, in Irvington, the Pearl District, South Waterfront. There are riots everywhere.”
The sounds of yelling and a roar came over the line.
Breath heavy, Patricia went on, “I’ve been calling everybody. We’ve been pulling all of us out here on the street, all the families, every witch of power. But—”
More sounds of fighting, a scream.
