I know it feels weird, but we have to get used to it. I shook and reached for Cole, but this time he grabbed my wrists, gently and firmly. This time, he rubbed the affected skin as we went, and I had a brief memory flash of a woman ripping a Band-Aid off my knee, and then rubbing it to ease the pain.īut when I tried to focus on the image, it slipped away and I was in the dark again. I nodded, and he held me for a few long minutes before we tried to separate again. I groaned in pain and pulled him tight against me again. It was as if we had been sewn together, and I was ripping us apart. But where I tried to separate my legs from his, the skin stung. I worked up to my knees, my legs, my elbows, making small movements against Cole’s body. I could feel his fingertips pressing into my back, restarting the circulation.

I started with small movements, flexing my fingers and my toes, shocking my hibernating muscles awake. Cole’s head was next to mine, his chin resting on my shoulder, his blond hair touching my cheek. The Shades, with their black, fluid forms, had cocooned us so tight for so long. I shook my head, surprised that I could move my head at all. I tried to remember putting it on but came up with nothing.

I looked at my arm, from my shoulder down to the elbow, and a little lower, to where it disappeared behind Cole’s back. It was still dark all around us, but as I worked on my eyes, the black forms that had bound me to Cole began to peel away, as if an oil slick were lifting from my skin. After a hundred years they had forgotten how to produce tears. When I did, they stung, like a fresh wound exposed to cool air. The muscles around them had forgotten how to relax, so it was some time before I could pry them open. I’d been squeezing them shut for I don’t know how long. I wanted to answer, but my mouth wasn’t working. I knew only that the pain inside me-the feeling that I was being drained from the inside out-had subsided, and now everything was numb. I didn’t know where I was or why it was so dark. I was picturing his face-a boy with floppy brown hair and brown eyes-when the Feed ended.Īt first I didn’t know what had happened.

Cuore di strega by Fanny Goldrose