Bryce towers over Mara as blood flows in a steady stream down her side.

Groaning, Justin rolls off the broken vanity and stares in horror at Mara. Yelling in rage, he tackles his father, sending him back several steps.

Ezra, coming to her senses, shakes her head to clear her thoughts. Seeing the boy trying his hardest to fend off his own father, she stands up quickly. The room spins as she hurries to Mara’s side.

“Get out of here!” Justin says over his shoulder, landing a kick between Bryce’s legs. “Sorry,” he mumbles as his father hunches over in temporary pain.

Ezra drapes Mara’s arm over her shoulder and hoists the girl to her feet. She grabs the now-dented jewelry box and heads to the door.

“No,” Mara gasps, straining to look over her shoulder as Ezra drags the girl out of the room. “Mom, we need to help – ”

“There’s nothing we can do!” Ezra cries. Mara glances at her mother, seeing a tear slip down her mother’s cheek. “We need to leave, now.”

Mara bites her lip, reminded of what had happened to her father. Again, she is useless; she can’t help her friend in the state she is in. She follows after her mother, gasping as her side throbs painfully.

“My-my bag has a first aid kit,” Mara says as they pass by the bar. Blood still pours freely from the wound, coating her hip and leg.

Ezra quickly snatches the gym bag and tosses it over her shoulder. Mara grabs the sketchbook off the counter, clutching it to her chest as if it will save her. I wish Dad was here, she thinks, desperate. In her condition, she knows she cannot protect her mother.

Heavy footsteps emerge from the hallway. Glancing back, Mara watches Bryce approach them, his gun raised. Her eyes widen in horror. “Justin – ”

Ezra yanks Mara out the front door, dragging the girl behind one of the vehicles. They collapse against the side of the SUV. Feeling as if there is still something in the wound, Mara gasps for air as she tries to settle her nerves and evaluate the situation.

Her eyes sting as the events of what had just happened replay in her head. What happened to Justin? She closes her eyes and covers her mouth with the back of her hand, holding down the bile threatening to come up from the shifting object in her stomach. More importantly, why is Bryce trying to kill us?

Ezra flips open the lid of the decent-sized jewelry box with nearly enough force to break the hinges. The box is crammed with items; a strange metal contraption looking vaguely like a small pistol and a blue flower with yellow-green leaves in a vial stand out the most. Five oval sandstones just a little bigger than her thumb rest beneath the odd contraption and vial, each painted with different colors and patterns. Shokain’s sunstone ring glints forlornly in the corner as if it had been abandoned and forgotten in the clutter. No wonder the steel jewelry box had been heavy.

The screened door of the house creaks open. I meant to oil that today, Mara thinks to herself, her mind going numb. Bryce-but-not-Bryce calls out in the foreign language, but all she recognizes is “Danarko.”

Ezra’s head snaps up, her breath stopping as she listens to the man’s words. Biting her lip, she takes out the metal contraption and shoves the box at Mara.

“Snap one of the stones in half,” she whispers at Mara, holding the palm-sized contraption. Mara has the crazy idea it is a laser gun; it definitely has enough cooling elements to keep it from overheating. “Any of them will do.” She rushes out from behind the vehicle.

Mara tries to go after her mother, but a painful jab in her side takes away her breath as something slices her from inside. She nearly throws up from the sensation, wanting to claw the bullet out of her.

A strange zzst sound is closely followed by the bang from Bryce’s gun.

Mara covers her ears, trying to block out the sounds. She’s going to die, she thinks, tears pouring down her face. Her side throbs sharply as she tries to limit her movements, unable to stand the feeling of the bullet shifting under her skin. She’s going to die, just like Daddy did.

Opening her eyes, she stares into the box at the sand-colored stones. One of them has purple and blue swirls painted on it, reminding her of her father’s friend who used to tell stories to her and Codi. After her father’s funeral, she had said some terrible things to him out of frustration and grief, yelling at him to never come back. He hadn’t.

Fingers shaking violently, she reaches forward and picks up the sandstone. She uses the rest of her strength to snap it in half.

A high-pitched whining sound pierces the air. She drops the two halves and slaps her hands over her ears, but it doesn’t help.

In front of her, the air warps, forming a slit and then expanding into an oval big enough for her to step through. The air within shifts, looking like a hazy picture of a clock tower. A man with lavender hair, purple eyes, and pointed ears steps through, his features looking too perfect and eerily beautiful. He wears a blue tunic and beige cloth pants with a belt fastened around his waist, still looking the same age as when Mara had been a little girl – about twenty years old.

Mara’s vision blurs as she stares at the man. “Star,” she chokes out Aeserast’s nickname, the memory of the blue-eyed, purple-haired man’s devastated face flashing through her mind. He looks different now, but she definitely recognizes him. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”

“It’s all right,” he consoles her, quickly kneeling beside her to take her hand. His breath hitches at the sight of Mara’s wound as his eyes widen in horror. “Who-who did this?”

“Bryce.” Mara tilts her head to the side of the vehicle. “Mom… Mom’s fighting him.”

Aeserast’s eyes sharpen and his jaw tenses. The muscles around his eyes twitch into a deadly look. It is the scariest expression she has ever seen on anyone; for a split second, Mara wonders if she really does know this man.

“Stay here,” he commands. Even his voice is cold. Sticking his hand through the warped air he had appeared through, he withdraws a giant crescent-shaped blade nearly the same height as himself. He stalks around the corner just as the oval shrinks and disappears.

Stunned, Mara stares straight ahead, unsure how to take what is happening. Bryce is acting like some trained assassin, Mom has a zapping gun, and Aeserast just appeared out of nowhere looking as if he had been at a convention and hasn’t aged a day. Mara stares at the jewelry box in a daze. What is going on?

As soon as she finishes that thought, Ezra skids around the corner and collapses next to Mara, fumbling with the vial containing the flower.

“Mom,” Mara says in an oddly calm voice. Ezra freezes, staring at her daughter in horror. Mara’s head spins from the blood loss. “What… just happened?”

Ezra swallows hard, refocusing her attempts to take off the lid of the vial. Aeserast, striding around the car empty-handed, calmly takes the vial from her and pops it open with one finger. He gazes at Mara, concern and worry warring on his face with barely contained fear.

Ezra pulls out two blue petals and holds them near Mara’s lips. “Eat this,” she orders, her voice trembling.

Mara continues to stare at her mother, clenching her jaw. I want answers, she demands with her eyes.

Ezra grits her teeth in frustration. “Mara, you’ll bleed out if you don’t eat this right now.”

Mara slowly parts her lips. Ezra crams the flower into Mara’s mouth, not giving the girl time to change her mind. Startled, Mara snaps her teeth shut around the petals.

They dissolve in her mouth, reminding her of some nasty medicinal tablets she had to take once. Ezra sighs in relief. “Aeserast, there should be a boy in the back room. Can you – ”

“Of course.” He jogs around the vehicle. Not even a second later, Mara hears the screen door screeching open.

That was fast, she thinks drowsily as her breathing deepens. She frowns. “Did you… drug me?”

“You’re bleeding too much,” Ezra dodges the question, lifting the hem of Mara’s stained dojo uniform and staring at the bullet entrance. She prods Mara’s back and frowns. “The bullet is still inside.”

“Could have told you that…” Mara mumbles, her eyes sliding shut. “It feels like it’s cutting me…”

Ezra’s breath hisses in. Her mother’s warm hands press against her wound, and Mara groans as the bullet shifts.

“The boy is fine, merely unconscious. Is Mara all right?” Aeserast asks. He leans over Ezra’s shoulder, examining the bullet wound.

Mara opens her eyes, wondering how he had gotten back so fast. Maybe the drug is warping my sense of time… 

“Th-the bullet. I think it had neivir shards within it, and they broke free when Mara was shot.” Ezra bites her lip again, snapping the lid of the jewelry box closed and stuffing it and the sketchbook into Mara’s gym bag. “Aeserast, I can’t do this here. I need to go home.”

Aeserast nods as Mara’s eyes slide closed again. He says something to Ezra, but Mara is having a hard time following their conversation. She feels as if she needs to pay attention, but the petals had done something to her.

Mara’s eyes fly open when Aeserast picks her up, her left side jarring sharply. She moans, her face twisting in agony. “I apologize, Mara,” he whispers. “This will probably hurt.”

Mara’s breathing hitches in alarm as he walks toward a warped oval of air. Her mother is nowhere in sight. “Ah… No…” she says weakly as her head thumps against Aeserast’s shoulder. She squeezes her eyes shut, not wanting to go through whatever that thing is but not having the strength to push away from Aeserast.

Mara has the odd sensation of cool water passing through her entire being. It rips something out of her, something that had been keeping it repressed. A blinding silver light flashes through the darkness of Mara’s mind.

She screams.

A strange warmth spreads through her body as something floods all of her senses. For a split second, she can feel, taste, hear, smell, and see her surroundings through a surreal view from above Aeserast and Ezra; a colorful, thick fog swirls around them, reacting to the storm of silver lightning bolts and black tendrils wrapping around Mara’s body.

Overwhelmed, Mara blacks out.

The autumn-colored leaves sway in a small breeze as eleven-year-old Mara picks wildflowers in the field behind her parents’ house. She hums her father’s favorite lullaby, smiling. “Mama will like these,” she murmurs to herself, plucking a daffodil from its stem.

Three strangely-dressed men emerge from the edge of the woods, holding shotguns and adjusting their orange hunting vests uncomfortably. They murmur to one another in a foreign language. One of them sees Mara and hushes the others.

“Who are you?” the man asks, frowning as he takes in the little girl’s blue T-shirt and jeans, hazelnut hair, sun-kissed skin, and burnt gold eyes. “Where are your parents?”

Mara backs up, clenching the flowers in her hand. She glances between the three men, wary. “This is our property,” she says firmly, keeping the tremble out of her voice the best she can. “Please leave before I call the cops.”

She reaches into her pocket to pull out her cell phone. The man who had spoken quickly holds up his hands, laughing nervously. “We’re just a little lost. No need to – ”

An arm wraps around her middle and yanks her back. She squeaks, alarmed, as her father, Shokain, drags her up the slope. He narrows his dark gold eyes, his long hazelnut hair pulled back into a ponytail.

“Hey, you! Stop!” the man calls out. He says something in a foreign language.

Bang.

Shokain jerks, falling to one knee. “Run, Mara,” he rasps, pushing her away from him. Blood blossoms from his shoulder, forming a red bud right above his heart.

“No!” Mara screams, holding her hands over where he had been shot clean through his shoulder. She tries to heal him like the people in all his stories had done, but nothing happens. “Daddy!”

He strokes her face. “I love you, Mara,” he whispers. He coughs, and blood trickles out of his mouth. “Don’t allow this to consume your life. Remember what I taught you.”

He pulls Mara against his chest in a tight hug, blocking her vision as he takes off his sunstone ring and presses it into her palm. He speaks in the same foreign language as the men, and their screams echo through Mara’s head before they suddenly… stop. When Shokain releases her and she looks around, they are nowhere to be seen.

“Daddy, let’s go home,” Mara begs. Shokain collapses onto his back, still coughing up blood. His eyes dim. “Daddy? Daddy!”

“Don’t… cry, Mara…” he murmurs, his fingers briefly tightening around hers. “Don’t… forget…”

He trails off. Mara holds her breath, waiting for him to finish, but he doesn’t. “Don’t forget what?” she asks, tears streaming down her face. “Don’t just say something…” Her voice catches as she chokes on a sob. “And not finish it. It’s… not nice…”

She rests her head against his chest, inhaling the sharp coppery twang. She doesn’t hear his heartbeat. “Daddy… Come back…” Her tears mingle with the blood.