Chapter 27 · The Woman Who Woke Up

Rona's blood hit the seal, and her mother opened her eyes.

Dax still had one hand clamped around Rona's wrist. His knife hovered over her palm, bright and wet. The cut wasn't deep, but it burned like he'd poured salt into it.

"Get off her," Ghost rasped.

Dax looked down at the woman on the floor. His face went tight.

"She's awake."

"I noticed."

Ghost's eyes found Rona's. Gray. Sharp. Older than the face in Rona's memories, but still the same eyes. The same eyes that had watched Rona steal sugar from the kitchen when she was six. The same eyes that had laughed when Rona put a dead beetle in Grimm's boot.

Her mother.

Alive.

Rona couldn't make her lungs work.

Dax yanked her backward. "We are leaving. Now."

Ghost's fingers twitched against the stone floor. "No."

That one word had almost no strength behind it.

It still stopped Rona cold.

"Mom?" The word came out broken. Small. Stupid. "You know me?"

Ghost stared at her like the question hurt worse than the wound in her chest.

"I know you," she whispered. "I know exactly who you are."

Dax pulled harder.