Chapter 58

OPHELIA “I t’s too much,” I whimper. Children scream, torn from their mothers’ arms. Fire and blood. So much blood. Her agony. His despair. A betrayal so deep and unnatural that it alters the fabric of a person’s very being. Pain engulfs me, centuries of agony that he’s kept buried deep in his heart. And I feel it all at once, the soul-eviscerating anguish that he carries with him every single second of every day. Tears stream down my cheeks. My heart feels like it’s being crushed in a vise. “It’s too much,” I say again. You wanted to know the truth, Ophelia. This is it. His voice is as clear in my head as my own, and it’s not unnerving at all. Not like when I first heard the boys. It’s as though he belongs there. Like he’s always been there and he always will be. It hurts. A whimper is ripped from my throat. I know. As quickly as he let me in, he shuts me out again. At least he tries to lock down that part of his brain, but I’m already inside. The pain is overpowering. My lifeblood fl