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m, I sensed something in the air was definitely uncomfortable even if I had no idea what was going on. I was standing directly in the middle of something dark and hazardous happening in front of me. Mika moved closer and stared at me, his eyes narrowing. I could not turn away. It was like a storm brewing in his eyes, but unlike Luka's calm, Mika's energy was wild, uncontrolled, and totally unpredictable. Mika snarled, his words pointed and warning-laden, "Touch her again, Luka, and you'll regret it." I didn't know what to do or what to believe. The distance between the three of us was charged with something primitive I couldn't grasp. Though their presence was alluring and I was caught in the draw of their universe, I wanted to distance myself from both of them. I did not fit here. I understood that. Luka was impatient and Mika's protective attitude was dangerously erratic. But there was something else. Deeper under the surface, a force beyond their enmity. It was their gaze on me, their intuition of me. As like I belonged to something far greater than my mind could conceive. I stepped back, but my legs felt shaky, as though they weren't completely under my control. The air was thick with tension, suffocating, and I had to go before I lost myself in whatever this was. The landscape around me changed, though, as I turned to depart. My eyesight became hazy and I was suddenly no longer there in the packed room surrounded by the twins and their fight. I was in a dark, other location. I saw it plainly. The blood's flashes. The cries. My parents' expressions, their corpses folded on the frigid floor. Hoping the solitude would soothe my anxiety, I rounded a corner close to the old library. Stepping into the shadow of the huge oak trees made me freeze. One person. At first I couldn't see his face, but the presence was clear. His posture in the shadows, just outside the reach of the light, struck me as something familiar. The same unease crept through me, the same chill I always felt when the cult was close. Then I heard his voice, soft and intentional like a breath held too long. "Rachel." I didn't have to see to know who it was. Every syllable contorted my insides, so the air around me appeared to thicken. Gideon I