Johanna wasn’t lying, and while that was good to know, I couldn’t piece together why she’d told me in the first place. I couldn’t exactly stop and ask her, though, because the evaluation kicked off as soon as I got back. Despite all the sparring we’d done in the last week, Vonlowsky wasn’t testing tactics or brawn. Instead, he wanted to see who could get out of sticky situations the fastest. With the simulator running at full power, he gave them five minutes each to find their way out of an ivory maze he’d created from the white tiles of the simulator floors. The padded room concept took on a whole new level when I stared at the tight corridors. This was going to be a claustrophobic’s worst nightmare, and Blair was already panting.

Tori and Amber volunteered to go first and were walking through the open door in seconds, effectively disabling the traps that were too slow to catch them. Tori was swaying on her feet, though, and that jump hadn’t even been a hundred meters, from one end of the maze to the other. That didn’t bode well.

Next came the Graeme twins, a brother and sister from Germany who had abilities based on changing their own density. While Sebastian could pass through the walls, Scarlett simply brute-forced the matter and made herself impenetrable. I’d never seen anything like the way she obliterated walls by stepping through them. Bombs went off right and left, hitting her, but she kept walking, completely unharmed. She was going to be one to watch in the upcoming weeks.

The clock ticked on as, one by one, every soldier stepped up to show their worth. Alexandra did better than expected, and Blair did worse, even given our training for situations like this. She panicked when one of the walls tried to close in, and ended up freezing then having to use her daggers as ice picks to climb out. Both of their times were sufficient, though, and that was all we needed. They didn’t have to be the fastest, just fast enough.

Worry itched at me when Lucas stumbled through the door in last place with a time of three and a half minutes. His ability had failed him more than anyone else, because his opponent was a machine and not capable of thinking. With only four people left, I held my tongue and kept my jaw tight to keep from growling or grinding my teeth. Aaron was next.

His dark hair was slicked back from running his hands through it too many times. The muscles of his chest were prominent, even under the damp black t-shirt. He was strong, and not a single bruise marred his skin, but dark circles ringed his black eyes. He looked like a demon, straight from the textbook. I instinctively took a step back as he passed. Alexandra wrapped her arms around his shoulders, kissing his cheek. He stared right through her, looking at me with fathomless eyes.

I grimaced, fighting the hammering of my pulse that was telling me to run. The reaction was silly, almost childish, but his eyes were too dark, too deep, too devilish... I whispered a hasty excuse to Vonlowsky and descended to the floor underneath us.

The bathroom. I’m using the bathroom, I reminded myself.

I tugged my worn leather jacket loose and dropped it on the concrete floor as I entered the bathroom. Water. I needed water to drown the fire creeping through my veins and threatening to consume my last shred of sanity. The cold hit my skin, bringing clarity with it.

Calm. You need to get a hold of yourself. There are no demons here. You’re being paranoid.

My racing heart refused to still as I splashed a handful of water onto my face.

His eyes burned like the depths of hell.

More water. Water would drown the fire. Drown the demon. My own demons screamed in rage—this was different than her, though. These demons didn’t have my face or wear my shape. Instead, they lurked in the darkest recesses of my mind, waiting for a moment of weakness. A moment when the shadows of my past turned the black of his eyes into the portals to hell.

I stumbled away from the sink, staring at the foreign creature in the mirror. Midnight hair framed a face made of bone. Her eyes held death in them. My death. The stumbling turned to shaking as my back hit the wall behind me. She stared on, zeroing in for the kill.

Please be hallucinating. Please be hallucinating.

I wanted to scream, but no sound would come. I succumbed to the fear, collapsing to the floor. Water pooled around me, flooding the bathroom, but I didn’t care.

The demons were here.

They’d come for me.

I was suspended outside time as I waited for the killing blow to come, too petrified to do more than stare blankly at the water bubbles floating around me.

“Oh my god,” a voice said.

I recognized the sound, but couldn’t find it in me to answer.

“Selena,” the voice said.

Water splashed, but fear held me in place. I’d always known I was a time bomb, ticking away until my timer ran out. For, despite the brave face I wore, the moment something triggered the demons, they came for me. Like locusts, they swarmed me, filling my head with lies until I saw what they wanted me to see.

“Selena,” the voice repeated. There was a note of desperation in it as they started saying other names. “Lucas, bring Alexandra and get down here right now.”

Footsteps followed, but I couldn’t tell whether I was really hearing them or not. I felt the shift in energy as others entered the room, but water floated by, keeping them away, for now.

“Selena,” another voice said.

I recognized this one too, but still couldn’t find my voice. The demons were coming for me. It was only a matter of time. I wouldn’t waste my last breath.

“What the hell happened?” one of them growled. They were angry.

“I don’t know. I found her like this, and she won’t respond. It’s like the lights are on but no one’s home,” the other voice whispered.

No one. The words echoed through me.

Was I no one? The floating bubbles seemed to agree with me.

“Selena, I need you to talk to me now,” the other voice said.

Green eyes filled my vision, reflecting off the bubbles. Still, I couldn’t speak. but I recognized the person in front of me. I just couldn’t place them. Streams of water shot toward me, though, separating us as the eyes darkened to black. The water would keep me safe. It would drown the fire.

The demon cursed in rage, and I drifted even further away.

“What’s going on?” a different voice said. This was familiar, like a cup of tea on a cold day or a fire on a winter night. The voice wrapped around me, filling me with warmth.

“Get out,” the demon roared.

Water would drown the demon. In a rush of power, streams of glistening liquid wrapped around me, surrounding me in a cocoon. Safe.

“She’s losing it. What the hell is going on in her head right now, Lucas?” the first voice said.

Water. I need more water. I need to build a shield of water so deep they’ll never find me.

“She’s having a panic attack. I’m going to have to break her mental shields. It’s the only way she’ll listen,” the voice said resolutely.

“No!” several of them yelled. Too many to keep track of. Too many to stave off forever.

“There isn’t any other way. I have to shut her down or she’s going to drown herself, and us with her.”

I don’t like the way he talks about me. He wants to break me. To break my shields. I need more water.

“Let me talk her down,” the warm one said. The pull of this person was strong, even inside my watery prison.

“No!” the demon yelled, but other voices soon drowned his out.

“Are you sure about this—”

“Why would she—”

“Selena,” he said warmly. He called to me like the moon to the waves. The water stilled as he tried to part my shield. This one was different. He wasn’t a demon.

I watched in fascination as the shield fell, layer by layer.

“Listen to me, Selena. I need you to come back now. It’s safe,” the voice whispered.

Safe. It was safe? The shield around me continued to disintegrate, until, finally, a hand broke through the water and wrapped around my wrist.

A door appeared in my mind. Shaking violently, it threatened to burst open on the precipice of something—something I couldn’t…didn’t want to comprehend. Pain quaked through me as the final layer of my shield wore thin.

And I looked up.

The eyes were black and bottomless.

He was the last tether that kept me here. That made me feel safe. And when that tether snapped—so did I.

Water rose and flooded into me, rushing so quickly the demon couldn’t react. He, who was the warmth, was a fraud. With eyes as black as obsidian stone, he was my undoing. My assurance that these were no hallucinations.. This wasn’t like the other times. Death was coming.

“Selena!” the voice cried out, but I wouldn’t fall for the false sense of security again.

The others were speaking. Faster now, more frightened.

If I knew anything about fear, it was that it made others desperate. It made me desperate, because I wasn’t going to let them get me. Not this time. This time, I would do what needed to be done. This time, I would drown us all, because even death would be kinder than reliving what had happened. Never again.

“You had your chance. Now it’s my turn,” the dark voice said.

Water rolled, and waves flooded the bathroom at my beck and call. Protecting me, filling my lungs as it sought to bring me a release from this world.

“No,” a fourth voice commanded. Light was blazing from the other side of my shield. Hell’s fires were coming. “There’s another way,” the voice whispered. Like a sun swelling to consume a universe, the light grew brighter. The water turned to steam, and still it grew. Layer after layer was ripped from me, but the water in my lungs was already there and burned as hot as any star. I swallowed, only to be filled once more.

“She’s drowning, Alexandra. You’ll never reach her in time,” the first voice said.

How right they are. I’ll never be taken again.

The light burned through my shields in seconds as the fire surrounded me.

And then I heard the words.

“Dormi, dea, propter manicaveris.”

Sleep, little goddess, for you must rise with the dawn.

Both power and water left me as I fell to the floor, eyes closing before I even hit the concrete.