She began to visit me nightly, Lilith, that is.

At first she didn't speak. Rather she existed on the periphery of my dreams, watching from the shadows. Then, she grew bolder, hovering behind me as I moved about my dreamland. Until one night when she spoke to me again.

"Have you ever heard of the 'Illusion of Choice' ?"

I stood on the edge of a cliff. Fields stretched on below like rolling waves of green. A thick fog blanketed the field, concealing any significant landmarks that might indicate where we were. The sun had since retired and her children, a thousand twinkling emerged in her place.

"No." I managed a short, strangled noise in response.

I convinced myself that this was a simple delusion. Fueled by the haunting words of a fevered witch or perhaps by my own childhood fear of the Matron Other, I had somehow morphed into a hallucination. With that said, I still dreaded these nightmares as if they were real.

"It's a beautiful concept really," She began. It was alarming, I thought, to hear her speak. Her voice was soft, almost airy, like the voice of an angel.

"Essentially- we all have one chosen path for our lives and any choice made along the path only affirms our predestined fate."

She stood behind me with her manicured hand placed on my shoulder. In my dreamworld, she dressed like a New York socialite rather than the distressed war general I had seen from news clippings. She had disappeared off the face of Earth nearly three decades ago, far before the creation of the Otherworld and yet in my dream she looked as if she still managed an online subscription to Barneys.

"You may think you are free to decide. But destiny is inevitable."

"What does that mean?" Goosebumps formed on the back of my neck as she lifted her hand from my shoulder and began to lightly trace my earlobe. Her hands were cold, clammy and unwanted.

"It means you will not escape Garrenbuck. You may try but you will ultimately fail and what cost?"

My hands curled into fists. As a creation of my subconscious it only made sense for her to know about the escape plan.

"Every choice you make will only bring you closer."

"To what?" I asked.

"To me."

Just as she lifted her hand from my ear, the fog dissipated into the night sky, revealing a series of towering stones which encircled a bonfire. Shadowy figures dressed in billowy capes danced around the fire, chanting in a language unfamiliar to my ears. Accompanied by the sound of strange folk instruments, the chants turned into a haunting melody. Out of all the shadowy figures, one in particular stood out amongst the crowd. The person seemed to be struggling against two caped figures as they carried him closer to the raging fire.

It did not take me long to realize the monstrosity unfolding before my eyes. I had learned about similar pagan rituals in my history class. They were performing a sacrifice and that poor person was to be their chosen one.

The two caped figures hoisted the man into the air, his screams echoing above the chants. I watched with morbid fascination. Any protest that might have formed on the tip of my tongue was effectively trapped by my gritted teeth.

They fed the man to the fire with little care for his life. From the perimeter of the field, I could hear the howling of wolves. A sort of ceremonial cheer if you will. The festivities only seemed to pickup as they unabashedly celebrated their own monstrous behavior.
——————
When the time came to leave Garrenbuck I didn't want to go. A week had passed since Ana detailed her escape plan and now the date for the first Aptitude Trial was upon us.

The G.S. soldiers descended upon our cells in the middle of the night. They hauled us out into the cold where we awaited the arrival of twenty or so transfer buses. We heard the buses before we could see them, their sirens wailing as the gated entrance swung open. I noticed that the entrance was controlled by a steel watch tower which sat in the middle of the courtyard. Oddly enough, that was the one building in Garrenbuck without a security detail stationed around its perimeter.

Before the drivers even cut their engines, the G.S. Soldiers were throwing prisoners into the back of the buses.

I was cold and my feet were steadily losing feeling but I did not want to move. The scars on my wrists burned from the memory of the cramped chamber. Suddenly, I remembered the gutter rat girl from the first night and the boy with kind eyes and I couldn't help but wonder if they too had survived up to this point.

Ana stood in front of me. The tips of her ears had turned pink after being exposed to the cold but like always she remained completely still. If we did escape from this hellhole, I thought, she could have a lucrative career as a New York city street performer. We could paint her gold and give her a bucket as she posed around the city as a human statue.

I clung to her like a second layer of skin so the G.S soldiers had no choice but to put us on the same bus. We sat side by side, our feet tethered to the floor and arms stretched high above our heads. A third familiar face was ushered into the back of the bus just before the door closed.

"Paxton," Ana breathed. It was not loud enough for him to hear over the siren but as if captured by some gravitational pull, he looked over at her nonetheless.

For the first time since we met, a genuine smile graced her face. He returned it in kind and for one second everything in the Cortezes world was fine. They were cuffed to a transport bus, their bodies bloodied and bruised as they awaited the dreadful fate at their first Aptitude Trial but regardless of the circumstances, everything in that moment was fine. They were together and sometimes that was more than two people could ask for.

As if noticing my presence for the first time in Garrenbuck, Paxton looked at me and then back at his cousin with a raised brow. "Who's she?" He said once the buses began to move and the siren faded to silence.

"One of us." He didn't question her further but continued to glance at me throughout the ride.

"You a witch or a vampire?" His voice was rough as if he had not spoken in a very long time.

"I don't know yet." My band had slid down my forearm, resting comfortably at my elbow. The deep mulberry color gave no insight into my true identity as an Other.

"Well for your own sake," he cracked his neck, "I hope you're a witch."

Ana straightened her posture upon hearing that. "Why? Did you hear something?"

The rest of the bus was suddenly interested in our conversation as well. Paxton didn't seem to like the attention. He managed a response through gritted teeth.

"Not much," he lamented, "but I overheard two soldiers talking about the trial- they called it an old witches game."

That did little to calm the fears of those trapped on the bus. Human children grew up playing hop-scotch and tag whereas young witches grew up with ouija boards and seances. Legend says when witches secretly dwelled amongst the humans, they tricked their human peers into playing the most horrific slumber party games. The masochistic beasts took great pleasure in watching their unsuspecting classmates summon various ghouls and demons into their bedrooms. In the best case scenario the human children were left mildly traumatized and in the worst, they died.

"So that means we have to be a witch to survive?" Ana scoffed.

The purple banded prisoners slumped back against the wall as the rest of the bus began to fidget in their seats.

"No but it means you have to realize what the name of the game is going to be. It's a witches game so it'll be a mind game." His tone was pleading as if he were begging her to listen to him. Instead, she chose to tune him out and returned the statue-like girl I had known from before.

She turned her stare on him, eyes blazing. "The past eleven months of my life has been a mind game, Pax. You think I'm gonna worry about it now?"

He stared at the gleaming white band dangling from her wrist, "This isn't like the tests back at Garrenbuck, Ana. To pass the trial you have to possess an aptitude for being an Other."

This was the sort of Soap Opera drama I thought to have left behind in the podunk town of Darwin, Montana. Living in Garrenbuck for a month, where social relationships were formed at an arm's length, left me feeling like an outsider as Ana and Paxton quarreled with real emotion. Ana Cortez, the girl of steel now stared at her cousin with a sort of unbridled anger which could only rival the Devil as he descended to hell. And Paxton, the ever valiant Jade Prince did not back down. There was palpable tension in the air as the two engaged in a staring contest. The winner? Certainly not the rest of us stuck on the bus.

"I don't really see how all this arguing helps either one of you," I muttered under my breath.

They ignored me just like Christine and Adam did from the ages four to six.

"You should know better Paxton. After all, I'm a Cortez. I'm a survivor," said Ana.

"Yeah well my father was also a Cortez and he's currently sitting six feet under Evergreen Washelli."

Evergreen Washelli. A name I hadn't heard in a very long time. It was the name of Seattle's largest cemetery and it was the very cemetery my Grandfather was laid to rest in a plot next to second wife, the born and raised Washingtonian- Darby Wittaker. My grandfather married Darby soon after his divorce with Grams. He moved out to Seattle permanently to spend the rest of his days with her. It was to my understanding that he tried to keep in contact with my father and aunt via phone but never actually made the trek back to Montana, in fear of crossing paths with Grams.

Tired by the back and forth, I interjected once again. "Nobody's doubting your ability, Ana but your cousin is right. We need to be careful and we need to work together if we're going to survive the Aptitude Trials."

The two nodded. Despite all the arguing it was clear they only wanted to keep each other safe. But it also became clear to me that they would do anything to save each other, even if that meant risking the life of a friend. Ana was the only reason I survived up to that point but in the Aptitude Trials it would be every person for themselves.

I couldn't trust Paxton, I couldn't trust Ana and if they were smart- they'd quickly realize that they couldn't trust me.

** I AM SO SO SORRY for the late update! I was working all day at a Pride yesterday and I did not have the time to edit. With that said, I hope you guys are enjoying the book thus far. Thank you for getting this book to over 10K reads in under 9 weeks of its debut. That really means the world to me. I really love this story and its characters and I am so excited to see others (I really can't use that word w/o thinking about the story) enjoy it too.

Once again, thank you for all the support it means the world to me!
XOXO,
Ro.**