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“Yes,” Kalona murmured. “I will bury my sadness within you and my desperate longing will finally be spent.”
    “Yes, my love, my consort, my Warrior . . . yes . . .”
    It was that moment that I lost myself within A-ya. I couldn’t tell where her desire ended and my soul began. If I still had a choice, I didn’t want it. I only knew that I was where I was destined to be—in Kalona’s arms.
    His wings covered us, keeping the chill of his touch from burning me. His lips met mine. We explored each other slowly, thoroughly, with a sense of wonder and surrender. As our bodies began to move together I knew complete joy.
    And then, suddenly, I started to dissolve.
    “No!” The scream was wrenched from my throat and my soul. I didn’t want to leave! I wanted to stay with him. My place was with him!
    But, again, I wasn’t in control, and I felt myself fading away, rejoining the earth, as A-ya sobbed, her broken voice echoed one word in my head: REMEMBER . . .

    The slap burned against my cheek, and I sucked in a big breath that cleared the last of the darkness from my mind. I opened my eyes and the beam of the flashlight caused me to squint and blink. “I remember.” My voice sounded as rusty as my mind.
    “You remember who you are, or should I smack you again?” Aphrodite said.
    My mind was slow to function because it still screamed
no
at being wrenched from the darkness. I blinked again and shook my head, trying to clear it. “No!” I cried the word with so much emotion that Aphrodite automatically moved away from me.
    “Fine,” she said. “You can thank me later.”
    Sister Mary Angela took her place, bending over me and smoothing my hair back from my face, which was sweaty and cold. “Zoey, are you with us?”
    “Yes,” I said in a broken voice.
    “Zoey, what is it? What caused you to hyperventilate?” the nun asked.
    “You’re not feeling sick, are you?” Erin’s voice was a little tremble-y.
    “Not getting the urge to cough up a lung or anything?” Shaunee asked, looking as upset as her twin sounded.
    Stevie Rae shoved the Twins aside so she could get close to me. “Talk to me, Z. Are you really okay?”
    “I’m fine. I’m not dying or anything like that.” My thoughts had reordered themselves, though I couldn’t seem to shake off the last traces of the despair I’d known with A-ya. I understood my friends were scared that my body had begun rejecting the Change. Forcing myself to focus on the here and now I held my hand out to Stevie Rae. “Here, help me up. I’m better now.”
    Stevie Rae pulled me up, careful to keep her hand under my elbow while I swayed slightly before finding my balance.
    “What happened to you, Z?” Damien asked as he studied me.
    What was I supposed to say? Was I supposed to admit to my friends that I’d had an incredibly vivid memory of a past life where I’d given myself to our enemy of today? I hadn’t even had time to wade through the maze of new emotions the memory had caused within me. How was I going to explain them to my friends?
    “Just tell us, child. The truth spoken is always less frightening than supposition,” said Sister Mary Angela.
    I sighed and blurted, “The tunnel scared me!”
    “Scared you? Like, there’s something in there?” Damien had finally quit staring at me and was peering nervously into the dark opening.
    The Twins took a couple steps farther into the root cellar and away from the tunnel.
    “No, there’s nothing in there.” I hesitated. “At least I don’t think so. Anyway, that’s not what scared me.”
    “You expect us to believe you fainted because you were scared of the dark?” Aphrodite said.
    They all stared at me.
    I cleared my throat.
    “Hey, y’all. Maybe there’s stuff Zoey just doesn’t wanna talk about,” said Stevie Rae.
    I looked at my best friend and realized if I didn’t say something about what had just happened to me I wouldn’t be able to face what I needed to do about her.
    “You’re