She tried to stretch an arm toward me, but the restraints made it impossible for her to move it more than a few inches. “Marin,” she whimpered. “Please, come here. Help me.” But I didn’t move. What in God’s name had just happened? Were my eyes, my ears, all of my senses deceiving me? I searched Cassie’s face, straining to see something—anything at all—still lurking there inside her head, but there was nothing. Was the blackness really gone? Was whatever had just happened really over? The veins along the outside of Cassie’s neck tightened as she tried to lift her head some more, but there was no sign of the softball-sized shapes that had been there, no trace of any distortion at all along the smooth slope of skin. “Please,” she whispered, still stretching her fingers in my direction. “Marin.” Was it really safe? Cassie looked like a baby, a toddler who had been punished and was pleading for forgiveness. But was it just a trick? Another ruse to get me closer so that she could hiss at me again, spit curses in my direction?
