I’ve been tired before. Been beaten up before. Shoot, I survived a tornado—and even though I don’t remember what happened, I remember every ache and pain in the days that followed. But I’ve never experienced anything like this.I feel empty. Like everything that makes me me oozed out my ears, leaving just a shell of Vane.Nothing could’ve prepared me for the pull of the Southerlies. It felt like I was a kid again and my mom was promising everything would be all right if I just did what she said. Her voice sounded different, higher and softer than usual, but the words still coiled around my mind and heart—and the more I tried to shove them away, the harder they latched on.I was a goner.Until Audra’s desperate voice whispered through the wind, begging me not to leave.I wouldn’t leave her.In that determination, I found the strength to break free, my head spinning and my body screaming with a thousand different pains as I forced myself back to reality.But I swear the wind took part of me with it.
