Her life had been nothing but upheaval since the night that Cortez’s lackeys had dragged her from that California parking lot. Cortez had killed her and brought her back, and then tried to mold her into his own monster, as he had done with so many others. She had escaped his influence and tried to start life over, persuading herself that her dreams were still possible. And then the dark influence of Navalica had lured her to Massachusetts and she’d met Octavian. The changes she’d undergone since then had been just as drastic as those thrust upon her by Cortez, but this time, nobody was forcing her to do anything. Her life had become a tornado, but even though it twisted her around and threw her about so quickly that her thoughts blurred, Charlotte embraced it all. She had been fooling herself into thinking she could live an ordinary life after all that had happened to her. The things that had been done to her were haunting. They had taken root inside of her and would never let her be at ease.
