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I woke with a gasp.
Sound burst in my head like a thousand bells clanging at once, sharp and merciless, rattling against my skull until I thought it would split me open. Pain seared across my temples, crawling down my neck, every pulse like a hammer blow.
I couldn't breathe. My lungs seized, a jagged panic tearing through me as though Veronique's hand was still clamped over my throat. My chest locked, ribs refusing to expand, and for a terrible instant I thought I had woken only to die again.
My hands shot up on instinct, clutching my neck. The skin was slick, torn where her nails had bitten deep. But it wasn't the pain that froze meāit was the phantom weight. The memory of her grip, iron and unrelenting, still burned into my flesh.
I curled forward, coughing, dragging in shallow, broken breaths that scraped raw all the way down. Each inhale felt wrongātoo thin, too fragileāas though the air itself might abandon me if I dared let go.
