CHAPTER TEN

MAVERICK

I came awake with a terrifying start. I had a dream where someone was killing my parents right before my very eyes, and I was too powerless to stop them. The killer stood over their corpses, and turned to me at last. She had blood red eyes, and a wide smile that made her look like a crazed, deranged lunatic. She came for me with her hands outstretched, claws ready to sink into my flesh and snuff the life out of me.

And that was when I'd woken up.

Sweat ran down my skin as I tried to catch my breath. "It's just a dream," I told myself. "Just a dream."

I'd told myself the same lie for over nineteen years now, and each time I used it, it got weaker and weaker. But I didn’t have any other way to comfort myself.

My parents died when I was just a baby . . . Murdered by a witch that I'd been told spared my life—but not before marking my face. Because of her, I had a scar running down a quarter of my face—from eyebrow to cheek.

It was already bright outside, so I took it as a sign