Bound by Forever (True Immortality 3)

The girl and the man she’d seen were human. She’d been sold into marriage by her own family. And this man was abusive in every way he could be. The girl’s spirit was strong but she was breaking, and she was hours away from murdering her captive. Niamh didn’t exist to play God, but she’d seen what this man had done. He was evil to his core.

The violence he’d enacted … Niamh had seen a lot in her visions over the years, and he sat among the worst of the monsters she’d experienced.

Niamh couldn’t let this girl go through so much only to end up in prison for killing her torturer, her abuser, her enslaver. And if it was worthy of a vision, it was worthy of her dealing with the problem.

“And where is it you think you’re going?” Kiyo suddenly stepped in front of her.

Niamh skidded to a halt seconds before crashing into him.

She gaped in confusion. “How did you … what? How?”

He had a to-go cup of coffee in his hand. He took a casual sip as he stared at her. “You think I’m that stupid?”

“Well …”

“You have a vision and then you urgently need to use the restroom and get rid of me at the same time.”

That burn of irritation she hadn’t felt in hours swarmed her chest. “Look, I’m not running away from you. I just have something I need to do.”

Kiyo chugged back his coffee and then threw it, with perfect aim, at a recycle can twenty meters away. Without taking his eyes off her.

“Show off.”

His expression darkened. “I can’t let you go play savior. Not hours after The Garm tried to kill you. Are you insane?”

“I can’t ignore my visions.” She moved to brush past him.

“Niamh.” He grabbed her arm, and she whipped around to rail at him, the images from her vision causing that burn in her chest to flame. She felt it flooding out of her; her eyes widened as she watched Kiyo’s grow round with shock.

His body shuddered as his grip on her arm became bruising.

“Kiyo.” Concern eased the burn as his eyes fluttered and his body convulsed ever so slightly.

He gasped, releasing her arm.

His dark eyes, filled with disbelief, flew to hers. “What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know.” She shook her head in truth. “What … I …”

“I saw things.” He grabbed both of her biceps and gave her a shake. “What did you do to me?”

“I didn’t do anything.” Niamh yanked at his unyielding hold. “I promise, I didn’t do anything.”

His grip eased, his eyes desperately searching hers. “I saw a girl and a man. But it was more than just images. It was … their life together.” Anger darkened his expression. “She was sold to him. He abuses her. They’re here. And she’s going to kill him.”

Niamh’s legs almost buckled. “Not possible.”

“What was that, Niamh?”

“My vision. You saw my vision.”

How …

She shook her head. That had never happened. Not with anyone, not even with him.

“Not possible,” she repeated. “What are you?”

He released her like she’d burned him. “I didn’t do this. I’ve never experienced anything like that. That was you.”

“No!” She flinched at the loud denial and glanced around to see they were drawing attention to themselves. “We have to move.”

Kiyo studied her intensely for a few seconds. “You’ve never shared a vision with anyone before?”

“Never.”

He released a shaky exhale. He was completely thrown by this, and Niamh could tell he wasn’t used to anything disconcerting him.

“We have to go, Kiyo. Now.”

“Yeah, we do. Back to our terminal.”

Her eyes narrowed, the burn of irritation returning. “I can’t leave her to him.”

“You’re not. He’s about to get what he deserves.”

“But she isn’t. All that pain.” Her eyes brightened with tears of compassion. “I know you felt her pain. If she does this, she spends the rest of her life in prison. Or worse, they cart her back home and they execute her for it. You can’t tell me, after what you saw, that you think she deserves it.”

As hard as Niamh tried to hold them back, tears of sorrow, for what the girl had endured, escaped. Kiyo seemed fascinated, watching the tears roll down her cheeks.

“What do you plan to do?”

“Find him. End him. And help her start a new life somewhere else.”

“So you’re judge, jury, and executioner?”

Niamh shrugged wearily. “It’s my burden to bear. I have a long life ahead of me … maybe. I want to know I made a difference. And I don’t care if it makes me dishonorable or a different kind of monster. If I can rid the planet of his kind of evil, I’ll take Fate’s judgment when She comes for me with my head held high.”

Something happened then. Something Niamh didn’t understand glittered with a sharpness in Kiyo’s dark eyes. Fustratingly, Niamh didn’t understand what that look meant.