SIX Tour Stop
Excerpt
Then, I see the specific memory—the one that haunts me. It is the memory that consumes my being with longing because I have been unable to attach an emotion to it. I feel as if I am in that memory at this moment.
“I’m going to get you Emmalina,” my mother says. I run so fast that my tiny heart is thumping rapidly. Sticky sweat surrounds my face and mats my hair at my hairline. My feet are bare and the gray haze is the lightest I ever remember it being. I look over my shoulder and laugh as I see her running after me. She has her hands stretched out toward me and her brown hair bounces as she runs. It is a dream in slow motion that I get to relive. The moment is perfect. Her smile is electric. Her voice is sweeter than any treat from the old world.
“You can’t catch me, Mommy!” My singsong child’s voice rings back at her. I want her to catch me. I want her hands tickling me. She grabs me and lifts me under my arms, and up over her head. I can touch the sky. I am flying. She spins around in a circle but I do not look around. I look at her smiling face. It is so cheerful, it is so perfect. It holds the same emotion that I feel in this moment.
We are complete. I am not empty.
The emotion rips me from the inside. “I feel joy,” I tell Finn as I throw my head back laughing at the sky. The emotion tears through me more powerful than anything else, filling me with purpose. I am elated, delighted, I feel contentment and relief. Excitement courses through my veins more powerful than dark magic. It is incomparable. I splash the water at my sides and giggle because I want to, not because I think it prudent. I am so happy I remember her—thankful Finn has forced this from me in his own way. I jump toward him and he catches me under my arms. He lifts me above his head and I feel like I am floating on a cloud in an alternate universe. He spins in one slow circle. I gaze down at him knowing this is what my mother wants for me. I vow to make her sacrifice worth it.
Finn laughs loudly—a hearty, meaningful laugh. We revel in this perfect moment together just Finn and I and our joyful laughter.
I know then that his laugh is the only sound I like more than my own heartbeat.
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Emmalina is an immortal darkling. A half human, half dark witch. Though she was born with all six emotions, she has arrived at her eighteenth birthday and all but one miserable emotion has fled her body. The mission of the dark witches who control the new, darker world is simple—eradicate weakness. Weakness is summed up in one word. Emotion. Or, the six. Anger, fear, sadness, joy, surprise, and love. The dark witches want her. She wants something else more. She wants six.
