The vision hit me three hours after we got back to the safehouse.
I'd been fine, or as fine as you could be after channeling enough power to permanently seal a dimensional tear and accidentally announcing yourself to hell's upper management. Mara had checked me over, declared me "exhausted but stable," and sent me upstairs to rest.
I'd made it to the bedroom, had even managed to kick off my shoes before collapsing face-first onto the bed.
Then my wrist started burning.
Not the binding sigil, that was its usual warm pulse, this was the other wrist, the one that had never done anything interesting before, suddenly feeling like someone had pressed a branding iron to the skin.
I jerked upright, clutching my arm, and the room disappeared.
***
I was ten years old and sitting in the back seat of a car that smelled like french fries and my mother's perfume.
It was night, raining, the windshield wipers made their rhythmic squeak-thump that had been lulling me to sleep before—
