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~•PROLOGUE•~

ARLIS
"Just kill her! Kill her and you'll be saved!" Stone turned and winked at me. I wanted to get up and rip his throat. I wanted to claw him until he was blind and deaf and everything in between.

My dad growled. "I can't kill my mate!"

Stone smiled wickedly, palming a silver blade bathed in lotus poison. "Oh I think you can. You see, Reigns, you are in a fake reality that you can't escape until you face your fear. You want your insanity to be stripped away? KILL HER!" Stone screamed. "I'll even give you my blade."

I screamed out, yelling at him to not listen, begging him. I could see it in his eyes, he was thinking about it. He wanted to be normal again, to be like we used too. But this wasn't the way.

My mom was frozen, laying on the ground, bloody and broken. Together, my parents could have killed Stone. Together, they could have put down the world's best Hunter.

However, my dad was in and out of sanity, half the time screaming and crying at nothing, and half the time acting as if nothing was wrong. Beneath his calm eyes though, he knew the truth, he knew he was insane.

But my dad... my dad would never hurt my mom. He'd never hurt me. He'd never attack his own. Not my uncle, not his friends, and definitely not my mom.

Those facts didn't matter though. The man that stood before me wasn't my dad. It was a hollow shell of a man I once knew. He had the same dark and scary eyes that I knew to be warm when the sun shined, but inside... inside his soul was corrupt and filled with shadows.

"C'mon. The normal you isn't insane? In the real world, wouldn't Rebeckah have killed me? She's so strong. This can't be real, can it?" Stone tossed the knife up and caught the blade in his hand, the silver melting his flesh, but he didn't seem to even notice. "Take it. Kill Rebeckah Barron." He whispered. "You know you want too. Don't you want your sanity back?"

My dad nodded and then cried out like a child who lost their parent, falling to the floor next to my mom. "I can't. I can't. Not even in a fake life."

Stone shrugged. "Guess you'll be stuck. Reliving her death over. And over. And over. Again. Every day, you'll see yourself murdering your own family."

Stone was lying, but not all the way.

He was right. When you drink a Weeper's tears and see your fear,  you do see it over every day. You're constantly haunted. My dad's biggest fear was killing my mom, that she'd die. And so he did see it. And the way to stop seeing it every day, is too overcome it. To face it. To do what you couldn't do. But this was the real world. And once he killed her, he'd revert to sanity for a couple moments, realize what he's done, and either die or become so weak there's no point to living.

Stone dropped the blade. "Whoops." He chuckled. "Don't you want to slice her throat? Get your life back?

"Dad no." I muttered, my legs crushed by the dresser on me. I couldn't feel my legs, I couldn't breath.

Stone faced me with an evil glint. "Oh the runt is alive still, the demon that wants to keep you here. Reigns, I want to set you free."

My dad grabbed the knife and pointed it at Stone. "I should kill you." He was scary when he wanted to be, my dad. But everyone knew that unless you were scum, my dad would bend over backwards to help you. Right now, with the look in his eyes, even my bones shivered in fear.

Stone widened his eyes. "I'd just come back. Nobody ever actually dies in this fake reality."

"Dad, it's not fake! You're not in the Weeper's dream! You woke up!" I screamed and pounded at the floor, my tears mixing with my blood. "Dad. Please." I cried, my world tearing apart in a single day. I know my parents broke the law, I know they did. But they didn't deserve this.