Suddenly, David backs off. He crosses his arms over his chest and glares at me. “Then dig up that same desperation and prove it.”
I watch as he shrugs out of his suit jacket and tosses it on an empty chair. I don’t know how he managed to scoop up this training facility out of nowhere, but I have never had the inclination to ask. Now isn’t the time, either. I become wary as he kicks off his dress shoes and unbuttons his cuffs, rolling the sleeves to his elbows slowly.
“You are already capable of pulling in enough pain through your hunger. You know how to store it without feasting. You know how to tap into it when you need it for every use but this one instance.” David clenches his fists and meets my eyes. “That is simply unacceptable.”
I take a step back, unsure of what he wants from me. His toes press into the mat beneath his feet, like he’s preparing to attack. I take another step back. He can’t be serious, right? I’ve never fought David. I don’t want to. At the compound, I fought pretty much everyone but him. Even since coming home, he’s brought in Godlings to spar with me at times, and I’ve fought Annabelle on several occasions. This… I have no idea what this is.
Seeing my hesitation, David smiles a twisted smile. “You need motivation? You need to feel desperate enough to use your power again? Who better than me to inspire such emotions?”
“You want me to fight you?” I ask.
“I want you to prove yourself!” David snaps before launching a fist at me.
I should have been able to dodge it, but his knuckles crack into my face. Bones snap, my skin swells, but I have no time to think about it. I bring my hands up in defense just as another blow finds its target. David is absolutely relentless in his attack. I can feel him using his hunger, lapping up both our pain, shoving it back out at me as raw power. I stumble again and again before finally finding my footing.
My attack holds nothing back. Even when he blocks it, David is knocked off balance. He falls into a defensive crouch, but his eyes are gleaming. I feint with my left, but kick his feet out from under him at the last minute instead. It gives me no more than a split second relief, though, when he kips back up to his feet and throws a hook I’m not prepared to defend.
“This is not your best,” he growls. “Dig deeper, Zander. Think of everything I have done to make you hate me. Think of Annabelle.”
“What?” I demand, blocking his next attack and sweeping in for kidney shot before he completed his punch. Satisfaction bursts through me at the sound of air rushing out of his lungs, but it doesn’t last.
“Annabelle was a mistake,” David growls.
Just the mention of her name stirs a fire in me. Swinging with blistering speed, I smash my fist into his jaw. “For me or for you?” I demand.
“She was meant as a distraction,” David snarls. His leg cracks into my tibia, and I feel the bone shift.
Struggling to keep the sickening feeling from weakening me, I draw on my hunger and repair the break quickly. “She was effective,” I tell David.
His expression twists into one of mounting frustration. Holding back his next attack for just a moment, he says, “Not in the way I intended.” His fist smashes into my gut.
Sucking in agonizing breaths, it kills me to force myself back upright. “I thought… you were all for… Annabelle and I hooking up,” I say, fighting to get my breathing back under control.
“You’ve only traded one fixation for another,” David snarls.
He unleashes a fury of rabbit punches. Too fast for me to counter him, I can only suck up the pain and attack. He groans as my knee slams into his ribcage. His arms wrap around my middle and, before I can react, he rolls, flipping me over his back and slamming me into the ground. The force bursts blood vessels, and I’m forced to expend much needed strength to repair them as quickly as possible.
David’s knee plows into my sternum before I can get myself back up. I groan under the pressure as he leans forward to hover over me. His lips turn up into a vicious smile. “Perhaps I no longer need her. Getting rid of her would be nothing. Easy even.”
Moving with blinding speed, my fingers snap around his neck, tightening, squeezing, pulling. One sharp yank sends him over my head. I hear the air blast out of his lungs before I spin around, pinning him to the mat. “You’re delusional if you think you’re taking Annabelle anywhere,” I seethe. My fingers tighten around his throat.
“You think you can stop me?” David wheezes. His choking laughter incenses me. “She’s mine. All the Godlings are mine.” His knee cracks into my side. I fight for my balance and leverage, but he fights back. Blow after blows rocks me. Staying in control means calling on my power. I let it flow, filling every part of me, ready and oh so willing.
“Annabelle is not yours,” I snarl. “I am not yours. Van is not yours. I won’t let you take either of them away from me.” An elbow smashing into my skull sends black spots racing across my vision, but I refuse to give up.
David puts his strength behind shoving me back, and gains a few inches of separation, but there is no satisfaction. Only cold, calculating fire can be seen behind his eyes. I tighten my grip. I don’t even care if this stokes my power. I just want to make him hurt. For once, I don’t want to be the one being beaten down.
“They’ll come willingly,” David manages to say before wrenching my hand sideways, breaking my wrist and throwing me off his chest.
I’m gasping for breath, sending my power straight for the broken bones in a panic-fueled rush. Before I can knit everything back together, his heel crushes down on the bones, snapping everything that wasn’t already broken. My vision blurs in the face of the pain. Trying to lift my free hand feels like trying to lift a boulder. I can’t heal the bones until he stops crushing them. All I can focus on is how much I want to kill him right now.
“I will take nothing from you,” David says. “They will leave you behind.”
“No,” I groan, the rest of my thoughts scattering as David grinds his heel into my wrist.
Leaning over me, he watches me struggle with a wicked smile. “What do you have to offer either of them?” He digs his weight into crushing my wrist. “Annabelle is a broken mess, and so are you, but she won’t stand by you when she figures out she can’t piece you back together again. Who will she have left to keep her alive if you’re gone? If she has to choose between you and saving herself, she won’t choose you. She can’t choose you. And your sister? She wants what I can give her. She wants it bad enough that she’s practically begging for more every time we meet. You have nothing left to offer her, and she knows it.”
Fear that he’s right, that Annabelle will give up on me and Van will fall under his spell… it burns through my veins, right down to my core. The effect is terrifying.
The pain emanating from my wrist goes cold. Everything vanishes from my thoughts except one lucid desire. White hot energy condenses inside of me. It’s as if every spec of pain I have consumed suddenly congeals into a massive ball of energy. I can barely control it—barely even understand it enough to harness it. The blank sensation is oddly exhilarating, empowering. Some feral desire rushes up to the surface and, before I can even think, my hand wrenches out from under David’s leg, hooks around his knee, and nearly tears it from his body.
The animal scream ripped from David hits me like lightning. I’m at once filled with fire. As he rolls away from me, I chase. I can’t stop myself from lurching after him, pinning him to the mat on his stomach while his leg splays awkwardly at his side. He’s in too much agony to stop me from yanking his arms behind his back and pulling his tendons to the very max. The pain radiating off him is ambrosia, and I feel drunk on its effects.
“Finally,” David wheezes.
“Finally what?” I growl.
His body convulses as he tries to laugh. “Finally, I found what will put you over the edge.”
I knew he was baiting me. From the beginning, that was his goal, and I knew it, but I still let him carry me to the brink of my limits. My hand
s slip free of his arms. Bruises form and heal within seconds. Falling backwards, away from him, I watch David roll, yank his knee back into place, and see it straighten back out like a broken toy fixed by skilled hands. My stomach turns at the sight.
Apparently having had enough for one night, David stands a moment later. He brushes off his clothes like we were just taking a leisurely stroll, and he might have accidentally brushed up against something unpleasant. Rolling down his sleeves is a methodical process. Donning his shoes and jacket are positively mundane. I’m still sitting on the mat in a stupor, trying to come off the high consuming that much pain induces, as David walks away, saying, “Next time, I expect even more. Your real training begins tomorrow.”
He leaves me there with those words.
Chapter Twenty-Four: About Everything
(Zander)
Annabelle jumps when I burst into the apartment. Only when I see her startled expression do I realize I never called her. I was too exhausted, too worked up, too confused to do anything more than point my truck in the right direction. When I just stand there, Annabelle gets up slowly and crosses the room. Her expression turns concerned as she takes in the smears of blood lingering in a few places.
“Zander, what’s going on?” she asks slowly. “Whose blood is that?”
“Mine.” I shake my head. “David’s. I don’t know. Both.”
Gently, Annabelle wraps her hands around mine and begins pulling me toward the couch. She doesn’t say another word until we’re both sitting down, and she seems reasonably sure I’m not about to have some kind of meltdown. “What happened between you and David tonight?” Her hands suddenly tighten around mine. “You didn’t… do it, right? The power…”
I shake my head, wincing at the pain still lingering from David’s brutality. “No, but he knows how to provoke it now. I came close.” My eyes drop. “I don’t know if I could have stopped myself if things went much further.”
“What stopped you?”
Sinking into the couch, I try to figure that out. What did stop me? I wanted to kill him in that moment. I think maybe I could have. There was nothing I did that kept me from ripping him apart. I would have done it if… if he hadn’t laughed at me.
“It was him,” I say. “He knew I could have killed him tonight, so he backed off, distracted me with his taunting. He took me to the brink of using my power on him, but he pulled back before I could really use it.” My shoulders drop as a strange sense of satisfaction leeches away some of the tension. “He wanted to know I was willing to do it, but nearly getting his leg ripped off was more than he bargained for.”
“You did that?” Annabelle asks. The awe in her voice is mixed with just a hint of fear.
Maybe I should feel some kind of regret. Maybe I should be worried that it felt good to give in. I don’t. “I had to stop him. I had to prove him wrong.”
“Prove him wrong about what?”
“You and Van.”
Confused, Annabelle turns to face me, tucking her legs up under her on the couch so she can be as near me as possible. Her hands stay gently wrapped around mine. “What do you mean? What did you have to prove?”
“That you won’t bail on me because you think I’m going to fail and leave you to die. That Van won’t choose him over Oscar and me.”
“Zander, neither of those are going to happen.” Her hands leave mine, pressing to either side of my face. She forces me to look up and meet her eyes. “I don’t think you’re going to fail. I wouldn’t choose them over you even if you did.”
Grabbing her hands away from my face, I push her back. “Annabelle, if I fail, it’s because I’m dead.”
“I know that.”
“If I fail, you have to go back to the Godlings.”
She looks at me like I’ve just said grass tastes like cotton candy. “They won’t take me back, for one, and why would I put myself back under David’s control? I won’t walk away from the rest of your family, either. You’re not going to fail, but I’m not here with you just because you’re nice to look at. This is the path I’ve chosen, Zander, and there’s no going back.”
“But… you have to be okay. Nothing can happen to you, Annabelle, it can’t.” I hold her there, hands pressed up against her chest as my panic threatens to spill over.
Getting one of her hands out of my grip isn’t easy, but Annabelle somehow manages it. I jump in sudden, unexplainable fear, but her gentle fingers slip behind my neck and hold me steady. “Zander, it’s okay. Calm down, all right? Nothing’s going to happen.”
“It might,” I say. David’s words creep back into my mind. The cold they inspired at the facility echoes throughout my body. “He has something planned for me.”
“Like what?”
“Different training. Real training.”
Annabelle tries to hide her gasp, but she isn’t fast enough. My eyes snap up to hers, and the white-faced fear I see nearly pushes me over the edge. The hand pressed to her mouth starts trembling uncontrollably. Where I was holding onto her, her nails are now digging into my arm, droplets of blood running down my already stained arm.
“Annabelle, what’s going on?”
“James,” she whispers, “the real training, that’s when things got bad with him. It was secret. No one else was supposed to know what they were doing. It was, at first. Then James started changing. It was worse, so much worse.”
“What was worse?”
Annabelle’s head falls. “Everything.” I don’t see her tears, but I feel them splash down on my cold skin. “He was always a bully but, after David claimed him, everything set him off. He put so many others in the infirmary with his blowups. The pain… Zander, it was unbearable. If I even got within a ten feet of him, it nearly put me out cold—it was that bad. He was a sponge, soaking up every horrible thing he was doing and keeping it tucked away like a weapon. And he liked it. He enjoyed being David’s special project. He wanted to continue, took pleasure in all the damage he was causing. I should have just stayed away, but I had to know.”
“What did you find out?” I ask warily.
The shaking spreads from her hands to her arms, to her whole body. She can barely speak through the tremors. “He made him… hurt other Godlings, humans too… anyone he could get his hands on.” Annabelle convulses, memories making her nauseous. “James fed off the pain. The damage he caused… David didn’t care… just wanted to see James gorge himself, use his hunger, the pain, the power. He reveled in it. The bodies…”
Annabelle breaks down, and I pull her into my arms. “He did incredible, terrible things after those training sessions,” Annabelle cries. “He seemed so… unstoppable.”
“He can’t…” Annabelle sobs into my shirt. “You can’t let him make you. That much pain… that much damage…”
“Shh,” I whisper. “Annabelle, it’s okay. I won’t…”
Snapping up to stare at me, Annabelle is tortured. “How can you stop him?” she demands.
“I…” I want to reassure her. Desperately, I want to say David will never be able to force me into something like that. She’s right. I don’t know how to stop him. Short of killing him, I am his slave. Sighing, I say the only thing I can. “I’m not James. I don’t enjoy hurting people.”
Annabelle’s expression breaks. “But David does, and he won’t relent until you give in to him.”
“Giving in means losing you and Van, and that will never happen.”
“What if he breaks you?” Annabelle whispers, knowing full well what damage David’s training will likely do to me.
I try to convince myself I’m strong enough to withstand anything David forces on me, but I’ve given up on that kind of false pride. My touch is tender as I pull Annabelle back against my chest. I stoke her hair and hold her. “If he breaks me, you’ll put me back together.”
Annabelle doesn’t respond, other than to curl against me more tightly. Faith has never been something I put much stock in. Only fools believe in what they can’t see.
At least, that’s how I used to see it. Annabelle makes not believing impossible. David is more than capable of breaking me. He’s already come close so many times. Forcing me to hurt or kill innocent people… I know exactly what that will do to me. Before meeting Annabelle, I wouldn’t have believed anything could bring me back from something like that. In her alone, I have faith.
***
Pulling away from Annabelle kills me, but I need answers. Her bare shoulder peeks out from under the sheet. I can’t help leaning over and kissing it gently. She moves toward my touch on instinct. A small smile flashes briefly on her lips before settling back into sleep. It’s tempting not to leave. The feel of her body pressed against mine is the only thing that can ground me lately, but I slip from beneath the sheet, take my phone from the nightstand, and move silently toward the apartment door.
I’m standing in the hall before I take another breath. Even once I’m here, doubts crowd into my mind. I nearly turn right back around, but I’m running out of options. As my fingers scroll through my contacts, part of me wonders why I never deleted her number. I don’t even know if it’s still valid. This may be a fool’s errand, but I tap her name and let it dial.
“Zander?” Ivy asks hesitantly as few seconds later. “Is that you?”
I take a deep breath, blowing it out slowly before answering. “Yeah.”
“Are you… okay?”
Leaning against the wall, I struggle with the answer. “I don’t know.”
She’s quiet for a long time. I hear rustling, movement. Finally, she says, “Can I help?”
“Probably not,” I admit, “but I’m running out of time and options.”
“Tell me. I’ll do my best.”
It’s in her voice. Sincerity. I know she means it. I can hear it in her inflection, that she’s desperate to help, to make up for what she did, to prove her love. I close my eyes in a worthless attempt to block it all out. I don’t understand it. How can she claim to love me, but still have done what she did? I think she wants me to admit that I did love her… that maybe that I still do. I was so convinced of my feelings for her back then. I don’t know if she really loves me, but I know I’ll never be able to return her emotions. I need her help, though.
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