by Sadie Moss
I think the worry and stress is finally getting to me, because halfway through dinner I get an awful headache. I haven’t had a migraine like this in ages. Not wanting to be rude, I try to just power through, forcing down a few more bites of food in the hope that it will help.
It doesn’t though. My head just hurts worse, and now my stomach is churning uncomfortably too.
“Excuse me,” I mutter, interrupting Cam and Asher’s debate with Justin over which Star Trek movie is the best as I stand. “I think I need to go lie down. I’m sorry.”
Everyone looks concerned, and Maddy squeezes my hand as I walk by. I force myself to smile, giving her a soft squeeze back. “It’s just a headache, no worries.”
Ugh, my head feels like someone’s splitting it open with an ax. I practically stagger up the stairs, desperate to get horizontal in a dark space. Maybe I should get some medicine or something before I lie down, this is insane—
I grip the handrail and squeeze my eyes shut as a blinding flash of pain rips through my skull. For a moment, light dances in front of my eyes, and I feel like I’ve just seen a flash of the world through the negative lens of a camera, all the colors inverted and reversed.
What the hell? I’ve never had a migraine this bad before.
I make it up to the second-floor landing and am about to head for Asher’s room when another flash hits me, so strong it makes my legs buckle.
But this time it’s an image.
I’m standing in front of a teacher. I’m small. The classroom is large, and the rows of seats that fill the space are empty. I was held after school for misbehaving, and I’m angry. I’m so mad about it that fire burns in my veins. Something sparks in my fingers, like electricity, but not. More powerful than that.
I grab my teacher’s wrist—
And his eyes go wide. He makes a noise in his throat, halfway between a cry and a groan, and he staggers. His other hand moves toward me, but it’s as if my touch is draining the strength from his body, making his movement sluggish and slow.
I easily evade his grasp and keep my hand locked around his wrist. His shocked gaze meets mine before shifting down to the connection between us. He shakes his head, looking terrified.
It seems to last forever, and when it’s finally over, the man collapses, dead in front of me.
There’s no alarm or panic inside me. Instead, I feel… curiosity. Did I do that? I reach down and shake him.
Definitely dead.
I try to reach for that power again. How did I do that? But instead of the weird not-electricity, I get… water.
My teacher used to be able to make water dance.
But now I can do it.
The flash ends, and I’m left on the landing, gulping air, my head screaming, my ears ringing.
What the fuck was that? What’s happening? Why am I—
My parents think I’m a water elementalist. I don’t tell them any differently. They’ll send me to prison or some other awful place if they know. Not just that I killed someone, but that I’m Unpredictable. Not like other magic users. I know what they do to Unpredictables, how they treat them. They’re scared of them.
They’d be scared of me. Because they would know that I’m stronger.
I’m at a school. Neptune, an academy for water elementalists. All my classmates are years older than me, but I’m in a special program for those whose magic sparks early.
I’m not a water mage though. I don’t want to be just a water mage. The power in me is hungry. I want to feed it.
It’s so easy to sneak out. Nobody’s looking. I’m a kid. What do they think a kid can do?
The first three are hardest. They’re all elementalists, and I plan it all very carefully. I can’t have anyone announcing there’s a serial killer on the loose. I have to find people who are far apart, who have no connection to each other.
But when it’s all done, I have power over fire, earth, and air.
People care about elementalists. They’re regular magic users, accepted and respected. No one cares so much about Unpredictables though. I won’t have to be as careful with them.
When I come back to myself, I’m on my hands and knees, struggling to breathe. My stomach heaves, and even as bile tries to force its way up my throat, my lungs keep trying to suck in air, making me feel like I’m choking as panic sets in.
It’s Agustin, it has to be, it fits what I know about him. But how am I seeing this? What’s going on?
I don’t get scared easily, as I’m sure anyone who’s seen me treat a life-threatening situation as an annoyance that interrupts my schedule can attest. Once, I had a nightmare about a zombie apocalypse, and my response in my dream was to pick up a baseball bat and beat the undead over the head while screaming, “I have to go to work! I don’t have time for this!”
So I think I can safely say it takes a lot to rattle me.
But this is someone inside my head, and I don’t know how it’s happening. I can barely keep myself upright because my head hurts so much, so much, so much—
Why do I have all this power? It must be for a reason. What should I do with it?
I’m the best. The brightest. The strongest. I’m smarter than everyone around me. Smarter than my classmates, my teachers, my parents. I should be in charge.
If I get enough powers, they’ll have to let me be in charge.
Gritting my teeth, I force my consciousness back into the present, into the hallway of Asher’s family home. My forehead rests on the floor, and my lips pull back into a grimace.
God, what a spoiled little brat. That’s the conclusion he came to? That’s what he decided? What kind of entitled—
There’s another burst of pain, and this time I don’t feel or see another one of Agustin’s memories. This time, I feel one of mine.
He’s rooting around in my brain.
Stop it! I scream inside my head, as loud as I possibly can.
I see my mother lying in the hospital bed, when it was near the end, when she looked so frail and fragile. I see myself kissing Roman for the first time outside the bar. I see myself throwing my stuffed animals around the room when I was ten and my mom had to tell me that my father was never coming back from his business trip, that he’d left us. I see myself lying, telling the kids around me at school that my father died, because I’d rather have a dead father who wanted to be with me than an alive father who didn’t care about me. I see Maddy graduating from high school, and me clapping, tears in my eyes, wishing Mom was there.
He’s tearing through my memories, my personal memories, my life, like it’s nothing.
That motherfucker.
I want to kill him so badly, more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life—
Foolish of me.
My whole body freezes as I hear Agustin’s voice in my head.
Oh, shit.
It truly was an error on my part, choosing Raul all that time ago. I should have chosen you.
I get another flash of pain, and I try to scream, but the sound is stuck in my throat, choking me. God, it hurts so much I want to bash my brains out just to make it stop.
And then… there comes the strangest feeling, like a key sliding into place, turning a lock, and I feel… numb.
Everything’s fuzzy, hazy, distant.
What did he do? It’s like I’ve been injected with a drug, I can’t think or feel. I’m all numb. I’ve been set adrift in an ocean like the one outside, and the tide is dragging me under, pulling me away from the shore, away from myself…
I stand up. My headache is gone. I feel fine.
I feel nothing.
I walk downstairs. I feel nothing.
I enter the dining room. I feel nothing.
Everyone looks up. “Hey, is your headache better?” Cam asks.
Cam can teleport. That’s useful. I should use it.
“Hey, are you okay?” Asher asks. He’s squinting at me. This man has mind powers, psychic abilities. He can sense something is off.
&nb
sp; I must get rid of him first.
Mirroring Cam’s magic, I teleport to Asher, letting off a sonic boom as I do it. Asher slams back into the wall.
Everyone jumps to their feet. “What the fuck?!” someone yells.
“Ellie?!” Maddy shrieks. She sounds worried, and my stomach twists, disrupting the waves of the ocean that are rocking me gently.
Maddy…
No. Disable Asher.
Of course. Right. That’s all that matters. I focus on Asher. I have to take him alive, it’s very important.
The mage with the tousled brown hair lets out a groan. He collapsed to the floor after he hit the wall, and now he stumbles to his feet. But he’s too slow and disoriented. Reaching him in a few long strides, I grab him and glance around.
There are too many people here. They won’t allow me to leave with my prize unless I kill them first.
Where’s Roman? I need his death touch.
Hmm. Across the room. Too far away. But I have my sonic boom. I can concentrate it. Concentrate it right in my fist. Punch someone with it. Smash their face in.
“No! Ellie, no!” Maddy grabs me and lets out an ear-piercing shriek.
I stumble back. What—?
“Maddy?”
Blinking, I turn to look at her. Is she hurt? Why is she screaming? I haven’t heard her scream like that in ages. She sounds like she’s in pain, like she’s terrified, hysterical.
I blink harder, and the world comes into clearer focus with every flicker of my eyelids.
Asher’s on the floor beneath me.
Everyone’s staring at me.
I don’t—I don’t understand.
What am I doing?
Chapter 13
Something’s wrong with me. Something’s not right, but I can’t quite get my brain to focus well enough to put the pieces together. I’m attacking Asher. Why am I doing that?
Ash scrambles out of the way, yanking Maddy back from me. “Stay back! She’s not herself. She’s not your sister right now.”
“What the fuck does that mean, exactly, Asher?!” Dmitri yells.
His voice nearly cracks my skull in two as the headache returns with a vengeance. There’s a momentary flash of pain that makes me double over, and then, just like that, it’s gone.
The ocean is back, pulling me under. The tide is carrying me out again, and I’m numb, so perfectly numb. It’s so easy to exist in this place where it’s calm and peaceful; nothing hurts, and nothing matters. I’m drowning softly in this ocean.
A flash in my periphery catches my eye, and I spin. Someone is moving toward me. One of Asher’s brothers.
Hmm. He has fire. I can mirror that.
I conjure a fireball as my gaze shifts around the room. Who is my biggest threat?
Not Roman. I want his powers. I must bring him to Agustin.
Dmitri is advancing on me, his dark eyes wild and his nostrils flaring. I know from previous experience that he’s a good hand-to-hand fighter, which means I can’t let him reach me. Duplicating powers are nice, but not necessary. He is expendable.
So I throw the fireball at him.
Maddy screams. Dmitri phases out just in time, and the fireball passes through him before exploding against the wall.
I glare, my lips twisting in frustration. But it’s okay. My mirroring power has never been this easy to use before, but now it feels effortless. I’m just a puppet. I don’t have to think, don’t have to work to access my power. It’s all Agustin.
My body moves without my command, hands extending outward as I throw more fireballs. There are panicked, horrified shouts and yells. Everyone is attacking me, trying to make me stop. But they’re pulling their punches because they don’t want to hurt me.
I am not pulling my punches.
It’s chaos. Beautiful chaos. I reach out with my senses, mirroring each one of them in turn. Except Roman. He keeps away from me, too far to reach, but that’s okay because there are so many others. Fire. Teleportation. Duplication. Water. I have all of them at my fingertips, and I cycle through one power after another, wreaking destruction.
Until a demon appears.
It lands right on top of me, knocking me off my feet. Quick as lightning, its clawed fire-magma hand wraps around my throat, and its knee presses into my chest. It has me pinned.
No! I can’t let them stop me. I can’t let them hold me. I have to teleport. Have to get away—
Hands grip my face, warm and gentle. I struggle against the touch, which feels so good it almost burns, stealing me back from the ocean. Someone presses their forehead to mine.
An image comes to me. A blue room with a view of the ocean. Calming. Safe.
“That’s it,” Asher whispers. “You’re in the room with me. Nothing can get to you there. Just stay with me.”
I blink and glance around me as the whole scene shifts. I’m no longer just seeing the room in my mind’s eye—I’m in the room. Asher and I sit on the bed playing cards. We used to do this back at Griffin sometimes, just the two of us. Asher is perfect to play games with. He tries hard, but he’s not so competitive that it makes him either a sore loser or a smug winner.
But why are we playing right now? Why are we here?
I start to glance around, but Asher touches the back of my hand, bringing my focus back to him.
“Concentrate on the cards,” he murmurs, keeping his gaze locked on mine. “Concentrate on beating me.”
All around us is blue. Cool, calm blue.
Someone’s trying to get into the room, but Asher isn’t letting them. The door is locked.
“Just keep playing cards with me, Elle,” he whispers.
I keep playing cards in the calming, quiet blue. And slowly, the pounding on the door stops. The room is quiet.
“There you are.” A soft, relieved smile spreads across Asher’s face. “There’s our girl.”
He takes my hand and leads me out of the room, and finally, I open my eyes.
There was no room. It was all in my head.
The weight of the demon on top of me is gone, and now that I’m no longer under Agustin’s control, I can actually feel pain, and fuck. The bastard left a burn mark around my neck from where he gripped me. I cough, feeling smoke in my lungs. I’ve got bruises all over.
But that’s nothing compared to the room.
There are scorch marks and holes in the walls. The dining room table is smashed. One of Asher’s brothers is on the floor, knocked out. Furniture is broken. Food is everywhere. The chandelier is now on the floor. Mr. Prince has a black eye and a split lip. Cam is clutching his arm, which is all bloody. Justin looks like he got hit by a fireball, with singed clothes and burn marks all over him.
While I was under Agustin’s hold, I thought I saw everything that happened. And I did. But it was as if something in my eye-to-brain filter was broken. I saw, but I didn’t understand. I didn’t really know what was going on. I was so out of the driver’s seat.
Now that I see it with clear eyes and fully understand what I’ve done, I almost throw up. I start shaking. It’s like the panic attack I had when my classmates attacked me but so, so much worse. That wasn’t my fault, but this?
This is all me, devastation I caused with my mirroring powers.
“Hey.” Asher’s holding me, and he pulls me into his chest. “Hey, Elle, it’s okay.”
I realize I’m crying. I don’t know how long tears have been streaming down my cheeks, but my face is wet.
“M-Maddy,” I choke out. “Maddy! Where’s Maddy?”
If I hurt her… Oh God, if I hurt my baby sister—
“I’m here.” She crouches down next to me, and I fumble for her hand. I’m shaking so hard my motor functions are shot. “I’m okay, Ellie, I’m okay.”
Relief makes my limbs feel numb again, but I just cry harder at the sound of her voice. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Mads. I don’t know how it happened, I didn’t mean to! I’m so sorry.”
“Shh, it’s okay, I know, tha
t wasn’t you, it’s okay.” She squeezes my hand tightly.
Roman is standing at the back of the room, still out of range of my mirroring powers. I could possibly reach him from that distance if he was the only one in the room, but with everyone else there and their powers clouding up my head, I couldn’t sift through them to reach him.
Thank God for that.
Everyone else looks horrified, but Roman’s face is blank, neutral, harder than stone. I start to cry even harder. Is he angry with me? Will he ever forgive me for this?
As if he’s reading my mind, Roman crosses the room in an instant, pulling me into his arms. I clutch at him, curling into his chest. He tries to speak, and I hear his voice crack, and I realize—he’s not angry. He’s trying to stuff his emotions down, the way he always has, to be the strong one.
Finally, Roman clears his throat, holding me even tighter. “Asher and I will get her upstairs.”
“This isn’t your fault,” Linda tells me softly. I keep my eyes squeezed shut and breathe in Roman’s smell, leather and a hint of brimstone. I can’t bear to look her in the eye right now, not after she accepted me and welcomed me into her home and her son’s life, and this is how I repaid her. “This is him, not you, dear.”
“I can block him,” Asher says. “Stop him from getting into her mind. I have to be near her, but I can do it.”
“For how long?” I blurt out, my voice raspy and ragged. “We can’t spend forever—”
I choke on the words, and on the emotion rising up in my chest.
“Let’s get you out of the way,” Roman murmurs. He stands, keeping me in his arms, hauling me up and cradling me to him like I weigh nothing. “You guys can start cleaning up down here.”
I open my eyes and I see Dmitri storm off, Cam hurrying after him even though the blond man is bloodied and hurt.
It takes me a moment to realize that Dmitri’s headed for the front door, before Cam gets in between and stops him.