Luka’s wide eyes as he reaches out to grab me follow me through the dark. The harsh lights above me blink on, making me wince. My eyes burn from the brightness, scratched raw from what feels like hours of crying.
It was just a dream. A beautiful, cruel dream. One that shatters my heart all over again.
Now that I’m lying here awake, with reality crashing around me, all I want is to go back to them.
Take me back.
I squeeze my eyes shut, begging my mind to let me succumb to the dark once more. To see each of their faces again.
I’d take them in whatever form I could have them, whether it was just a dream or something my mind conjured up. I don’t care.
I needed to see them, to hold them, to hear each of their voices.
My body is fully healed, but my heart hurts, and I don’t know what to do to make it stop.
I don’t want to let any of them go. To move on from them.
They’re home—my home—but by the time I realized that, it was already too late. And now they’re gone, and I don’t know what to do or where to go. I don’t know who I’m supposed to be.
They told me before that I was strong for what I had lived through, but they were wrong. I’m not strong. I’m weak. And now without them, I’m lost along with it.
I just want to close my eyes and sleep. I want to be numb to the pain inside me. I want to—
“Hey! Hey!” the voice from the room beside me shouts, shaking me from my downward spiral.
I didn’t have the energy to answer him, so I stay quiet.
“I can hear you crying, so I know you’re not dead.”
Crying? I try to lift a hand up to check, forgetting I’m still strapped in. Squeezing my eyes tight, I feel the wetness run down the sides of my face.
How did I not know I was crying?
He sighs. “Are you… okay?”
No… but I wasn’t going to tell him that.
“Stupid question…” he mumbles, more to himself than me.
But his question surprises me either way. Why would he care? I’m nothing to him. Just another prisoner here.
He sighs again, heavier this time. “I just listened to you get electrocuted, could smell your skin burn from in here… So I…”
I hear him move about before speaking again. “How are you still alive?”
Again, I stay silent and start to wonder what his ulterior motive is.
“Look, you helped me when you… made me stop. I just wanted to see if you were okay.”
Made him stop? I still didn’t understand how that worked or if he just made it all up in his head. Maybe he’s been here too long to tell the difference.
Maybe I should stop overthinking everything.
“I’m… I can heal.”
I wait for the onslaught of questions about how and why, but instead he sighs, sounding relieved.
“Good. You’ll need it here.”
I’m taken aback by his relieved tone but focus more on what he just said.
“Where is here?” I haven’t a clue where we are. Am I still in the Cardinal Three or somewhere else?
“I don’t know, and I’m not just saying that. I haven’t seen the outside of these walls since I arrived here, and even then, I wasn’t exactly… lucid.”
He wasn’t lucid? Maybe he was unconscious like me, but there was something about his tone that suggested there was more to it.
“How long have you been here?” I ask him.
He takes a moment to answer.
“Too long… Years.” His tone is sad, making something in my chest tighten.
“Years?” Maybe I misheard him.
“Yes.”
Hearing his confirmation makes me sick to my stomach.
Years. He’s been here years… Trapped and alone down here. And for what? Is he also unique and special and something King wants to keep for himself?
My stomach turns and twists. I can’t imagine being completely alone here for years. But that’s what my future is starting to look like.
Can I live with that? Can I let them torture me over and over until my time is up in this world?
“How did you make me stop?” the guy asks, distracting me from my thoughts. It takes me a second to realize what he asked.
“I didn’t—”
“You did.” He cuts me off. He fully believes that I made him stop somehow.
Could he be right? It just doesn’t make sense. I’ve never had any abilities that allow me to control people and thinking that it might somehow evolve from my ability didn’t fit either. I heal, that’s it.
“Can you do it again?” he asks.
I don’t know if it is a possibility, but if it is, it is a farfetched one.
“I… don’t know. But why would you want me to?”
Why would anyone want to be controlled? I sure as hell didn’t. Not after King controlled the last six years of my life while making sure I knew it too.
My question is met by silence, making me think he’s done with talking. But after a couple of minutes, he continues.
“King… he… experimented on me when I first arrived. My demon, he doesn’t… listen to me anymore.”
His words hit me like a ton of bricks. This guy wasn’t just his prisoner, he was King’s test subject.
“Sometimes the guards like to provoke me, to bring him out. If you can stop him like that again…Can you try?”
Why would he ask me to stop his demon? If the guards are as bad as he says they are, wouldn’t it be better for his demon to shift and protect him?
“Why?”
He sighs. “My demon side doesn’t see reason. Whatever King did makes him see only rage. Rage because he’s in pain. He’s lost and doesn’t realize who or what is hurting him… He doesn’t know how to react to normal situations anymore. He just sees everyone as a threat.”
Hearing the vulnerability in his voice stops me from telling him no. But I can’t get his hopes up and tell him yes either, especially when I don’t know if it is a possibility.
“I’ll try,” I tell him.
He clears his throat. “Thanks… I’m Malik, by the way.”
“Kiarra.”
I lose myself inside my head, thinking over everything Malik told me.
He was experimented on for years, all while never stepping foot outside these walls.
And it’s something that will become my life too if I stay here.
Something in my stomach twists and burns like acid. It travels up my chest and stays there. I fist my hands, feeling the strength from my building rage grow.
Enough is enough.
King has taken so much from me. Too much. He took my mother from me when I was just a child. He played games with my mind and heart, using Morana to do it. Then killed her too.
He took my mates from me, and he just walks away like it’s nothing.
Why does he get to get away with it? Why does he get to take everyone I love from me?
Why does he get to take years of my life from me? He’s taking everything from me and still wants more. Still wants me to be a tool in the games he plays.
But I’m not a tool, and I won’t be used anymore.
King may have taken the last six years of my life. But he won’t getting any more from me. It is time I take it back. Take my life back and fight. Fight against him instead of running away like I’ve always tried to do.
It’s time for King to pay for everything he’s done. It’s time he learns what happens when the thing you’ve tried to break becomes the enemy you never expected.
I’m lost in my thoughts and building rage when a shout and low moan makes me jump.
The shouts grow louder.
Guards. They’re in the room next to me.
A low moan grumbles just as something slams into the wall.
Malik.
A punch. A crash.
My stomach drops, and I wince at the sound, knowing exactly what type of pain comes from each one. I pull at my straps, another useless attempt to free myself to help, but neither moves an inch.
“Stop hurting him,” I shout, hoping they’ll hear me. But they just chuckle and continue.
“Stop!” I shout louder, my voice cracking. But they continue to ignore me.
They’re using him like a toy for their own amusement to pass the time. Something inside my chest tightens and burns.
I pull at the metal straps, and the sharp slice burns against my wrists, scraping it raw.
Malik roars out in pain, followed by the guards’ laughter. A loud slam and thump sounds out just as muffled groans follow it.
I squeeze my eyes shut and imagine all the things I would do if I could help him.
A sliver of strange energy sparks from inside me. A type of energy I’ve never felt before.
It makes me pause, trying to figure out where it’s coming from. A low hum answers as if awaiting my call.
I focus on it, trying to figure out what it is. It moves up more, expanding over me. It almost feels… cold… dark… but also powerful.
Malik cries out again. The pain in his voice breaks something inside me and makes the energy build.
I reach down further, digging deep within me for every shred of that energy. I grip onto it and pull.
I pull and pull until something inside me tears and rips. A gasp is torn from my lips just as something inside me cracks open.
The guards’ continuous laugh making my blood boil. I grit my teeth and yank the energy up further, feeling it surge up and grow.
I can feel it now, like it’s always been there, just waiting for me to take it.
Power.
Pure, absolute power. It pulses inside me, begging to be set free. An endless well, so deep and vast, I can’t see where it begins or ends.
I yank harder, dragging it up with everything I have. I pull it from the very depths of my soul and demand it to rise and break free.
The energy inside me expands outward across my body, turning into an endless wave that pulses back and forth.
I pull on the straps as the energy builds and builds. It becomes painful, needing its release. I let the pain fuel my anger, my wrath.
The power continues to grow higher and higher, consuming me whole.
Dark black shadows begin to seep from every pore on my body, no longer able to contain the power inside.
Slithering and gliding across my skin, it moves out around me, growing longer and wider.
A moment passes before it rushes out in waves. The shadows consume everything around me, plunging the room into darkness.
Everything around me turns quiet. The only sound is my breath as it comes out in sharp, shallow pants.
The eerie silence grows, the darkness following it.
“What the hell happened to the lights?” I hear from Malik’s room just as something brushes up against my mind, sensing someone or something else in the room.
I’m about to call out to it when a deep whisper comes from the dark.
“Kiaaarrrraaaa.”
“What the hell?” I glance around, but there’s not even a shard of light to be found.
“Releasse meee,” a voice calls out.
“What do you want?” I ask it, still trying to find its source.
“Freeee.” Its deep voice sends an icy shiver down the tops of my arms.
Did I… call this thing when I released some of that strange power inside me?
“Freeee,” it repeats again, just as something pulses along with it in the dark. Something I couldn’t see but feel in the air around me as it brushes up against my skin and along my senses.
Maybe I did release whatever this thing is, but maybe it can also help me get out of here.
I’m about to ask it when a loud crash sounds out from the room beside me.
Malik.
The darkness retreats and along with it, its hidden presence. I feel its energy as it pulls away and disappears.
Another crash and grunt sounds out. A loud crash follows the cracking sound of metal bending.
Seconds pass before loud thumps follow destruction as something heavy makes its way closer to my room. A low growl rumbles in front of me just as the lights blink on, and I get a view of the thing now standing inside my room.
A demon. A large pissed off one, by the looks of it.
