Page 70 of Broken Souls

Tears burn my eyes, but they’re not the same ones I cried when strapped to the fucking chair I’m sitting in again, my clothes still stained red but my hands unbound. They’re not sad tears. Not ones of panic or fear or grief for the loss of what Varius and I had.

They are tears of furious anger. Of righteous fury. Of all the fucking synonyms forfucking pissed off.

Varius didn’t just torture me in this godsdamn chair. He didn’t just ignore my cries for far too long while I told him our child was dying. To get help. To believe me.

He fuckingtook my magic from me.

“No! Fucking come on!” I screech as I open myself up, let the fire rip free.

And it does.

Wildly.

Out of control.

The flames shoot up to my face, hungry and greedy. I shove back in the chair, caught off guard, my heart in my throat as the chair starts to fall. But I keep my focus on my flames, on trying to control them so I don’t set this whole damn house on fire.

They grow bigger.

They get hotter.

Starting to panic, I swirl my hands around in familiar patterns, shaping the flames into what I want them to be. But they are not listening. And the ground is whooshing up behind me. And the knowledge that once I touch it, once my arms drop from their raised position and close the distance to another object, they will jump free.

Then they will rage with no one able to stop them.

So, screaming, I close my hands into fists, snuffing out the magic that should come so easily to me. That is a part of me, another fucking limb, and yet one I can no longer control.

The chair slams into the ground.

My back shudders from the impact, and the tears I was crying in anger come flooding out even faster.

“No,” I growl. “I can fuckingdothis.”

So I open myself up again. Not to my flames, but magic itself. To one of the first spells I learned. A simple one any witch child can do with a five-minute lesson. But instead of getting the small flickers of red energy I wanted, the magic explodes in my hands.

I scream as the heat burns my palms and fingers. I try to snuff it out, but like my flames, it doesn’t listen. Terrified, I aim my hands away from me, and the magic shoots from them and slams into the bed frame. There is a large groan right before the thing cracks in two; if that had hit me, I would not have survived. As the two halves of the bed drop to the ground with athud, I roll out of the chair and scream.

Ignoring the pain in my hands, needing to just let my anger out, I lift the chair up and throw it across the room. The impact of it hitting matches the blows being dealt to my heart.

He fucking took my magic from me.

He made me a fuckingfreak.

Like him.

Tears burn my eyes, and these ones are sad as well as angry because I don’t think he is a freak. Don’t think he is lesser due to his inability to use magic. Those words came from a place of pain, from a want to hurt him like he’s hurt me.

I fucking loved him.

And hebrokeus.

With a roar, I lunge across the room toa picture I have of me and Dayne. It hangs on the wall, and I rip it off its hook, then launch it at the radiator, where Maddox’s two arms still lay. The sound of the shattered glass pleases a broken shard inside of me, but the high doesn’t last, and I pick up another thing to throw. To experience that release. To let at least alittlebit of my rage free.

The bedside table holding the lamp and another picture goes flying.

Then I throw out every drawer in my dresser.

Tip all their contents out on the floor.