Page 60 of Let It Snow (Eden’s Omegaverse #7)

Is this his version of ‘paths leading to happiness’? That thought circles in my head as my pants hit the floor. Liar.

Rocco’s fingers dig into my thighs, pulling me roughly to the edge.

"Don’t be afraid, Summer. Be nice, and everything will go fast. You’ll patch yourself back up later. I believe in you, flower."

He unzips, and I see his erect cock.

I want to vomit. Or scream. Or kill him. Anything. But I can’t move; I feel like I’m sinking. I turn my head away so I don’t have to look at him, and my eyes catch something on the screen.

Lake is still lying there, unconscious. But then I notice that both guards near him are no longer facing him. They’re turned sideways, staring at something off-screen. And then, suddenly, they both rush away, disappearing from view. Why?

Then… Rocco shoves my legs apart, and the awareness of what’s about to happen wrecks me.

This is it, right now, it’s starting—

"No!!!"

The scream tears out of me before I even think, instinctively. Louder than before, sharper, finally cutting through whatever drug they pumped into me. I fight it with everything I have, forcing more volume into my voice than I thought I still had.

And then one of the soldiers by the wall shouts,

"Boss! The door!"

I turn my head, forcing it against the weight of the brain fog, and I see it. Behind his back, the door is covered in something strange, something pale-blue, like a shimmering haze spilling across the surface.

For a second, I don’t understand. My mouth hangs open, and my drugged brain lags, responding with a sick delay to everything.

The door is turning white now, nearly glowing. Something’s about to happen, I know it. It has to.

Rocco finally reacts to the strange crackle too, turning his head just as the door bursts apart, shattering into tiny fragments that scatter across the floor like shards of ice.

Ice. Wait. Wait.

Wake up, brain!

The next second, the room explodes in gunfire. All six of the soldiers along the walls have already opened fire while I was staring, too slow, too dulled, too fucking useless. They unload their clips at whoever is coming through that door.

"No!" I scream as loud as my lungs can take, blasting at them with a wave of air like a battering ram. But it’s too late. Too late.

And then I see him.

Snow.

He’s not fully transformed into his radiant, intangible form. He looks half-finished, like something went wrong. He’s semi-transparent, his body shimmering but not fully beyond reach, and the bullets that slam into him sink into his flesh.

"No!!!"

It looks horrifying. Instead of blood, bursts of luminous spray from the wounds, scattering around him, splashing across the floor. It’s like his blood is made of liquid light.

"No!!!"

And still, even with that, Snow throws himself at Rocco.

And that’s when it happens. The worst possible moment. The moment I could have stopped. The moment I should have predicted. But I was sluggish, dulled by drugs, an utter fool too dazed to act.

Just as Snow grips Rocco by the shoulders, flooding his body with a freezing wave, the capo makes a movement so fast it doesn’t seem human. He rips his gun up, fires, the barrel tilted high, and the bullet tears through Snow’s chin. At the same instant, Rocco’s body turns to ice.

"No!!!"

Both of them go down. Snow collapses to the floor, and from under his jaw pours a long stream of radiant liquid.

It all happens in fragments of a second. It’s not a drawn-out scene. Not some slow-motion horror. Barely a second and a half.

"No!!!"

I failed. I failed. I failed!!!

A monstrous roar tears out of my throat. The soldiers, stunned by my wave of air, scramble back to their feet, turning all at once toward me. A storm of bullets rains down, but they can’t kill me.

I rip through the plastic ties on my wrists, sit up in a violent surge, and every bullet disintegrates before it can touch me, falling as dust at my feet. Then the soldiers themselves crumble, their bodies turning to ash.

Another scream rips from my chest.

"No!!!"

I leap from the table, my eyes fixed on Snow, and I see what’s happening. There’s less and less of his body with every second. The light pouring out of him is devouring his physical form, stripping him away.

I don’t know what I’m doing, but instinct takes over. I throw all my energy toward him, grab for that light, and drag it into myself.

Energy was never my thing, but strangely, it seems to be a tiny bit more ‘my’ thing now, though I have no idea how to explain it.

I’m not able to think clearly; it’s madness, it’s impossible, it’s something no one could ever do.

But I do it. I try.

And I scream at the top of my lungs,

"No!

No!

No!"

My body convulses, arching backward, and something rips through me, splitting me apart. What’s happening? What the fuck is happening to me?

The scream inside me grows into something monstrous.

I feel a fury, but I don’t want it to stop, I want it to spread!

A shockwave blasts out of me, shattering the monitor, whipping the ashes of the soldiers into wild spirals.

The walls start to vibrate. The floor shakes. The very air trembles.

Everything changes color, black and red, burning, alive with fire.

They killed him!

My rage is expanding…

And then, bam!

In the next instant, the entire hangar blows apart, its frame ripped sideways as if I shoved it apart with pure force, leaving only me standing in the center.

Me, standing over what’s left of the hangar.

And of Snow.

Only his shadow on the ground remains, thin strands of light, the last fragile drops, sinking into my body.

No!

Another shockwave tears out of me. Not one, several. Pulses, concentric, radiating in every direction.

They beat out of me—my rage, my hate, my grief—and they destroy everything.

Around me, the port buildings collapse, falling into rubble.

My wrath has no limits anymore.

Destruction.

Destruction it is!

They took him from me. My Twin Soul.

They stole him from me.

This world, its fucked-up society, its fucked-up inhabitants!

Humans!

I won’t let it happen, you bastards! I’ll destroy you all! I’ll kill you all! You’ll pay for this, every last one of you!

Destruction.

It spreads out of me in a wave… a wave without borders, without any limits.

It reaches farther and farther, more and more buildings collapsing in its path. The port is already flattened like a pancake, and now the wave of destruction is devouring the city itself. Even the ocean is retreating, its water sucked back as if terrified.

Yes. I know people are dying right now. Innocent people. Children. The elderly. But my rage cannot be stopped, because they took something precious from me.

My light.

A gigantic black cloud expands outward, dust and debris, sand and ashes rising like a storm. It climbs into the air like a nuclear bomb detonated right where I stand.

I feel the earth vibrating deep beneath me.

Underground pipes are bursting, geysers of water and gas exploding skyward.

Tremors rip through the entire city, and I know more buildings are falling, skyscrapers in the center collapsing, farther and farther away from the place I stand.

From the epicenter of this apocalypse. Of me.

Suddenly, I look down at my hands.

They’re completely black.

My wings are spread, but they are no longer iridescent, no longer dazzling with rainbow, gold, and violet light.

THEY took the light!

My wings are black now. Black like the wings of demons. And they unfold wider than ever before, hundreds of feet across.

And then…

Wait.

I see something.

Something breaking the perfect, flat symmetry.

The destruction spreads around me in a flawless circle, a storm of dust and ruin. But one place—one single place—remains untouched.

It’s about a hundred yards from me, where the second hangar stood.

A piece of wall stands there, strangely unbroken.

I fix my gaze on it, and then I see a man step out from behind it. He’s carrying someone in his arms.

He walks toward me, a person in his arms, the long pale-golden braid hanging almost to the ground.

I die inside. I failed him too. I let his son die.

My body freezes even though the wave of destruction keeps spreading, because my rage refuses to subside. On the edges, the storm still boils, still devours.

The sound of the apocalypse I unleashed crashes in my ears.

The figure keeps coming closer.

He walks through dust and ruin, through the black haze swirling around us.

And then I recognize him.

Bay.

The shock is so intense it sobers me instantly.

I freeze. My wings slacken, unfurling loosely.

I lock my eyes on him.

"Summer," he says slowly.

Is that even still my name? Or is it Doom?

How the hell did Bay survive as the only one? And what is he doing here?

He must have shielded Lake with his body.

Thank Fate.

The zone around him remained untouched.

But why? Why doesn’t my power affect him? With all my strength, he should have been obliterated. But no, he alone… is my blind spot? A strange thought, almost alien.

"Stop it, Summer," he says slowly, his voice low. "You don’t want this on your conscience. And if you do, this is the last moment of your life, because I can’t let you live."

He lowers his dad to the ground. Lake is still unconscious.

Then Bay steps closer. The last few strides. He reaches me, grabs my throat with his hand.

"Take. It. Back. Right now!"

"How?" I rasp, his grip tightening like iron around my neck.

He lifts me off the ground effortlessly. He’s strong. The fucking bastard.

"Do it! You’ve slaughtered innocents, you’ve crossed into darkness, and you’ve become my enemy. I’m giving you ten seconds to redeem yourself. I know you can, because now you carry Snow’s power inside you too!"

His words slam into me as hard as everything else that’s happened, like the force of my own shockwave crushing me from inside.

"Do it, Summer. The seconds are running out. Or I’ll rip your head off your spine. You can’t win against me."