Page 348 of The Curse Trilogy

“I won’t feel death, bitch. You will though. Once I’ve studied your brain again with you frozen in this fucking state,” he growls while completely overcoming my new, unexplored gift.

“You also thought you could bind me to you like one of your slaves,” I taunt.

He smirks, and I feel the sting of a needle which shouldn’t have pierced my skin. I feel the burning of the liquid that once knocked me out though there shouldn’t be a sedative strong enough to bring down a hybrid.

I’m too strong though. As quickly as the dizziness sets in, it dissipates. The burning metabolism of phase three Araya eats through the liquid with effortless ease, and his eyes grow wider in disbelief as my fully alert ones fall on him to cast their violently violet glow.

I smirk, and then he screeches as he whirls through the air. His back cracks against the wall, but he stands and heals without the taste of blood. Suddenly I feel my own body sailing backwards, weightlessness consuming my rising stomach, and then I smash through wall of the Hilbrook compound.

The taste of blood sours on my lips, but I too heal quickly just as I did when fighting Symphony. He stole it from me. He stole my ability to heal instantly instead of a gradual healing.

“I did,” he says while once again reading my thoughts. “I’m just as strong as you physically. Mentally, baby, I’m so much fucking stronger.”

I gasp as I feel the air leaving my lungs. I clutch my throat while feeling the veins in my body trying to shrivel up. I want to scream as my brain, lungs, heart, and everything else begin suffocating with the excruciating agony ripping through me. I’m actually worried my body is going to fold in on itself, as though I’m being vacuum-sealed.

“Hurts doesn’t it? A gifted hybrid thought he could hide himself from the United so he didn’t have to forever be tied to them. It’s ironic he sought refuge with me,” he laughs.

More tragic than ironic.

I move my lips to try to speak, though I have no idea what words I would use. My chest can’t rise or fall as it continues to deflate. The dryness in my mouth leaves my saliva turning to grains of dust as I squirm uselessly under the force of the impacting suction.

My storm above is still circling with its own suctioning force, but it’s not strong enough to pull this man full of manufactured power from his feet. With the devil in his eyes and ice in the place of his heart, he’s just too damn strong.

Hopelessness starts to devour my willpower, savagely feeding on it to offer me only despair. I look to my sleeping family, all of them lost under my spell, and a tear falls when my eyes come to rest on the man I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with. None of them can help me… they couldn’t do anything even if I allowed them to wake. I can’t watch them die.

Suddenly I feel a stirring, as if I’m being resurrected by the power of my love for my true family - the ones who have loved me unconditionally without pause since I met them. My heartbeat quickens against the force trying to still it.

Memories of Hale’s breath on my lips just before he stole my love for the first time shine through me, warming me. The dance I shared with Brazen the night he pulled me from the corner and dried my tears before healing my broken heart swish through to fill me with a new breath despite the air still being drug from my lungs. Clay’s watchful eyes and unwavering friendship gives me a little more strength as memories from him soothing me after my first breakup with Hale surge to the surface. Angelica’s wisdom beyond her years aides my mind in controlling the fear she would not allow to control her. Grayson’s heart, his courage, his desire to be loyal to one who believed in him when no one else did sends a new wave of my own courage pounding through me. Nicholas’s sacrifice, his love for the daughter he failed brings my eyes down to the small child in my womb needing me to be there for it the way he was for me in the end.

I start rising - like the phoenix from the ashes - and another breath escapes his grasp to fall into my lungs. My head pounds as I push against the force caused by a mach twenty ride. He growls as he pushes against me harder, and my head pops back for a second before I dig in deeper, forcing myself to rise again as the rubble beneath me cracks under my hands and his force.

He loses his focus, and the compound starts to suffer from the force I’ve been holding up against. The walls do fold in on themselves almost instantly, and I hear the sound of rock crunching against rock as more walls give in.

My hand slides across my stomach, and I think of my child being brave enough to come into the world as the first of her kind. It’s a girl. I can feel her presence as she announces herself more prominently, begging her mother to stop this man from stealing her first breaths, telling me to get the hell up and fight for her.

Sandy tears brush from my eyes as my winded storm starts to draw forth more bits of the world around it, leaving the sleeping mass I’ve banned it from taking. It’s my phase five storm. It’s my life. It’s my child. It’s. My. Turn.

The breaths begin flowing easily into my chest, and I stand to walk with more ease through the force I shouldn’t be able to withstand. His eyes show the terror when he feels me fighting his strongest weapon.

My child’s heartbeat quickens as the adrenaline rushes her the same as it does me. She’s ready for me to fight this son of a bitch. She’s ready to see her mother show the world why she deserves to live in a place where hybrids are free, happy, and loved.

“No, damn it,” he strains out while trying to push harder against me.

I smirk as his futile attempt to surpass my strength fails. It’s too late. He has pissed me and my child off now. There’s no saving him.

I sling my hand over and his body sails into the debris behind me as he plows up the remains of the once standing compound. He screams as I return the favor, and I show him how strong my crushing force can be. It might not draw the air from his lungs, but it sure as hell doesn’t allow for new breaths to enter.

The storm above darkens as the red lightening strikes, and his screeching cries of pain exude with more force as they zap through him with their convulsing force.

“Doesn’t feel good, does it?” I scoff while staring at him. “Don’t fight it. It’ll hurt less if you just give into the burn,” I mock to exact his words.

A metal rod is jerked from the ground and it slams into his stomach, pinning him down as if my force wasn’t enough. His cries almost make me laugh as the wicked, unforgiving smirk turns up on my lips. The red slithers streak free from the sky again, and their force is magnified by the protruding metal implanted in his body.

He shakes violently, his blood rushing from his body that is no longer healing with instant finesse. His clothes sizzle under the acidic rain gushing free from the clouds, and his eyes roll back in his head as a yellow foam runs from his mouth in heaps.

I show no mercy as the lightening continues to crash, charging his body with the same volts of power he tortured me with. He’s not strong like I was. He can’t stand the taste of his own cruel torture.

His gargles replace his screams, his pants replace his breaths, and his pain replaces his dark heart’s desire as he becomes increasingly limp - his body thrashing harder without him fighting back. His spirit is more broken than his hybrid body, and death is creeping up slowly to free him from the other torture methods swishing through my brain.