Page 94 of Walking in Darkness

So intense I could barely bottle it.

Could barely restrain it.

But I needed to be able to direct it. Control it in some way that assured I might be able to get away.

I still wasn’t entirely sure how to use it. If I evencoulduse it on humans like this.

A defense.

A weapon.

My mind spun through the scenarios. Worried if I loosed the energy too early—if they weren’t close enough—I wouldn’t be able to strike them all. Worried I wouldn’t be able to incapacitate them all.

More than that, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to harness it again once I expelled it. That it’d be used up, and I’d be drained and completely weakened.

Then I’d be completely powerless.

I wasn’t sure I could risk leaving myself that way. Not when I didn’t understand the strength any of us possessed. How the impossibility writhing in a sky that sagged too low above me was going to affect the men. Not when I didn’t know what would happen if I used the rage inside me that begged to be delivered.

I railed against the two monsters who held me by either arm as they hauled me up toward the other three, who frolicked like fiends below a colossal tree, waving their knives in the air as they chanted, “She’s the one, she’s the one.”

I could smell the stench of alcohol that oozed from their pores, though it was bloated by something foul. Something sickeninglycloying that saturated the atmosphere in a thick mist that rained from the toxic heavens.

My spirit screamed as it called for my Nol.

Pax, Pax, Pax.

I could almost feel him racing along the fringes of my consciousness, his fingertips ghosting over my soul as I silently begged for him to be okay.

He had to be.

He had to be.

I couldn’t believe I would feel him so strongly if that blow had killed him. And that connection had only grown stronger with each mile that should have taken me farther away from him.

Once we reached the clearing below the wide arch of the tree, the men restraining me threw me forward. It sent me stumbling through the mushy earth and grass toward the other three men.

The ground was cold beneath my bare feet. So cold it sent a chill curling up my legs. Frozen chains that clawed and sank in my flesh.

I whirled in every direction, and the long locks of my hair whipped around my face as I frantically searched for a place to run. Terrified of trying to fight them all off while something untapped inside me screamed.

Shouted that I must not succumb to the fear. To the horrors of a simple girl who wanted to drop to her knees and wail. To beg to finally wake up from this nightmare.

But there was no waking fromthis.

My purpose.

My calling.

My fate.

All five of them encroached, creating a large circle that caged me in, a writhing ring of barbarity. “She’s the one. She’s the one that he wants. He will be pleased when she bleeds.”

“She’s the one,” the voices sang overhead. One man stepped forward and slashed his knife. The tip just barely nicked my arm, which wasalready bleeding from the broken glass, the loose tee I wore torn and tattered on that side.

On a jolted gasp, I spun away from him, the oxygen heaving from my lungs as vapor as I dove in the other direction. Only the man who’d struck Pax with the crowbar whipped it through the air. It whooshed in front of me, just missing my face.

I whirled again, around and around as I attempted to keep them at bay while the energy churned inside me. Stronger and stronger, it grew. Almost sickening in its strength.