I was so sick of the emptiness, sick of the darkness. I was so sick of fighting to fit in. I’d never belong, never be loved for who I was. History had taught me so, every time I allowed myself to think differently, I’d be broken all over again.
Somewhere in the distance I could hear my name being called, like it was spoken by the winds, and then it was gone. Iwas so tired. I wanted to sleep. I wanted to let go. Yes, just let go. I began to drop my hands.
“Soon,” I whispered to myself. Soon my pain would be over. And I felt relief.
“Ammmyyyy.”That sound again. Only it wasn’t the winds, it was Georgie.
The sound of her desperation snapped me back. I straightened myself up, blinking, dazed for a long moment. My brain pounded in my head like it was trying to birth itself out the top of my skull. My nose was bleeding, blood was rushing over my lips, down my chin and dribbling to the floor.
Sarah noticed I was weakening. An awful glee glinted in her eyes. She was perched like a spider ready to launch.
The clock tick, tick, ticked. Like a countdown to a sordid demise.
“Amy,” Georgie sobbed, “Amy, I can’t—” her voice choked in her throat. “I can’t.”
She was telling me she couldn’t hold on. Her calves would be cramping, the muscles convulsing into themselves, pulling the fibres taut, like threads on a spinning wheel until the fibrespop-pop-popped. I didn’t look but somehow, I knew she’d be shifting foot to foot, fighting the pain.
“Hang on, Georgie,” I cried out.
Silence. She didn’t answer. Jesus, was she hanging?
“Georgie?”
The silence was awful. I didn’t want to look but I had to. I twisted my head slightly and flicked my eyes across for less than a half a second, enough time to register she was still standing. Tears ran down her face like rain. Her mouth was opening and closing but there was no sound coming out of her mouth.
It was all Sarah needed. One moment without my attention. I caught her coming peripherally, like a bullet train engulfed by fire toward us. I threw every bit of energy I had left at mydisposal, stark terror, rage, and pure desperation. The power leaped out of my hands. My head felt like it was going to explode, I cried out. Her body jerked suddenly sideways as if she were a puppet and someone had yanked the string. She hit the wall and it exploded, wood fragments burst through the air. A triangle chunk of bookcase jutted out through her right shoulder. The impact had ripped it from the socket and it hung from her side at a deformed angle. The pointy end of what looked like a short, white stick poked through the skin below her neck. It took a moment to realize it was her collar bone.
That had to hurt. Enough to incapacitate her.
It wasn’t.
Amongst a hail of wind drawn from the power that surged inside, I watched, in surreal, morbid fascination, as she jerked her body back. The collar bone disappeared back inside and, with another manic movement, her shoulder clicked back into place. The point of the wooden shelf remained, pinning her against the wall. She reached her left hand up, fingers hooking around the splinted wood, and yanked it out. Her shoulder split like an axe slammed into firewood. Blood spilled out, coating her white blouse. She grimaced no more than if she were pulling out a splinter. Her skin closed over behind the wound and the blood ceased to flow. She tossed the offending lump of wood, smeared in her blood to the side. The sound of the earth moving quaked my mind.
At first I thought I was imagining it. It couldn’t be real, some trick of a crumbling mind unable to cope with reality, maybe the effects of whatever drugs Sarah had plied me with. But the wall quivered and shook. The sound of grinding metal filled the air and the books that sat on the bookshelf wobbled like hefty thighs. The vibration sent them spiralling with a slap, slap, slap, to the floor. The wall was opening sideways to the left. The millisecond I took my attention from Sarah she freed herselfagain and slipped into the dark space behind. The wall shunted with a hefty groan to a halt, a large gap remained.
I stood staring into the darkness, shaking uncontrollably. My vision was blurred. My heart beat madly. My ears were pricked for noise. My hands were ready, primed, waiting to see her shape appear.
Gurgling, spluttering sounds of choking came from behind me.
Oh God, Georgie was hanging. I went to glance back, simultaneously Sarah came running out with blinding speed. I urged the remaining threads of my power at her, but it was too late. Her hand snaked out, razored claws dug into my stomach, and yanked down. It felt like hot pokers dragged through my skin. I felt a gush of warm wetness seep over my hips. A startled cry left my lips. Her body flew backwards as mine toppled back to the floor. I lay flat on my back, staring at the ceiling. Bewildered, exhausted, and terrified.
Move, you idiot, move.
I shot up, rising just in time to see her coming again. The energy exploded from my hands and shimmered visibly like heat waves over hot tarmac in front of me. She launched again and again at an invisible wall but she couldn’t push through. I held her there, my strength beginning to drain. Every muscle quivering and heavy. My lungs burned like a glowing ember had been tossed inside. The threads of the fabric of my strength began to snap, one by one, until I was ready to collapse.
Her rage glittered in her eyes and burned my mind. I thought about Georgie, about Ethan and Karson. At what Sarah would take from all of us, at what she planned to do to him.
And now everything depended on me, the girl who’d had no control over her life for all those years. My fate perpetually in the hands of monsters. Death hovered metres away. Relief from all the suffering . . .
I got to choose. I could give up and we’d both die, or I could fight to survive.
Mom had left me. Tom had left me. Karson had left me. What was the point in fighting? I couldn’t do it anymore, I couldn’t.
I will fuck him, run the same hands that killed the woman he loves over his body.
He would never see it coming.
That thought spiked a flare of anger, drawing the pain. A potent cocktail of power swelled and began to grow in the back of my mind. The force of it pressed against the walls of my head, and it began to snake its way through my veins. It grew slowly at first, leaking its way through my body, leeching into every muscle, every limb, every cell, as if it had a life force of its own. Charging my core, blackening everything.
