Tentatively, a strong essence approached me like an offering, and the starved Elemental part of me pounced, ensnaring it under my control.
I absorbed her soul’s energy. Ecstasy soared through my chest, a warmth that chased out the frigid depths that burrowed in my bones and tissues. The familiar essence of comfort wrapped around me in a fierce embrace of steel and sorrow. The foreign emotion of love nestled into my heart, offering a knitted balm for the interwoven ache that held me prisoner to the darkness.
Now that I had a minimal amount of magic again, my body immediately began to heal. My swollen lids grew lighter, allowing me to peek them open. The light blinked in and outconstantly, giving me glimpses of a girl across from me with light purple hair.
“I love you, big brother,” she whispered, her voice quivering in the flickering light. With a sniffle, she added through the tears sliding down her cheeks, “Go be free.”
I tilted my head, knitting my brows as I wracked my jumbled brain. Brother? I suddenly didn’t want to feed from her anymore, knowing on an intuitive level this was wrong.
Sensing my sudden aversion, my essence dug deeper into hers, needing more. The elation consumed me, sending me into a frenzy. I slipped away into the exhilaration as I absorbed her life force to sustain mine.
I groaned as I felt my Elemental magic begin to finally awaken, continuing to pull and pull from her aura.
She choked on a gasp, her eyes widening and clutching the center of her chest, her cheeks drenched in her tears. “I love you, Chrome,” she wept, crashing to her knees.
Unable to stop, I kept draining her aura, but my gut twisted in future regret.
The girl slumped to the side, sprawling to the floor.
Multiple hands wrapped around my throat and arms. The pain of a fist pummeling my cheek hardly fazed me. My only reaction to the slice of a blade driving into my gut was to snatch it free from my body with my element and plunge into my attacker’s throat.
Others rushed me, desperate to slap the bracelets back on my wrists to lock me down. Fuck that. Without slowing my replenishment, I used my Kinetic power to unleash pulses from my body, blasting my attackers several feet back. No way was I going back in chains.
I felt Grim’s Kinetic power try to restrain me, to cancel me out, but I was too strong. Untethered as I was, he stood no chance of stopping me.
I kept draining the girl until there was nothing left; her hair lay in a lavender puddle on the floor. Grim knelt at her side, screaming and shaking her lifeless form.
The girl’s essence embedded in my own, weaving in to strengthen my power. Blips of her memories rolled through my head like a reel.
A younger version of her as a child, tackling me to the floor, and in her excitement at the achievement, she lost focus. I flipped her on her back and pinned her down triumphantly. The little scowl and the pouty lips had a childlike chuckle coming from my chest.
“No!” I cried, my body going cold.
Another memory, this one seeming more recent, gutted me, sending my heart into freefall.
Peri looked to the ceiling. “It’s going to be okay, Brother.”
I chuckled, not amused. “You keep saying that…”
“It fucking will…” Determination hardened her voiceas if she willed herself to believe it as well.
My ears buzzed, drowning out everything else in the room as the memories battered me like I’d just unleashed one of my own pulses on myself.
I shook my head in denial, her memories kick-starting the return of my own. The reality of what I’d just done, stealing my newfound air right from my lungs. My fingers curled around the roots of my hair as I gaped in horror at my lifeless sister before me, unable to blink away the sight.
Peri. No. No. No. No. It was just a horrible hallucination. A nightmare. No, there’s no way that I—
More hands tried to grasp me, but I released my Kinetic power again, sending bigger pulses from my body, tossing them all back against the wall. I jumped to my feet, my body still injured and weak, only for a blast of heat to singe my skin. I locked onto the aura that it came from, pulling and absorbing it. Careful notto deplete it, I stumbled in the direction of the tragedy before me.
More attacks, physical and magical, flew at me in all directions. Unbothered, I slapped my enemies’ weapons away or stabbed their blade into their bodies, then fed from their auras. It would take a lot to fully replenish, but I felt like a cornered lion, ready to maul anyone who came near.
I needed to see for myself that this was real. Or maybe it wasn’t. Gods, I prayed it wasn’t real.
Staggering to Peri’s body on the floor, my legs gave out. I couldn’t breathe, my heart thrashing a vibrant beat in my chest.
“You fucking killed her!” Grim yelled from beside me. I didn’t even see him when I approached. “You weren’t supposed to kill her!”
I slowly tilted my head to face him. The vein in my forehead throbbed, my body flushing hot with a bottomless rage. I clenched my jaw, threatening to shatter my teeth. My nostrils flared and my hands shook with the need to be violent. So, I obliged.
