Beck squeezed his eyes shut then returned his gaze to me. I lifted my chin and nodded. He wrapped his hand around the chain to pull himself up once more when anothercrack!pierced the air, and next to me, Phoenix’s chest buckled, his body tensed as he tried to fight back the wail I knew was stuck inside his throat.
“Clarence, that’s enough,” I spat. Clarence’s only reply was to force the girl to slash him again and again and again. Phoenix’s body went slack, and I tore my gaze away.
“Focus, Julian,” Flo said in my ear, pulling me back to what was in front of me. The room was spinning, but I had to hang on. “What do I have to do to get it out of you, Heathen?”
My head bobbed backward until my gaze settled on hers. “Be someone else.”
Flo’s smile fell, and she struck my face. My head whipped to the side where Phoenix could barely hold his head up, the girl using every tool in her arsenal on him. I cocked my head to the side to see Flo standing there, her chest rising and falling as she breathed hard.
“Hit me again,” I ordered. And she hit me harder when I swayed to the side, feeling the energy bounce through my veins. “AGAIN!”
Flo whipped the chain in the air like a lasso before it cracked against my side. The pain fired into my marrow, shot across my skeleton. I saw black for a second, and I forced my head up when Beck ascended, his blue water element swirling from his sparkling chest. He could barely keep his eyes open, and I shook my head, all my worry now on him.
Just before his color dimmed out, Beck pulled through and guided his element toward the bottle, where Winnifred captured it. The girl unchained him, and he too collapsed to the floor, arms sprawled out at his sides as his breathing matched that of the pelting rain.
One more Heathen, and I could let go. I would never release my spirit element until all my brothers were finished, needing to be there in case something went wrong. Phoenix was last, and he could hardly hold himself up any longer.
“I’m done,” he said low, his words running together. Blood seeped from his wounds, down his tanned skin. He dropped his head back. “I can’t anymore.”
“Yes, you can. It’s only you and me left, Nix,” I told him. It was always him and me left because he experienced more torture than any of us. His body had the scars to prove it.
Phoenix tilted his head to the side, following my voice, his golden eyes glowing.
“If it bleeds, it suffers,” I said, reminding him he wasn’t an object. This pain was proof we were men, warriors, and we had the strength, heart, and will to get through anything.
Phoenix’s ankle rolled over the hay as he hung from the chain. He blew out a harsh breath and pulled his other foot up until it met the solid ground. At the corner of my eye, Clarence came up behind Phoenix with his belt and whipped him, slashing it against his back. Phoenix’s back arched, and he lurched forward, but the chain caught at his wrist, yanking him back in place.
After a few more minutes of watching Phoenix being beaten from both sides, his body jolted, fist clenched so hard, blood seeped from his palms. His magic pulled him up onto his toes as a bright yellow cloud expelled from his mask, his nose.
“Control it!” I screamed, watching him let it control him. “Nix, fucking control it!”
Phoenix was out of it, locked in a zone somewhere that wasn’t here. Clarence gripped the back of Phoenix’s neck, and I snapped.
My hand shot out, and a magical force expelled from my fingertips, throwing Clarence backward until he was pinned against the barn wall. Focusing, I kept him there and narrowed my eyes on the fire element, guiding it with my gaze to the decanter in the middle until it blended with the others into a dark greenish color. Winnifred popped in the cork, her eyes lifted to mine.
“Let him go,” I told the girl standing in front of Phoenix, refusing to release Clarence until he was free.
Scared, she quickly unchained his wrist, and his body slumped to the floor with athump!The girl then dropped to her knees and freed his ankles.
I turned my attention back to Flo, who had been watching this entire time. “You’ll have to beat it out of me,” I growled, knowing what she had to do. Flo shook her head. I’d scared her, and now she was worried about what I could do to her if she continued.“DO IT!”I wanted this over now. Flo narrowed her eyes as she reached for the whip again.
“As you wish,” she whispered, taking a few steps forward.
I was far past the point of pretending this didn’t hurt. I didn’t have to hold on any longer since the rest were finished.
“Come on, Clarence, what are you waiting for?” I mocked, and he laughed behind me. I heard him step through the hay closer, and I straightened my back, begging for it.
Then the slashes came from both sides, one right after the other. I squeezed my eyes shut, focusing on the pain. The vibrations jolted my veins once again, and I clenched my fists.
“HARDER!”
I felt the breaking of my skin, each time worse than the last. Flo sliced my side, and after a few cracks more, my body shook. A scream ripped from my throat. A bright silvery light, the spirit element, erupted from my chest! With it, a tainted black cloud swirled in its color.
I flexed my muscles, gaining control. Through the transparent cloud, Winnifred waited with the decanter, and I used my heavy arm to guide it toward her. The colors warred with each other, warred with me. Every vein in my arm pumped against my skin, and the cloud moved toward Winnifred and into the bottle. She plugged the hole, and my arm dropped at my side.
“Good job, Blackwell,” Flo said in a sing-song voice, running her fingers across my wounds. After so long, they would heal like the rest of my scars, turn to tarnished red and white lines, but not until they seeped into my soul first.
Internal scars never healed when they always bled.
