“There’s no use fighting, Damir,” Kellan said. “I taught you that long ago.”
“Why are you doing this?” Teddy demanded. “Why did you choose me?”
Kellan’s typing paused. “Because it could never be anyone else.”
“So what? You’re going to magically enhance me? Why would you do that if you’re planning to kill me? Research?”
“Because you need to be at your strongest.”
“But why?”
“Because you were the one I chose!” Kellan yelled, pushing a rolling cart full of syringes aside to clatter into a wall. “After years of watching, of selecting. You were the best. I need the best. I can only use the best. Don’t you understand?”
Teddy’s mind raced and his heart pounded in terror. He needed to buy time, and he needed answers if he ever got out of this alive.
“No, I don’t,” he said. “I don’t understand any of this. You spent years torturing me, hurting me. For what?”
“To make sure you stayed,” Kellan said. “I needed to keep you close for when this all finally came together.”
“Your drug ring?” Teddy asked.
“The drug getting out was a side effect.” Kellan waved a hand. “A needed one, for the money and connections. I promised them power and they gave me the resources I lacked to make what I truly needed. What I could use to make a real difference.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“EVERYTHING!” Kellan said loudly, making Teddy flinch. “Your magic needs to be at its highest. At its strongest!”
“For what?” Teddy asked. “Cursebreaker magic isn’t even active. I can’t do anything but break curses with it.”
“See?!” Kellan whirled around, pointing at Teddy. “You don’t even know what you can do with it. So much of it, and it’s WASTED on you! You’ll be better off without it.”
Teddy froze, his heart stopping for a second before resuming to drum so loudly he thought it would choke him.
“You want my magic,” he breathed out, horrified by the thought. Disgusted by the perversion of it.
Kellan grabbed his face, nails digging into his flesh. “I want everything.”
“You’re insane.”
“You would say that,” Kellan spat. “You, who have never had to struggle or fight.”
“What are you talking about? I’ve been fighting you for as long as I can remember. I’ve fought and struggled my whole life, being told what I had to do from the time I was born. Being told that I couldn’t even love who I chose,” Teddy snarled, years of pain and agony pouring out. “What have you had to struggle for? You’re a caster, you’re at the top of the world order. What could you possibly need to fight for? More power? Why isn’t what you have enough?”
“BECAUSE THEY LOOK DOWN ON ME!”
Teddy caught his breath as Kellan fisted a hand in his hair viciously, spittle flying into his face.
“Don’t you understand that caster ranks are like currency? If you’re not at the top, then they treat you like less than a cursebreaker. You’re there to be walked on. Discarded as useless.”
“You’re an instructor, you have to be at least level—” Teddy cut himself off. “Unless you’re not. Unless they hired you despite you being a lower level.”
“My research and designs were coveted by my higher-ups. They offered me a position at the facility to hand it over,” Kellan said. “But they never treated me as their equal. They always saw me as beneath them. Beneath people like you. They buried my hard work. Said it was dangerous!”
“If you wanted more power then why didn’t you target a caster?”
“Because they wouldn’t have cared. If I had simply acquired power they would still look down on me. I need something more. Something you have.”
“What are you talking about?”
