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“You’re fuckingnothing,” Luther growls. His words reopen the scars on my heart I’ve tried so hard to bury over the years. The ones left by disinterested case workers, resentful foster homes, power-tripping teachers. By other kids on the playground who saw my tattered clothes and worn shoes and laughed in my face. But I’m not that small, broken girl I used to be.
I’m smart.
I’mstrong.
“I amnotnothing,” I say to him almost as much to myself, making it real. Breathing life into my declaration to the universe.
“You.” He strikes out, but I block him. “Are.” Strike. Block. Again. “Nothing.”
Among the circle of jeering students surrounding us, I hear Calanthe shout, “It’s time you learned this lesson, witchling. You only have yourself to blame.”
I glance at her cruel smile before giving Luther a hard stare. “Enough. I’m not going to stand here and take this shit.” I throw my padded mitts into the mud. “You’re not worth it.”
But that’s the wrong thing to say.
Before I can turn and fight my way through the crowd, he launches himself at me. I roll just in time to avoid being tackled, but trip when he grabs my ankle, realizing too late when I land hard in the mud that we’re no longer just sparring. I writhe in his grasp trying to get free, but when my back arches and my ass brushes against his crotch, I notice?—
“Are you fucking hard right now?” I hiss, digging my fingernails into his arm when our hips meet as I struggle against him, to both our shock. “What the fuck?—”
My elbow catches him by surprise, knocking his head back, but his unforgiving grip keeps my arms pinned as he rolls us over until he’s straddling my stomach, lowering his weight onto my chest and knocking the breath of me.
“Shut up. Shut up!” he hisses, wrenching my wrists above my head and pinning them when I try to hit him, squeezing hard enough to make my bones grate.
“Get the fuck off me!” I shout, but there’s not enough air in my lungs to be heard over the roar of the crowd around us. He shakes me in response, and I finally understand. He’s not just pissed about his friends and lashing out at the easiest target.
His wide, glassy eyes look right through me, frozen in a manic stare.
Whatever he’s seeing, it’s not me.
He’s breaking apart.
And no one’s going to stop him.
No one’s going to save me.
Time slows as the realization washes over me. My ears ring and my head pounds, starved for oxygen. Despite everything, my heart aches trying to pump blood through my body.
In the next instant, deep within my chest, a spark ignites.
I barely notice it at first.
It expands, growing hotter, radiating outward until the mounting pressure behind it threatens to break my ribs.
But it’s not my bones that splinter and snap.
It’s something deeper.
Something darker.
Something that wantsout.
From this new gaping maw in my chest, searing heat pours out of the depths.
It floods my veins.
