Maybe this was repentance for such lust.
Punishment for being such an imbecile.
I groaned as another wave of fire worked through me.
I recognised the flames.
I’d lived with the charring heat all my life.
Yet...it’d never been this potent before. Never been this wild and untamed and violent.
I cranked the tap harder, opening the pipes to full force as wintry water pounded my back with needles that ought to have bordered on agony yet felt utterly useless.
I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my forehead to the tiles.
Stop it.
Stop burning.
Stop—
I groaned as another blast of heat detonated from my heart. Heat that I’d felt so many times—just before the vitalsync core knocked me out.
I waited to pass out like usual.
I actually looked forward to oblivion if it meant all of this would end.
But...no dose arrived. No pain. No suffering. No unconsciousness.
I just keptburning.
Hotter and hotter until the tap started to melt.
Bracing against the wall, my right hand strayed to the metal disc over my heart.
At least this gave me definitive proof.
The vitalsync corewasdead.
It would’ve knocked me out by now if it wasn’t.
It no longer had any power over me which filled me with bone-breaking relief but also mind-twisting horror that perhaps...it hadn’t been the vitalsync core hurting me, after all.
Perhaps it had been doing me a favour. Putting me down before I could burn alive.
Had I always been like this?
Had Marcus known and kept the full extent of my madness away from me?
The charred wall filled my head, making my heart trip in fear.
I didn’t want to believe I’d started that fire. Couldn’t believe I’d had the power to do something so inhuman, but...what other answer was there?
Another wave of blistering hotness tore through me.
The tap continued to blister and deform.
I missed the ice pool at Cinderkeep with a vicious, aching intensity.
