I stumble backward, desperately trying to stay in the fight to keep Hadrix occupied, but my heart is finally giving out, stuttering, failing to beat. Kicking into life again. Stuttering again.
Nearby, Peyton flies directly at Vulture, and then… My eyes widen… she wraps her hand directly around the White Wand’s uncovered tip.
She fucking takes hold of it with her bare hand and wrenches it away from Vulture.
At her touch, white light bursts across the clearing.
It’s a blinding light that forces all of the students and all of Hadrix’s men to crouch to the ground.
Hadrix himself is so close to the blast that he tumbles across the grass, landing in a heap.
Vulture falls back to the grass with a panicked cry, her empty hands grasping for the power that no longer belongs to her before she’s forced to fling one arm over her face, her screams drowning in the power radiating around us.
Peyton stands over her, still gripping the White Wand in her bare hand, light streaming around her.
She is the eye of the storm, completely in control. Her chest rises and falls with a deeply inhaled breath before she glides forward and presses the wand to Vulture’s neck. “Death.”
Vulture jolts, her upraised arm lowering for the split second it takes for shock to fill her eyes.
Then, her eyes turn blank, her life consumed in a heartbeat.
Her body collapses to the ground a moment before Hadrix recovers. He lurches toward his wife, scrambling across the ground to her, pulling her lifeless form into his arms.
Peyton steers clear of him, appearing to ignore his roar of rage as she moves toward me instead.
She is serene once again. Fully in control.
The threat Hadrix posed to her only minutes ago seems to no longer concern her.
Now that she’s a full Fury, she is otherworldly.
She doesn’t take her eyes off me when I drop to the ground, landing on my knees before I slip to the side and then onto my back.
I find myself resting in a patch of torn-up earth as if the ground is already trying to swallow me, staring up at a sky that mocks me with its beauty.
Peyton crouches beside me, meeting my eyes.
I expect her to end me—to end my pain—but to my confusion, she holds the wand up for me to see.
“This belongs to you,” she says, her crimson eyes glowing. “Choose.”
My forehead creases.Choose… what?
I try to focus on her, even though my vision is beginning to fail. I don’t care that she could use the wand to destroy me. She has control of it now, and that’s all that matters.
All I want is to keep looking at her until my life gives out.
All I need is to know that I did this one thing right.
Her stern look becomes a glare, her crimson gaze and continued intense silence demanding an answer.
Somehow, I manage to rasp, “I don’t want it.”
I only wanted you.
“It’s yours!” she screams, her snakes darting right at my face but stopping just before it seems they would have bitten me.
The edges of my vision are turning dark, and my voice isn’t much more than a murmur as I repeat, “I don’t want it.”
