I can’t help but smile as I remember the moment they revealed to me that they’d simply gone about planning their rebellion without me.
I hadn’t silenced them. Far from it.
Risking taking my focus off Typhon, I turn the box around to study the last symbol. Even with his explanation, it hasn’t lit up, which tells me he’s got it wrong.
Silence is a tool of oppression, that’s true.
But silence can never be complete.
There is always a sound, even if it’s a whisper, even if it’s the faintest hum. Voices will always break through.
At that, the symbol on the box begins to glow.
My time is up. But I knew it would be.
My beast doesn’t protest. He’s calm and accepting within my mind.
Thank you, friend, I say to him.
Raising my focus from the box, I’m unsurprised to find Typhon now standing only three steps away from me, his location putting him in front of me but slightly to my left, closer to the location of my heart.
“What will you do about your eyes?” I ask him.
His grin grows even broader as he removes his glasses and discards them into the flowers. “I will take yours.”
Complete serenity fills my body and my mind. It’s a peace I never thought I’d attain.
I’ve done awful things. Hurt people who didn’t deserve to be hurt. I’ve struck back at those who cared about me.
I’ve also fought beside them. Endured cruelty for them. Given my life for them.
I have a dark heart, but there is goodness in there, too, and finally, the light has won.
Carefully, I place the box down on the grass in front of me before I stand tall and let my arms rest at my sides. I don’t draw on my claws or my fire or my beast.
I’m vulnerable, and that’s the hardest fucking thing of all.
Violence was always my answer, but not anymore.
Now, my strength comes in other forms. It comes in restraint. It comes in empathy. It comes in forgiveness. Above all, it comes from knowing that every choice I make is mine. Mine to take responsibility for. Mine to own. Mine to know that I can fucking do better.
“Then take them already,” I say to Typhon. “Take your heart bone. Take my eyes. See what you feel. See what you see.”
He glares at me, and I don’t need Peyton’s power to know that he’s highly suspicious of my apparent surrender, but I’m also certain that his greed for power will prevail.
Just as I thought, he leaps forward, and I brace for the pain.
As his claws cut through my chest and his hatred tears my ribs apart, the box clicks open.
Then there’s silence.
32. PEYTON PRICE
“Let me go!” I struggle against Jonah’s hold, clawing at his arms and calling on my snakes to snap at his face.
“To follow Striker now is to choose death,” Jonah snarls into my ear, his arms closing more tightly around me despite the blood I’m drawing and the effort it’s taking. “Would you choose to die?”
“It’s my choice!” I scream. “Mine! Not yours.”
