“That’s enough.” Logan’s suddenly in front of me, blocking my view of the sky.
I snarl at him. “I told you to give me aminute.”
“I gave you five of them.” His hands close around my wrists, his fingers flinching at the contact. But instead of letting go, his grip tightens, and he forces me to lower my arms with strength that should seriously be illegal given how exhausted he looks. “Your nose is bleeding. You’re pushing yourself too hard.”
I taste copper on my lips and ignore it.
“Let go of me.”
“Jade—”
“I saidlet go.”I try to wrench my arms free, but his hands won’t budge. “I can do this. I just need to figure out?—”
“Figure out what? How to kill yourself faster? Because that’s all you’re accomplishing right now.”
“Maybe if you’d stop interrupting me?—”
“I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“And I’m trying to keepallof us alive!” The words tear out of me. “What happens in two days when we’re too weak to move? What happens in three days when wedie of thirst?Oh wait—I know. We’ll be dead. One hundred, one thousand percentdead.”
“There’s a difference between trying to help and throwing yourself at a wall until you shatter,” he says, his expression vulnerable in a way I rarely see. “We’ll find another way.”
“There is no other way,” I say, hating how weak and pathetic I sound. “Tempest made me her champion, which means I should be able to do this, and if I can’t?—”
“Then we figure out something else.” He releases me, and I stumble back a step.
Kieran cuts through, calm and final. “He’s right. Save your strength.”
Callie sighs, as if my attempt tosave their livesis a mere inconvenience. “Listen to them,” she says. “You need to stop. You look like death.”
Stop.
Everyone wants me to stop. Logan with his desperate pleading, Kieran with his practical assessment, Callie with her mock sympathy, and Evie with her worried eyes.
They all think I’m going to fail.
Everyone always thinks I’ll fail. My parents, disappointed that I couldn’t get into Yale. My ex-boyfriend, who threw me away the second I didn’t fit into his perfect future. My friends, who vanished when I became inconvenient.
You’re exactly as worthless as everyone who left you believed.
The thought surfaces, sharp and bitter, and the last thread of restraint snaps.
“None of you get to tell me what I can and can’t do.” The words come out low and dangerous. “You want to know what I’m feeling? What emotion is driving my magic right now?” I laugh, and it sounds unhinged, even to my own ears. “I’mangry.I’m angry that we’re stuck out here dying. I’m angry that T chose me and abandoned me. I’m angry that everyone I’ve ever trusted has either left me or lied to me or told me I wasn’t good enough.”
Silver electricity crackles between my fingers.
“And I am sotiredof being the girl who fails.”
I turn back to the sky, and when I reach for my power, I don’t push it out.
I reach up.
Not with my magic, but with my rage, my fear, and my desperate, bone-deep refusal to die in the middle of nowhere while everyone tells me they told me so.
I’m the champion of a goddess who commands hurricanes, thunder, and the fury of the sky. And I’m notaskingthe storm to come.
I’mdemandingit.
