She has to do this for herself.
On her own, but not alone.
For a fleeting second, the little fucker attempts to defy me, then finally…it spreads through my blood and my tense body relaxes. She closes those hypnotizing eyes once again, and her hand lifts slightly, hovering near her heart like she doesn’t quite know where to put it.
“If this goes sideways…” she mutters.
“It won’t.” All four of us huff.
Her lips twitch like she wants to argue with that.
She doesn’t. A long, slow breath pours through her parted mouth.
Then she drops it.
The difference in her isn’t calm or gradual.
It’sviolent.
She folds like someone just hit her square in the chest, and her breath rips out of her as her knees buckle.
My eyes widen and my heart races as I catch her, but it doesn’t stop the way she curls in on herself. Her fingers clutch my shirt like she’s trying to hold something inside.
Or keep it from tearing her apart on its way out.
“Fuck—” she chokes.
It all comes roaring out.
Not one emotion.
All of them.
Her powers flicker. Wild and unstable, but they don’t lash out. They just…react, like they don’t know where to go under the weight of everything slamming back into place.
Her soul snatches ours and grunts fall from each of us. My Chaos stirs, wanting badly to do something, anything, but my Harmony shuts it down. I’m grateful for it at the moment.
The last thing she needs is for everything she’s feeling to be amplified.
Her grip tightens and her nails pierce my skin through my shirt. Any other time, I wouldn’t mind her little pinch of pain. I don’t care for that shit when it’s becauseshe’sthe one in pain.
“I couldn’t—” Her voice breaks, sharp and uneven. “I couldn’t think straight. He told me—then I couldn’t—”
Her words trip over themselves, fractured and confusing before her face contorts into something familiar.
Rage.
It’s hot enough to burn. It bleeds through her and into me. I fight off the sensation and my Harmony as it tries to wash it away.
Don’t touch shit. Feel what she feels.
I don’t give a fuck if it’s suffocating.
“Der-Derivius told me.” She gasps like she just took a kick to the stomach. “I couldn’t stop thinking about if they could do that to him, what would they do to you all. I lost it. I put the barrier up between you all and him.”
The four of us share a quick glance with one another, then our attention snaps back to her when the sound I love the least comes out of her.
Her first sob.
