Page 50 of The Witch They Fear

Burns. Deep, red, raw, already blistering. The skin is peeling at the edges, angry and wet, and the pattern is unmistakable. Handprints. My own handprints, ten fingers seared into the flesh of my forearms like a brand. Like someone grabbed me and held on while I cooked from the inside out.

Except the someone was me.

My vision blurs. Tears—hot, immediate, unstoppable.

My hands shake in front of me as I see what I’ve done…

I'm a monster.

It's not even a thought. It's older than that—a truth that's been living in my marrow since I was thirteen, since I woke up in rubble with eleven bodies and the understanding that I would never be safe to love, safe to hold, safe to stand next to in a crowded room. I just set myself on fire because the alternative was setting him on fire—Aamon, three feet away, reaching for me to help—and the fact that I consider self-immolation a win tells me everything.

I don't want to be this.

I don't want to be the girl with the body count, the witch who kills everything she touches. I want a life. I want to sit in a classroom and argue about theory and eat bad bread rolls and have a friend who bumps my shoulder. But wanting doesn't change what I am, and what I am is a loaded gun that keeps going off in rooms full of people I don't want to hurt.

I bolt for the door.

Aamon is already there.

Vampire speed—one second he's by the couch, the next he's at the exit, filling the doorframe with his shoulders, one hand flat against the wall. His composure is different. The usual stillness has something underneath it—tight, strained, a cable being pulled taut. His jaw is set so hard I can see the muscle jumping beneath his skin.

"Show me your arms," he says. Low. Controlled. But his voice has an edge I haven't heard before—something raw pressing against the professional surface.

"Move."

"Show me your arms, Calypso."

"Move." My voice breaks on the word. The tears are falling now and I can't stop them and I refuse to stand here crying in front of this man with my own handprints burned into my skin. "Get out of my way."

His eyes drop to my forearms. To the burns. The blisters. The unmistakable shape of fingers.

His face breaks. Just for a second—a crack that runs through the composure like a fissure through stone—and what's underneath it isn't anger or disappointment or professional concern. It's pain. His pain, not mine. Like seeing my burned arms did something to him that five centuries of control can't quite cover.

“Calypso–”

“Let. Me. Go,” I grit.

He steels whatever emotion he was about to let slip. Steps aside.

"You don't want my help? Fine." His voice is level again but the edge is still there, buried. "Suit yourself."

I push past him. Up the stairs. Through his office. Into the corridor. My arms are screaming and the tears are blurring the portraits on the walls and the enforcer at the end of the hall—Corvin—starts toward me when he sees my face.

I don't stop. Don't slow down. Don't explain.

I walk straight to Dean Leyonna's office.

Corvin follows. Keeps pace. Has the sense not to talk.

The administrative building is quieter today—late afternoon, most students elsewhere. I take the marble stairs two at a time, ignoring the way my forearms shriek with every swing of my arms, and stop in front of the mahogany door at the end of the corridor.

I knock. Hard. My arms in agony but I don’t care.

"Come in." Musical. Calibrated. Like she knew I was coming.

Probably smelled me coming. Freaking vamp stuff.

I wonder if she can smell my breakdown coming too.