Take Me

“Look out!” I shrieked when a tall, thin man, carrying a spear rushed at us with his weapon held high.

I had to stop him. Instinct took over, and I flung my hand out. A rush of wind burst from my fingertips hitting him in the chest and he fell back, dazed.

“Stop trying to protect me!” I shouted before knocking back another fighter and then another, blasting them with my magic wind.

I wasn't exactly trying to be skillful. There was no time to focus my energy. I flailed around at random, striking one after another, while Parris and Garret finally got the hint and started fighting for themselves rather than trying to fight for me. Not that I wasn't thankful for the help or anything, but they weren't doing much good.

A Fae woman shrieked as Garret took hold of her arm and snapped it like a twig. Then he squared up and kicked her in the midriff with all his might. She flew back against a boulder, and even over all the screaming and shouting, I could hear her spine snap.

From the corner of my eye, I watched Parris take on two men at once, taking them both by the neck and knocking their heads together before flinging them away like a pair of rag dolls. Yet still they came, more and more of them. Arrows flew at us from every direction, narrowly missing us and embedding themselves in the trees and the ground.

“Elliot!” I screamed.

He spun out of the way just in time for him to avoid a tall, hulking fighter brandishing a club that he'd been about to bring down on Elliot's head. Fury bubbled up inside me, hot and satisfying, and I harnessed the energy before flinging it out through my hands. The assailant was thrown backwards and the club wrenched from his hand. Within seconds, his screams pierced the air as he tumbled off the edge of a cliff.

But they didn’t stop. They kept coming, more and more of them.

And they had magic, too. It finally hit me that the first wave of the attack was meant to tire us out. It was the second wave of warriors who were the real threat.

No sooner had I come to that realization than a blast of hurricane-strength wind knocked me on my ass. Pain shot up my spine as I landed squarely on my tailbone.

Elliot appeared at my side at once and lifted me off the ground. “They have wind, too!”

“No kidding!” I shouted.

It wasn’t just wind, though. I could make Parris hover above the ground, and I could knock a man down when I was good and pissed, but I couldn't pull rocks from the ground and use them as weapons without my hands. I couldn’t knock down a tree from a hundred yards out. I heard a crackling noise an instant before turning to find one of the towering pines swaying drunkenly. Garret was fighting off a pair of fierce female warriors, all three exchanging blow after blow. The female warriors were half crazy, totally absorbed in their mission to destroy him.

Which meant he didn't know a tree was about to fall on him.

“Garret!” I shrieked, but he was too wrapped up in the fight.

I focused my power on him, lifting him ten feet off the ground and out of the way of the falling pine, not a heartbeat before it came crashing down and crushed his opponents.

“Squashed Fae pancakes!” I almost whooped with glee until another, stronger blast of energy hit us.

It caught Parris off guard, flinging him against the fallen pine. He fell to the ground and slumped over, eyes closed.

I took stock of the situation. Parris was down, and Garret was struggling to fight—the powers he’d gotten from my blood fainter now, not like they were back in Sypani. Elliot was flying back and forth, zipping in and out and doing whatever he could to keep the fighters back before anyone got to me.

But Parris was the final straw. They had hurt him. It took a lot to injure a Synian. I knew the Fae were capable of that, but I had never seen him like this.

And in my rage, frustration, and fear for him, something inside me snapped.

A white-hot ball of electricity blossomed in my core. It should have scared me half to death, something that powerful and unexpected and uncontrollable.

But I welcomed it. Yes, yes, this. This was what I was made for, and I would make them pay.

“Jaide!” It was Elliot's voice, ringing out over everything else, beyond even the wind rushing in my ears.

It was the last thing I heard before I closed my eyes, braced myself, and allowed that energy to explode from me in every direction. I opened my eyes just in time to see a wave of lightning rippling out all around me—bright white—sizzling the ground, the trees, and even the rocks which were exploding from the force.

Then there was screaming. The voices were high-pitched, terrified, and filled with pain. One after another they fell, and soon the stench of burning flesh and charred hair filled the air. I stood back and watched, still anguished over Parris, as Fae—who only moments ago were hell-bent on killing us—now twitched, screamed, and writhed on the ground. It wasn't long before the screams grew dim, before silence fell.

And then there was nothing but me, standing in the center of a charred circle. Paris was beginning to stir, and Garret went to him while Elliott stood before me and stared.

“What did you do?” Elliot asked in an odd voice.

“I don't know,” I admitted. “It just...happened.”

We both turned at the same time as the sound of shuffling caught our attention. One of the Fae warriors had survived and was crawling on hand and knee, what was left of his hair now singed and smoking. Skin was peeling from his arms, and still he crawled, his lips working but no sound coming out.

I had done that. That was me. I had roasted him, along with the rest of them.

He was trying to say something. I strained my ears, bending down a little even though the last thing I wanted was to be anywhere near this pitiful thing. “House...” he croaked. “The lost house.”

He gave out one, final groan before collapsing and dying at my feet.