“Good,” the Warden praised. “You have served The Mission well. You are all dismissed.”
The door opened. Absolute fury erupted in my chest as I heard those calculated footsteps lure closer.
“What did you do with her, you fucking psycho!?” I demanded. “Where’s Ava-Marie? Where’s my wife?”
The Warden let out a chilling laugh as he circled my table. He set something near my head, and I knew instantly by the twisting in my gut that it was inferichite. I could already feel it pulling on my energy.
“I assure you, your wife is suffering adequately,” the Warden said in amusement. “She is a demigod no more, and neither will you be when I am finished with you. After all the experimenting we’ve done, our work has finally paid off. But I’mdoneexperimenting now.”
He slammed his palms against the table, making me jump. I kept my breath steady, to show him he couldn’t get to me that easily.
“I was saving you for last, Elf prince. I will have all your power now. And once I do, I will finally be strong enough to become the god I was born to be.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR
AVA-MARIE
Two days earlier
Ishould’ve felt terrified. I was going down to Cellblock 9. I should’ve been absolutely losing my mind at the thought of what the Warden was going to do to me and my friends.
I didn’t. All I felt was this all-encompassing fury that drove me into a mad rage as the guards dragged me down the darkened hallway and into a stainless-steel room. It looked like an operation center, with tall cabinets, bright medical lights affixed to the ceiling, and a rolling tray full of surgical instruments.
In the middle of the room was a broad table, fitted with clamps for the wrists and ankles. The guards slammed me onto the surgical table, and I arched my back as I screamed, not in protest, but in hatred for the Warden and all that he was doing to us, for all that he had done and would ever do.
“Stop screaming, Mrs. Wahkin. No one is going to hear you down here.” The Warden entered the room. The guards fixed my wrists and ankles to the clamps, so I was even more helpless. I felt like a butterfly pinned to a board as the Warden scowled, looking down at me from overhead.
“What now, huh, Warden?” I rasped. “Show me the next step in this big plan of yours.”
“My plan has never changed. It’s only just now become possible,” the Warden replied. “And since it has, I see no reason as to why I shouldn’t start with you.”
“Fuck you. You’re no god,” I sneered.
“That’s something you don’t understand. Iama god because I believe myself to be, and others will follow me without question. You don’t need to prove power, Mrs. Wahkin; you just need to convince other people that you have the ability to save them. Once I’ve drained you of your demigod abilities, I will.”
“Taking my magic isn’t going to make everyone want to follow you. There will be others who will rise up,” I hissed.
“That’s the secret, my dear.” He leaned down, so he could whisper in my ear. “I don’tneedyour power to convince the other supernatural societies to follow me. I just want it because… well, why not? Why wouldn’t I want to become a supreme being? If I am truly going to challenge the gods, as I fully well intend, I’m going to need all of your magic. And I’m going to leave you nothing for yourself.”
I spat in his face, but the Warden sidestepped away and shook his head. “You’ll never learn, will you? I’ve managed to break everyone that’s come into this prison but you, and I have to say, I admire that about you. Perhaps there’s something in that magic of yours that’ll give me just as much courage.”
“Go ahead and take it. I’m still going to stop you,” I promised.
“By the time I get done with you, there will be nothing left to fight me with.”
The Warden placed two inferichite crystals by the sides of my head. I gave a sputtering laugh. “This again? It didn’t work the last time. What makes you think it’ll work now?”
“Because after all these years, I’ve finally perfected the ceremony. I know exactly what I must do,” the Warden replied. “I wish I could promise that this won’t hurt… but, I’m sorry. I’m actually happy that it will.”
My wrists yanked at the clamps as I gave another infuriated, carnal scream. The Warden hovered his hand over my temple, reciting the ceremony’s incantation. “Nunc hac potestate utar meo. Hanc nunc exhauriam victimam, ut sit deus, ac flos efficiar.”
The words were still Latin, but different from when Jaymin Riske had used them in the Infernal Underground.I now take this power to use it for my own. I now drain this victim, to become god, and become elite.
A thick tendril of magic erupted from both inferichite crystals, smashing into the sides of my temple. This time, the ceremony was even more painful than the last. The power the inferichite held completely dominated my system, pinning me to the table so I couldn’t move, couldn’t writhe in pain. My mouth opened in a silent scream, my throat unable to produce words. I waited for the infinite agony to wash over me, for the endless torture to twist my body into an unimaginable state of suffering.
And the pain did come… but it wassodifferent this time. Almost familiar, in a way. I felt the stabbing knives of the inferichite piercing my organs, my magic burning me up and drowning me all at once while my healing abilities tore my muscles in two, trying to end it all. My bones turned to blades to rip apart my skin, my lungs struggled to gasp for air amidst the holes in my chest, and yet…
This was absolutely nothing. I’d once thought the pain the inferichite gave me was the worst pain I’d ever experienced, but it couldn’t hold a candle to the months I’d spent in the hospital recovering from my spinal injury, my surgery, and all that had come along with it. The ceremony was more intense, because it was all at once, but nobody understood that I’d been subjected to agonizing bouts of torment for months on end. After what I’d experienced, the inferichite couldn’t touch me. I remembered the long days after I’d woken up from my coma, the hours I’d spent struggling through class when I wondered if I was going to pass out from the hurt, the night I’d begged Charlie to end it all. That wasrealpain. Compared to that, this might as well have been a vacation. It was almostenjoyable.
