“I don’t need the light. Iamthe light.” I am so full of power that I’m unable to stay on the ground. I vibrate with it.
I drop a hand on his shoulder and pour all my anger into the touch. I can’t hear his scream over the crackling white noise filling my ears. But I see his mouth wide open, head thrown back. Tendons in his neck bulge as his shirt smokes. Every feature contorts in pain.
He tries to pull back but I don’t let him. I grab his wrist so he can’t retreat. I pour the power into him.
“You’re fine,” I say calmly. “This doesn’t hurt at all.”
His eyes are wild as his shirt smokes and then catches fire. I don’t feel the heat. It doesn’t affect me at all.
“Please stop. I’m sorry. Please. I’m sorry, let me go.” His mouth forms the words. I quiet myself so I can hear him pleading. Turn down my flow so that I can talk to him.
“Is this how your sons begged you when you hurt them?” I ask.
He shakes his head, still denying. “I was tough on them. I’m sorry. I didn’t kill Lincoln.”
“Even now you lie?” He manages to convince himself he’s in the right. He says what he think I need to hear.
“I won’t hurt him. I swear.”
“You won’t hurt anyone ever again.”
In his eyes, I see myself. A beam of burning revenge. I am the goddess Nathaniel saw in me.
I am untouchable.
There’s a smell—acrid and rotten. It’s his flesh melting, I realize. I could kill him. I could end his life. He deserves it.
A moment of clarity hits me.
You are not a murderer.
I didn’t think I was. But I also thought I was weak. I thought I was unlovable. Now I know that I am powerful. I can do whatever I want.
Violence isn’t power, little jewel.
I drop him and he falls to the ground, moaning. “You don’t deserve my mercy. You deserve to burn.”
He’s whimpering on the ground. His shirt has stopped burning but the air is cloying. Smoke burns my eyes.
I glare down at him, almost scared of the power that I’m still a little drunk on. Was this the feeling that leads people to murder and cause suffering? I felt unstoppable. Like I could do whatever I want. But that is what exactly what William thinks I’m capable of. Because that’s exactly howhewould act if he had my powers.
But I’m not like him.
“I’m better than you,” I say, floating in the light of love. “No matter how strong you think you are, you will always be weak. You chose hate and fear because deep down that’s all you think you deserve. I pity you. The world you know is changing and you can’t handle it. You can’t accept that all that power you amassed will be gone in an instant because of women like me. It terrifies you.”
“I’ll give you whatever you want,” he coughs out.
“You don’t have anything I want.”
He spits at my feet, switching to yet another tactic. It sizzles on the ground near me.
“You don’t think you’re better than us at all, do you?” I tilt my head to study him. “Deep down you understand that we can crush you. Your time is coming to an end. You could have chosen a different path. You could have chosen love and your beautiful children. Yet you chose this.”
I gesture to his cowering form on the ground.
“All you know is fear. So you’re right. Iamdifferent than you. And my love is a goddamn superpower.”
I feel the truth of it now. I can harness this at any time. I am loved. I am worthy.
