Warmth seeps up through the soles of my feet, crawling up my legs and between my ribs, spreading into my arms until the edges of my fingers glow in the dim dusk light. Like a second nervous system, the power winds its way up my neck and into my mind. My vision turns the world red.
The sooner this is done, the sooner I can repair the tatters of my life. One last time.
She hasn’t hidden. When she spots me coming down the shoreline, her body tenses, but she comes closer, doesn’t turn tail. My connection to the sand beneath her feet senses her heartbeat. Another pulse behind me, faint.
I can’t allow space for the words she’ll want exchanged. No hesitation. She’s no longer a woman to me. That moment flashes. Liney kissing her. The expression Liney had before spotting me. The ease in her eyes. An ease I’ve longed for her to have.
Liney can have all the companions she wishes after this is done. But notthisone.
“She didn’t do anything!” Bridget blurts out once I’m in earshot. “It’s not what it looked like. I’m her friend. Only a friend.”
She thinksthat’swhy I’m angry? It stops me in my tracks. The spiral’s power within me wants to strike. It doesn’t matter what a soon-to-be-dead woman believes are my motivations.
Yet, it does.
“This isn’t personal.” My voice is deeper, thicker than normal. Warped.
Bridget frowns but doesn’t move. I approach slowly. The soles of my boots smolder under the heat of my feet. I take them off one at a time. No use burning through good boots. The ocean tide brushes my left foot as I place it on the dense-packed sand. It hisses softly.
“Then what is it?” she asks, her brow knitted in confusion and her heartbeat thumping. “We were just talking about—”
No more. “I give of this sacrifice to the Lord of Darkness,” I begin.
“You—whatdid you say?”
“To him I offer this soul,” I continue, closing the gap and angling so her back will be to the ocean.
The whites of her eyes appear, yet she stays still. Good. Running after her would only delay the inevitable.
“Whoa there, Elle. You told me to watch after Liney. I did. I don’t want any—”
I don’t slow my steps. It’s time for an end.
“With this offering, the contract will be complete.”
I direct the flow of the spiral’s power into my arms. This won’t be like Douglas. No spray of blood. I don’t hear Bridget’s words anymore, even as they come fast and watery. Her doe eyes can’t understand my violence.
The power pulses in my arm, searing with delight in an act of carnage. I push her into the surf. She topples, shorter than me and now prone. The heat in my blood spreads up my arm, into my shoulder. The muscles constrict. Am I imagining the smell of burning flesh? I have no time. The power must escape.
Hands as claws, I grab at her shoulders and push her under the water. Waves surge into her hair and cover one arm, as though claiming her back into its depths. She should’ve drowned that night. Let her now.
She’s so young. Liney’s age or a little older. I imagine a flash of Liney beneath me. Her choppy gold hair instead and her big brown eyes. It slows me just enough for Bridget’s head to surface, gasping.
I close my eyes and spread my fingers across her collarbones. Like when Liney was near death on the rocks, I imbue her with the scalding Devil’s power. But while I was careful with Liney, I’m not with Bridget. Like a dam breaking, my arms shake with the force coming out of them. Through my eyelids, I see bubbling red light.
Bridget tries to speak. It turns to bubbles as I push her down again.
“Stop!” screams a voice behind me. High and broken. No.
“Get away!” I roar back. Pratterman’s spiral sent too much heat, prepared for another feeding and now circling in my system. It won’t drain back until the deed is done.
“Youget away!”
Liney slams into me, then bounces off, ending up spluttering in the sand. Bridget struggles beneath me, her mouth inches from the surface. None of the heat is seeping into her. Because she’s not technically on the island? Does that matter? Surely not. I drag her back as Liney grabs at my arms and shrieks with pain when the heat is too much.
My hands wrap around the girl’s neck. She claws at my hands, but it’s like the light scrapings of leaves compared to the power I’m wielding. This is the dark ambition that’s always at the edges of its hold on me.
Then Liney says the only thing that could make me stop.
