The air snaps violently and every mirror in the studio detonates: the wall-length mirror; the framed ones near the barre; the small one on the counter. All burst at once—and all of them aim their shrapnel at us.
Glass rains and she screams.
“Sisk!” I yell, moving before I think, sliding her off my shoulders and bringing her to the floor. All I can think is I saved her, I stopped it—until I see her. She's curled on the floor, her thigh clutched in her hands as blood spills fast, too fast, between her fingers.
“My leg—” she gasps, sobbing. “Jax—my leg?—”
The magic thrums wild under my skin, unstable—and suddenly I understand what I’ve done. I drop to my knees beside her, my hands hovering, afraid to touch her. Afraid I’ll make it worse.
“Don’t move,” I grit out, trying to force the magic back down. It fights me like a living thing under my skin, hungry and violent.
Her blood is soaking into the floorboards, spreading fast.
“It hurts,” she whimpers. “Jax, it hurts so much.”
I press my palm against the floorboards, trying to ground myself, but the magic just keeps building. “I know. I know, baby. Just—just breathe. I can fix this.”
The air shimmers around us, warped by the energy pouring off me. Every shard of glass on the floor starts to vibrate, drawn to the chaos inside.I’m going to hurt her. I’m going to kill her if I don’t get this under control.
“Look at me,” I demand, my voice rough. Her tear-filled eyes meet mine. “Whatever happens, don’t look away from me.”
She bites her lip against another sob. The smell of her blood is thick in the air, calling to something primal in me, something that wants more.
I have to fix this.My hands hover over her leg, shaking. I try to push the magic out, to knit the skin back together, to make it right. But it’s a wild animal, snarling and thrashing inside me. It doesn’t want to heal, it wants to consume.
The glass on the floor lifts an inch, hovers, then clatters back down as I wrestle the power back under control. My breath comes in ragged pants, sweat beading on my forehead.I’m making it worse.I’m always making it worse.
Her eyes roll back, her body going limp.
“Sisk? Sisk!”
I don’t remember moving. I don’t remember breathing. I don’t remember fixing my pants. I don’t remember grabbing her coat. I don’t remember getting through the door.
I only know one thing: I hurt her. This time it’s real. Not a bruise or a scrape. Real. The tar is still seething beneath my skin, the power waiting for another chance to break free.
It hits me like a killing blow:She’ll never be safe as long as I’m around.
Twelve
THEN | SISK
I’m halfway down the ladder when the smell makes me gag. “Pitfire,” I choke out, “this smell is awful.”
My shoe lands with a soft squish, and I immediately stop moving. I look down at the greasy sheen across the ground, and when I shift my weight and lift my foot again, it sticks slightly before coming free with a wet peel. I swallow hard, my stomach turning over. I don’t know what I’m stepping in, and I don’t think I want to. If Jax wasn’t here, I would already be gone, because I don’t care who’s outside at this point—I would’ve turned around the second my shoe made that sound. But he keeps walking like none of this is a problem, so I try to act like it isn’t and force myself to follow him.
I look at the pipes overhead as they drip every few seconds, the sound making me jumpy. But that doesn’t explain all of it, because we’re too close to The Pit for me to pretend this is just rust or bad plumbing scaring me. I really, really hope it isn’t tar we’re walking through, because even though I don’t believe the rumors people spread in Tar City, I’d rather not find out the hard way.
A drip to my right makes me flinch, and something skitters across the concrete before I can even see what it is. I like to thinkI can handle this place—that growing up here means something, that I’m tougher than the next person—but I’m not. No matter how much I’ve seen, this place still finds a way to get under my skin.
“Jax,” I say, squinting into the dark ahead of us. “I can barely see anything.”
“Stay close.”
I do. I move in until my arm brushes his, then closer than that, because apparently that’s where I’ve decided safety is. My fingers catch on the fabric of his shirt before settling there, holding without really asking permission.
Another drip echoes and a small noise slips out of me before I can stop it.
Jax’s hand comes up immediately, closing around my arm firmly. “Hey, you’re fine.”
