Page 55 of Vengeance of the Gods

Do you know how fucking hard it is to go over a year without hearing a single voice outside your own?

Marlena laughed softly, stepping through the bars with her ability to travel, joining him inside the cell. She must have registered the look on Bridger’s face, because he was now the mouse in whatever fucked-up game she wanted to play. “Been kind of quiet in here, hasn’t it?” She knelt down to where he sat, matching his eye level. The black halo she’d started wearing after her summoning glinted in the light filtering through the cell bars.

Bridger wanted to feel his power reach inside and obliterate her to pieces… but he couldn’t. His power was blocked by the mark on his forearm, leaving him hollow, and he couldn’t find it in himself to stand.

“I don’t have to show you how strong I am to hurt you. You know. I know you know the power I have.” Marlena reached out and ran her hand over his cheek. “All I have to do is be the reminder you need.” She cupped his face. “Vega will never be the girl you loved again. She’s too broken now, and it’s only going to get worse.”

Bridger slapped her hand away, but Marlena didn’t budge, only brought it to her side. Even squatted down in six-inch heels, her presence still felt too big for the meager cell.

The look behind Marlena’s eyes was cold, but the fake veneer she molded to perfection could have passed for sad if Bridger didn’t know any better. “I don’t have to lay a hand on you. No.” She shook her head slowly, her ponytail swaying. “I’ve shown you what I can do to you. To everyone.”

“Shut up.” He hadn’t heard his own voice in weeks. Bridger hadn’t tried to talk in weeks. The sound was foreign to his ears.

Marlena inhaled. “Ah, he does remember how to speak.” Reaching out again, she brushed his shaggy hair out of his eyes. “You’re losing yourself in here. You’re becoming a sad, pathetic waste of life. A waste of power. You’re exactly what your father said you’d be… a disappointment.”

Bridger reacted exactly like Marlena had wanted him to, pushing her out of his face before hopping to his feet. The quick change made his head rush, throwing him off balance.

He was wasting away in here. What good could he do from behind the bars of a prison cell?

Marlena staggered back and gained her composure in an instant. “You’re holding on to a life that no longer exists for a girl who is destined to die. Vega is already dead, and she has been since the day I cursed her.” She sighed. “When are you going to see I’ll never let her live, Bridger? I’ll let the curse kill her slowly. It will take her from you eventually. In fact, you should be thanking me. At least you got more time than you would have if I’d killed her right away like our parents.” The long off stare Marlena had gotten almost made Bridger take a step back.

“It’s torture for the rest of you too. It’s why I haven’t killed anyone off yet, because this is sweeter. Watching you fight valiantly over the years to save Vega, knowing it’ll be for nothing.” A single shrug of her shoulder showed how little she cared. “You’re only making this harder on yourself, but I can help you. I’m willing to help you.” She made it sound like she was about to offer him the deal of a lifetime. “But if you don’t want my help, then I guess I can go ahead and kill Arlet and Khort. I was only keeping them around for the fun of it.”

His voice had always been deep, but now with the gravel of unspoken words lodged in his throat, it felt like a rumble from below. “You’ll never break me.”

“Oh yes, I will, but I also want you to have all the success and power you deserve. The army you deserve. Imagine what you could do, imagine who you could be, if it were all yours.”

“I don’t want your fucking power! I want to watch you burn!” Bridger’s rage made him see red, the room blurring at the edges.

Marlena materialized her way outside of his cell milliseconds before he charged. The bars shook under his grip—even with his powers cut off, this type of anger did something to him… made him someone else.

“You can want both, and one day you’ll see it the way I do. Power and wrath can be combined to make something so, so sweet.” She straightened the skirt of her long dress. “You can save them, Bridger.”

He trembled watching her retreat into the hall's shadows. “And all you have to do is get over a dead girl.” Marlena looked over her shoulder just before she couldn’t be seen anymore. “She’s back, and I’ve met this new version of her.” A chuckle echoed off the walls. “She’s so weak and pathetic she’s almost unrecognizable… and she’ll continue to fall further and further away from who she once was the longer this draws out.”

Bridger rattled the bars, screaming at Marlena.

Her question reached him after she was already gone. “How will she ever be able to love you when she finds out you’re the reason her very best friends are dead?”

Air. I need air.

The gasp rattled his entire chest, his eyes ripping open the moment he was released from the dream’s confinement and allowed to regain control of his body.

It took him longer than he’d like to remember exactly where he was, fighting against a type of fear he’d never experienced before.

The car slowed, and Vega’s eyes fixed on him in the mirror. They were wild with worry, the red brake lights illuminating a glow inside the backseat as the sun set behind the mountains in the distance.

Vega. I’m with Vega on Earth.

“Pull over,” he wheezed, unable to calm his breaths no matter how hard he tried.

“Bridger…” she started to protest.

He crawled to the side door. “Vega, pull the fuck over before I jump out.”

Marlena’s words, the feeling of her mental hold, the memories flooding his mind—it was all too much.

He started to struggle to take a breath, and the walls of the vehicle grew closer and closer.