Page 133 of Devoured

A wolf in the middle of the road.

Purple flares through my mind, joined—always joined—by streaks of cobalt blue, and I lose myself entirely.

There was no party on the beach, I lie to myself. There was a movie. She lived. She lived, and everything continued as normal.

There is so much purple. Too much purple. I gag around it. The pain doubles, triples, in my skull.

There was no party on the beach. There was a movie. She lived. I was never bitten—

“Vanessa? What are you doing?” Then, “Vanessa, stop!”

Someone throttles me. Too hard. Too rough.

My head snaps up, snaps back, and all that purple—all those currents of precious blue—fade into oblivion. “No.” I try to find that puddle in the grass, try to seek out my reflection again, but I can’t. It’s all gone.

It’s gone.

“No, no, no!”

Scarlet eyes rove my face and body, flaring with barely contained rage as I thrash in his arms. Desperate to flee. To return. I was so close. “What were you thinking?! Vanessa—”

“Leave me alone, Calix!”

I tear from his grasp only to collapse on the grass. Clawing at the mud, the earth, I crawl toward the next puddle. I stare at it, tears brimming in my eyes. I was so close. I try to latch on to the purple again. I try to let it wash through me, over me, but my head pounds, and my stomach rolls, and I—I can’t. “No. I need to—”

“Enough! You were disappearing! You were going to break the entire fucking world.” Calix crouches beside me. “You were fading out of view. The rain stopped. The field started to crack open. Look. Look!” He grabs my cheeks and forces me to gaze at a violent divot in the center of the field. Splintered in the shape of a spider’s web, so deep that there doesn’t seem to be an end.

I blink, dazed. Confused. My head pounds. My stomach aches. I feel somehow disconnected from the pain, my vision swimming as I stare and stare at the chasm I created.

“I just wanted to rewrite the beach,” I say, my voice distorted even to my own ears. “I wanted to change everything.”

Calix snarls, more frightening than I’ve ever seen him. “Did you think about what the repercussions might be for something like that? You can’t use your powers on yourself. You can’t bring anyone back from the dead. You can’t fix this, Vanessa. It’s not a puzzle that can be snapped back together. You could have died. If I hadn’t been here…” He sucks in a sharp breath, and his gaze scorches through me. His hands clench into fists in his lap. “What were you thinking?”

When I don’t respond, he shakes his head, and the fury cresting across his face breaks. His gaze softens. His hands unclench, and he touches my cheek again, gentler this time. “You haven’t left your room in days, and you haven’t spoken to any of us. Portia received new correspondence. We can continue plotting—”

“Is that really why you’re out here?”

He raises a cool brow. “I’m not here to trace the moon.” He gestures to the night sky above us, to the white sliver of a crescent moon, and I almost jolt. How long have I been out here? “If you want to talk…” he says slowly, tilting his head to study me as his muscles tense under his cotton shirt. Black. He always wears black. I wonder if he knows he looks beautiful in it. More beautiful than anyone I’ve ever seen.

I swallow hard and force myself to look away. I was so close. I glance back at the gouged divots of earth—less like a spider’s web, I realize. More as if a great and terrible beast raked its claws across the universe. I almost broke everything again. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t need to lie to me. I thought we were friends.”

The last gores me. It rips another savage claw through my abdomen and rends my organs. My teeth grind as I trap a scream behind them. Because I can’t have friends. One stolen kiss, his hands on me, his lips on my throat—that moment doesn’t actually exist.

Calix reaches a tentative hand to brush the damp hair from my forehead. “You’re burning up. It’s too warm for you to be outside.” He slides that hand to mine. “Let’s go in—”

“No.” I jerk away from his grasp, staggering to my feet. As I uncoil, my bones scream, and pure, toxic acid rushes through my veins, bubbling just under my skin. If he slit me open now, I swear rot would pour out. “Stop—stop touching me, Calix.”

He recoils as if I’ve stabbed him. “I’m sorry—”

“You’re not.” My head still pounds, and my stomach threatens to revolt. “You’re not sorry when you’re still trying to protect me. When are you going to understand that I don’t need your protection?”

He rises then. His gaze won’t leave my goddamned face, and I know if I meet it—if I look into those devastating scarlet eyes—I will see exactly what he’s thinking. I will fall into his mind, and I will manipulate some intrinsic part of history, destroying everything else around me.

My gaze flicks to the divots again, and I sway on my feet.

I am Cora’s monster, and everyone close to me dies. The world tilts underfoot; I feel unsteady, unstable, as if I’m only a second from toppling over an invisible edge. A second from falling and falling and falling. There is no bottom to catch me anymore. There is nothing left.