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Nervous excitement coursed through me, mingling with the anger. I was such a jumble of confused emotions it was all I could do to concentrate on the clouds overhead.
Let’s do this.
The classical music changed, picking up tempo to something richer, more booming, like the music that normally accompanied fireworks displays. They wanted a light show? All right.
I lifted one hand, and a sensation of raw energy tingled from my fingertips right down my arm, until it felt as if my very bones were made of light and heat rather than anything organic.
Seth, hear me.
Overhead, a rumble of thunder growled loud enough to drown out the music. Murmurs rippled through the crowd, but so far it was just noise.
At least the boss man was listening.
Electricity, like the spark from static, arced across my fingertips. No one in the back rows was likely to see it, but the people up front definitely did. I could feel the excitement building.
This was going to hurt me so badly.
It would be worth it.
I didn’t say anything. Didn’t announce who I was or explain what they were about to see. Everyone already knew.
I snapped my fingers, and the entire sky lit up, sheet lightning ricocheting from cloud to cloud like a thousand strobe lights going off at once.
The audience gasped.
Then the real show began.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I got carried away.
It started slow. I dragged the clouds in overhead until the setting sun was blotted out and only the big, heavy waves of an incoming storm could be seen overhead.
The clouds settled over the canyon like a thick blanket.
Now, with the darkness in full effect, each new flash of lightning seemed to bring on temporary daylight. Pop, the world was alight. Boom, thunder crashed, trembling the world around us. Each new bang was so loud it rattled my teeth and shook in my chest.
I’d long since stopped hearing the responses of the crowd or the music pumping through the speakers. All I could hear now was the buzz of electricity as the lightning built and cascaded overhead. The corresponding crashes of thunder were Seth’s way of telling me he approved.
Based on the rich, ear-splitting rumbles that followed each fork of lightning, he was pretty pleased with me.
I started with the showy stuff, things that didn’t hurt me too badly. Dozens of lightning strikes came down around us, hitting points all throughout the park behind me. I counted them out, one, two, threefourfive. I made sure some bolts hit the same place three or four times in a row to demonstrate there were no accidents here.
I made them come down in an array, landing one after the other in order, so you could trace their path across the skyline one at a time. The bolts started coming so quickly the thunder could barely keep up. Soon it was all just one long growling boom.
Wind swirled around me, tugging at my dress, blowing my hair up behind me, across my forehead and back. I felt as if I were trapped in my own mini tornado the way the breeze plucked at me, pushed me, teased me. It was like a thousand little fingers were pinching me all at once.
Considering I’d never done anything quite like this before, I was astonished by how well I was pulling it off.
Then, after a solid thirty minutes of showing off at a distance, I felt his command more than heard it.
Now you.
Of course it wouldn’t be enough to simply strike lightning down on the horizon a few hundred times.
Seth had to show them that his power was within me.
Which meant I had to get hit.
