Chapter Seventeen
IT WASN’T WORKING.
Why isn’t it working?!
I was burning. Burning. Burning.
The cold water did nothing.
It crashed over me in a brutal torrent, soaking my bandages, stinging the stitched wounds beneath.
I’d ripped off my trousers and angled my face into the spray, but even standing naked in the coldest water available, my skin continued to steam.
Heat roared through me, incinerating my insides, making my bones blaze with fire.
I braced both hands against the daisy-tiled wall, bowing my head as the spray hit the back of my neck. Steam curled over my arms and shoulders, refusing to be snuffed out.
The bathroom fogged as if I ran hot water, not cold. The mirror clouded and obscured me as I balled my fists against the tiles and begged for it to stop.
What the hell is happening?
Was it because I’d kissed her?
Because I’d used her to test if the vitalsync core was broken by pushing up my heartrate as much as I could?
I’d kissed her with one goal in mind—to prove I was finally free—but somewhere along the line of my little experiment, I’d lost all reason.
I’d wanted her.
Needed her.
I’d kept my promise never to give in while trapped in Cinderkeep but.
..we weren’t there anymore. I could fuck her against the wall, and it wouldn’t go against any of my strict rules.
I could finally, finally know what it would feel like to sink inside her, even if we still teetered on the edge of disaster.
Which was lunacy.
Stupidity.
We had to run—
“Fuck.”
Flames chewed through my body as if they agreed—burning me alive for my lack of priorities.
Maybe this was repentance for such lust.
Punishment for being such an imbecile.
I groaned as another wave of fire worked through me.
I recognised the flames.
I’d lived with the charring heat all my life.
Yet...it’d never been this potent before. Never been this wild and untamed and violent.
I cranked the tap harder, opening the pipes to full force as wintry water pounded my back with needles that ought to have bordered on agony yet felt utterly useless.
I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my forehead to the tiles.
Stop it.
Stop burning.
Stop—
I groaned as another blast of heat detonated from my heart. Heat that I’d felt so many times—just before the vitalsync core knocked me out.
I waited to pass out like usual.
I actually looked forward to oblivion if it meant all of this would end.
But...no dose arrived. No pain. No suffering. No unconsciousness.
I just kept burning.
Hotter and hotter until the tap started to melt.
Bracing against the wall, my right hand strayed to the metal disc over my heart.
At least this gave me definitive proof.
The vitalsync core was dead.
It would’ve knocked me out by now if it wasn’t.
It no longer had any power over me which filled me with bone-breaking relief but also mind-twisting horror that perhaps...it hadn’t been the vitalsync core hurting me, after all.
Perhaps it had been doing me a favour. Putting me down before I could burn alive.
Had I always been like this?
Had Marcus known and kept the full extent of my madness away from me?
The charred wall filled my head, making my heart trip in fear.
I didn’t want to believe I’d started that fire. Couldn’t believe I’d had the power to do something so inhuman, but...what other answer was there?
Another wave of blistering hotness tore through me.
The tap continued to blister and deform.
I missed the ice pool at Cinderkeep with a vicious, aching intensity.
I would’ve given anything to sink inside it. To drown beneath the surface and brace against the biting cold. To surrender to the frost that always helped.
Frost.
My eyes flew wide as the answer stared me right in the fucking face.
Rook.
Each time I was near her, it was like a hoarfrost worked its way over my smoking soul. She soothed me far better than anything else. And I’d stupidly run away from her.
Wrenching off the water, my fist turned the fire-softened tap into a misshapen hunk of metal. Staggering away from yet more property damage, I tripped from the shower and snatched a towel from the rack.
With shaking hands, I did my best to soak up the water from the bandages and slipped back into my old trousers. That was the extent of my dressing, seeing as I had no shirt after the doctors cut off my old bloody one.
Breathing hard, I swiped a hand over the steamy mirror—
I reared back as a glowing red circlet illuminated my pupils.
My heart rate exploded.
I leaned in for a closer look—
The mirror cracked.
A spiderweb fractured across my reflection, radiating from the centre where I stared, almost as if the mirror couldn’t withstand the embers glowing in my stare.
“Fuck.” Bracing my palms on either side of the sink, I bowed my head and breathed.
Deep and low. Slow and steady.
Detach. Let go. Fade away.
I couldn’t go out looking like this.
Looking this unhinged and manic.
She’d be petrified of me.
I was petrified of me.
I had no fucking idea what was going on.
Raising my chin, I looked past the fractured mirror and caught my fire-rimmed eyes.
The sickly sensation of power throbbed beneath my ribs. It whispered in my ear, promising it could burn the world to ash if I wanted.
With a snarl, I locked it all down.
I balled my hands, clenched every muscle, and through sheer dumb willpower, I harnessed the wildfire tearing through my body, sucking it back into my heart.
It fought me.
I struggled.
I dripped with sweat and steam and—
A sudden high-pitched noise came from the bedroom.
Rook.
I hurled myself toward the door.