Chapter 8
Chrome
“Get up.”
I didn’t move. My eyelids remained shut. Maybe if I feigned death, I could escape what came next.
“I guess you’d rather stay in here, then,” Grim’s foul voice writhed into my ears.
I inhaled a breath and rolled over. “Fuck off.”
Grim’s menacing chuckle was swallowed by the silence, no echoes to follow. I wasn’t sure if I preferred the echo or not. “Don’t tempt me.”
My eyelids snapped open as my brain fired high doses of adrenaline through my bloodstream. I groaned, the magic deprivation’s claws not relenting on my mind in the slightest. “Fine. Get these fucking cuffs off me.” My throat felt sliced to hell, causing my voice to sound stripped.
“So many demands from someone who holds no power.”
An acute throb began a rhythm in my temples. “Just fucking wait.”
Another laugh came from Grim, taunting me. “I can’t wait to see what you have in store. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”
I swallowed—or tried to—realizing I was turning into the killing machine that they so wanted me to become. I didn’t even care anymore. It was about survival and finding a way to get the king’s head while protecting a princess I’d only spoken to twice in my life.
“Let’s just go,” I grumbled, already trying to compartmentalize the punishment I’d just endured. It grew harder and harder to do lately. My will to fight him had dissolved. Broken.
I forced my body to sit up through the agony searing my sore organs and muscles. I felt so fucking heavy and limp.
“Good boy.”
My head drooped forward. I was a good boy, wasn’t I? Bile rose up my throat at the thought. Doing as commanded at the drop of the hat. Fuck, I hated who I’d become. Who they’d made me.
The locks on my wrist and ankle cuffs jostled and clicked as they snapped open, relieving me from the magic suppression. Tears sprang to my eyes at the sensation of my power sputtering in my veins. I needed to replenish desperately before I did something reckless.
My Elemental magic immediately sought out and pulled from Grim’s aura and the energy of every prisoner on the block. I couldn’t stop it, like being beyond the point of starvation. I’d reached the point where my survival instincts took control.
Meanwhile, my Kinetic magic sought the electromagnetic waves being emitted from the lights in the corridor, the sounds—anything being output by electromagnetic energy—tugging on it to fuel my currents and strength.
Grim pressed a Kinetic blade to my side as he escorted me from the prisons and to the elevator.
As the doors snapped shut, he turned his head to face me. “Lesson learned?”
I didn’t deign him a response as I stared at the minute gap in the doors.
“Stay away from her. I don’t give a fuck if your king is beating her to death. You stay the fuck away from her. Otherwise, you’ll have to watch her punishment next.”
His warning weaved a poisonous thread deep within my chest, creating a helpless wrath that promised to explode to the surface.
I fucking dared anyone to hurt her. I didn’t know why, nor did I care anymore, but I’d raze the fucking world if she was hurt.
She and I were one and the same. Mirrors of one another.
She was for me to protect. I’d always known that.
Little did Grim know, I already had Slate on it to keep her safe.
I could feel his beady eyes boring into my side profile. “Understood?”
I met his sadistic gaze with my blank one. “Of course, Grim,” I responded, my voice cold and despondent. “Whatever you want.”
Me
Meet me in the parking garage in 20.
Slate
Bet.
Istood on the edge of a metaphorical precipice. I was going to snap. I had to get the fuck away from the palace before I lost control.
Pacing back and forth in my room, I clenched and unclenched my fists at my sides, trying to outrun the suffocation threatening to undo me.
But that wasn’t working, so I dropped to my knees on the white carpet, pressing my forehead to the fabric, all while trying to scrub Grim’s seedy voice from my mind.
My fingers twined in the carpet, and I did my best to snatch it loose. Anything to make my mind stop.
I gasped for breath, but my lungs didn’t seem to be able to keep up with the demand. The pressure was going to collapse my chest bone, I just knew it.
Fuck this. I’d spent too much time on the floor already. Lightheaded, I staggered to my feet, my muscles feeling as if I’d just ran five miles.
My stay in the prison had me ready to unleash my whirlwind of trauma onto the world. I wanted out. Away from it all.
I can just run away.
No, I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave Peri, Slate, or the princess. Too many people needed me to keep it together. I was the lynchpin in the insurgency’s plan. I couldn’t fuck it up.
I threw my black leather jacket on, strapping down every part of my body that I could with weapons. Snatching my helmet from the wardrobe, I stormed out of my room.
I couldn’t breathe, but I wouldn’t succumb to my panic. Nobody saw me falter—not even Peri. I needed to be free, even if it was only temporary.
I rushed out of the suite, ignoring my sister’s protests to talk. The front door slammed behind me, and the itching beneath my skin wouldn’t relent. I wrapped my arms around my torso, as if I could physically hold myself together.
“Fuck!” I shouted into the elevator, the sound waves reverberating in the metal box. I shoved my fingers through my hair, punching the wall as I rasped, my breaths short and ragged.
Forest and Grim needed to die. The world would be a much better place without them in it. But that seemed like a pipedream at this point. I was powerful, but I was still a kid. I didn’t understand why I had to be the one with this responsibility, but I’d do what it took.
My heart thrashed, but once the elevator rocked to a stop, I bolted from the metal trap.
Ignoring every Kinetic in the lobby who stared at me as if I was their god, I shoved through the rotating glass doors of the hotel until I was on the streets of Atlanta. The late afternoon sun stabbed my eyes while the freezing wind bit my skin which then stabbed into the bone.
Cutting through several blocks, I found the parking garage and made a beeline for my bike.
Fuck, I’d missed it. It had only been three days, but that bike was my freedom.
I approached my Ducati while Slate sat propped on the bike beside mine, arms crossed over his chest. I could always count on him to be there. He wasn’t even the legal age to drive yet, but he’d be at my side regardless.
Once I stood before him, he faced me. “Where have you been?”
I shrugged, trying to skirt around my absence as usual. “You know how it goes. Lessons and shit.”
Slate’s nostrils flared as he leveled me with a stare that said he didn’t buy my bullshit. “Come on. Let’s go.”
I nodded. We couldn’t leave this infested horror show fast enough. “Bet.”
Pulling the helmet over my head, I straddled the seat of my bike and shoved the key into the ignition right before Slate did the same beside me. I revved the throttle and looked at my cousin through the tinted shield of my helmet.
Slate nodded once before revving his engine, and I let go, allowing my bike to lurch forward. The beast inside wanted out. It wanted to take and take. It wanted danger.
I revved it, causing it to launch from the parking garage like a bullet with Slate on my tail.
I watched for oncoming cars and swerved onto the Atlanta streets.
The bike’s engine roared as I twisted the throttle.
The G-forces pushed me forward as I allowed my mind to quiet its onslaught.
I leaned into the wind, acknowledging Slate pulling to level up beside me.
I found his helmeted face and dipped my head, to which he returned.
Simultaneously, we surged forward, taking up both lanes as we rushed toward the looming red light ahead.
My heart raced, adrenaline pumping for all the right reasons.
I needed this. I was in control of this danger. No one else. I made this choice.
I scanned left and right for any oncoming cars coming at the intersection, as did Slate. Cars sped toward us, but we had time. We bolted forward, accelerating at a dangerous speed.
The pressure from the air forcing itself into my chest bone was a therapy that I didn’t believe I could find anywhere. This was being alive.
A smile tugged upward as I pushed harder. Somehow, my cousin knew how to drive. And good, too.
I needed more—a bigger thrill.
Anything to rid Grim’s oily voice from my head. I needed to cleanse it all.
We zipped through the red light just as an incoming car from the right barreled toward me. My heart skipped, and I kicked it harder. Slate kept up and took the lead.
More.
I pushed in front of him, nosing ahead just as he pulled forward. Keeping my senses open to the cars coming ahead, I allowed my magic to replenish from the world around me, building my Kinetic power to abnormally high levels. I didn’t care. Overabundance was the cure. I needed it.
Taking a deep breath, I pushed ahead of my cousin again.
Through my periphery, I saw him shake his head as if to ask me what I was doing.
I ignored him and urged my bike to seventy miles per hour through Downtown Atlanta as we ripped through sharp turns, breezing through red lights as if they were optional.
Fucking let a car hit me. Please.
Slate and I weaved in and out of traffic, going at speeds that weren’t legal in congested areas.
If a cop caught us, it wouldn’t be an issue.
It would be handled by the King’s Palace.
As Kinetics, our vision and reflexes were superior to humans’, so driving at these speeds wasn’t a concern.
We did much more dangerous things in training.
I slowed to a stop at a red light, then turned right, heading down a back alley, Slate following closely behind. The roar of the bikes’ engines was deafening until we parked behind a building and cut the engines.