Page 22 of Heir of Ashes

The gas reached us, and it had no odor at all, but my mother and I choked all the same. I guessed it was the principle of breathing radiation and the knowledge that it was lethal. I tried to count the seconds, but I couldn’t get past one-two-three before my thoughts jammed. My mind screamed that this was wrong, that this couldn’t be happening to me.

My mother choked, and her skin began reddening, breaking out in splotches. She cried out, and her gums were bleeding, red covering her teeth. I screamed at the mirror as a trickle of blood ran down her nose. I pressed her face into my chest, trying to shield her, to avoid watching her die. But I felt it—the moment she stopped shaking, her life slipping away.

I didn’t let her go.

Children shouldn’t watch their parents die. It just shouldn’t happen. My only solace was that I would be dying too.The PSS had killed my mother to test a reaction from me, and all I could manage was rage—burning, volcanic rage.

I wanted to kill Dr. Dean with my bare hands. No, I wanted to mutilate his body with my newfound talons. The beginning of a familiar stir grew inside me, and I knew I wasn’t far from snapping. If I gave in to it, they would get a reaction from me. Maybe not what they had wanted and expected me to do, but one nonetheless, and then my mother would have died for nothing. My hands blurred and formed talons, and for the first time since I’d arrived in the PSS, my teeth shifted and elongated, rearranging inside my mouth. I clenched my jaw and tried to fight any changes, but my anger was a living thing, relentless and consuming. All I wanted was to kill someone—preferably Dr. Dean—and feast on his blood. To pull off his head with my bare hands and dance around his still-twitching body. I lowered my head to my mother’s limp shoulder and shook with rage and grief. All the while, I rocked left and right.

They shouldn’t have killed anyone in an experiment. My fury swelled inside me, reaching depths I never thought possible. Something was happening to me, something more than talons and teeth—something other. Foreign, even to me.

My mother lay limp in my arms, and all I could do was rock her from side to side. Was this punishment because I had injured one of their precious scientists? My mother shouldn’t have been there. She shouldn’t have been able to visit. Didn’t Dr. Maxwell tell me no visits, no matter what, were allowed?

My mother wasn’t supposed to be there …

My arms, still around my mother’s prone body, reddened, then blurred and wavered like a mirage, and suddenly I knew, and I wasn’t afraid anymore. I wasn’t afraid because I wasn’t dying. My mother wasn’t there. She wasn’t allowed to be there. I pushed back on my anger, gaining an inch. I realized what was happening to me seconds before the PSS had successfullyprovoked a reaction from me. I concentrated on the rapid beating of my heart, slowing my breaths. My teeth reverted to normal, my talons returned to fingers. The tremors that shook my body subsided moments after that.

My mother wasn’t there. I wasn’t dying.

I squeezed my eyes shut tightly and concentrated. My rage dissipated slowly, and my breathing returned to a normal rhythm. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself alone in the room, my arms around myself as I rocked, facing the two-way mirror.

My nightmare was over. I had broken through the illusion spell they’d injected into me after they’d tranquilized me. Despite the many nightmares that sprouted from that day, I had won that round. They never found out how close they came to succeeding. I had managed to control my rage, my beast, and they had no satisfactory results. After that test, I had explored the slumbering otherness deep inside my soul, but I didn’t know what it could do until the mage attacked me the day after I had escaped.

Chapter 9

“They hurt you,” Logan murmured, his knuckles brushing my cheek, pulling me back to the present. His eyes, still simmering with anger, now held a new layer of emotion: compassion.

Although my mother had never been in that room, the horror of that day still haunted me, a nightmare that refused to fade.

“Yeah,” I said softly, looking away to the endless desert visible outside. I took in slow, deliberate breaths, blinking back tears, trying to compose myself. It was harder when there was someone who understood. Would my mother react the same way if she knew what I’d been through? Did she even care? Did she know what I was? Did she give me up because she was disgusted with what I would become? Did she fear me? So many questions … never any answers.

I latched on to Logan’s anger, using it to take my mind off my disparaging thoughts. His anger wasn’t the hot fury of the impulsive, of the reckless, but the cold of calculation, the banked fire left to simmer. He was a man in control of his actions, the kind who examined his opportunities, who overcame obstacles with intelligence and calculation instead of brutal force.

Closing my eyes, I dissected the layers of Logan’s emotions, trying to calm my raging heart. I could almost see the cold film fogging the windows, like mist on a winter morning. I imagined parting that mist, letting the sun’s rays break through and transform it into droplets of water, cool and refreshing against my skin. I licked one drop, then another, savoring the taste.

“Stop it,” Logan choked.

I licked another cool drop. Like a cat, I basked in contentment.

“Eliza … stop it,” he croaked.

It wasn’t my name that made me open my eyes, but the urgent tone of his hoarse voice. He was slumped forward on the steering wheel, his tanned face pale, his eyes narrowed, his breathing shallow and uneven.

I frowned, taking him in. What the hell was wrong with him? Among the stirrings of confusion, deep within the blurring edges, understanding dawned. I quickly shoved it away. I didn’t want to know. Still, some perverse part of me didn’t let me hide from myself, pushing the knowledge back to the surface, not letting me run from it.

I reached out to Logan, and he flinched away. He was still breathing hard, his narrowed gaze sharp and intense despite the obvious strain around them. I dropped my hand and looked away, belatedly noticing his gun was out and clutched in one hand.

Once I’d composed my expression back to a blank façade, I looked at him again. His face had gained some color, and his breathing had evened out. He was leaning back against the door, putting as much distance between us as possible within the confined space. This time, the hurt stayed hidden inside. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to …” I broke off, realizing it didn’t matter what I said. I had done what I had done. Thinking about it, I’d probably been absorbing from the swirl of emotions in the casino, too. Or maybe I’d blocked them. I didn’t know, and it only frustrated me more. There was no guidebook for what I could or couldn’t do, and how to avoid disasters. It wasn’t even like I felt stronger or glowed as a result. There was no difference at all.

I didn’t know what Logan interpreted from my blank expression, but he snarled, baring his teeth. “Do that again, and I’ll kill you.”

I nodded, acknowledging the threat and the truth of his words. He certainly wasn’t the first to threaten me, but somehow, coming from him, it hurt like a betrayal. I wasn’t expecting his pledge of loyalty and friendship, but—damn it! He’d saved my life three times already. I thought he had considered me someone. I had talked to him, told him things I had never told anyone or never had anyone to tell before. He’d cared for my injured hand; he’d shown me concern.

He had made me feel human. Somewhere during our brief acquaintance, I had begun to pretend we were friends. Me and my false sense of belonging.

“Can we go?” I asked, eager to get to Sacramento, to give him the details for the PSS headquarters, and to move on.

I could feel his gaze on me and for the second time that day, wondered if he was debating letting me off in the middle of nowhere, questioning if I was worth the trouble. But then he turned to face the road and drove off.

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