Page 15 of In the Dark

“Then I’ll find you!”

Karsia gave in to the dark feelings inside and slammed the door behind her, leaving Morgan with the check for dinner and more questions than answers. She struggled to bring her breathing back to normal and close off the violent energy she felt spiking within her. Deep, calming breaths. Once, she would have loved the wine and conversation, dug into both eagerly without worry of what she would do.

She wanted to be herself again. To enjoy the back and forth of flirting with the geek.

With the incredibly sexy geek.

Instead, she was too livid, too embarrassed by her own actions to do anything except walk away. Didn’t it figure? The one time she found a spark of connection with a man, an honest to goodness spark, and there was not a damn thing she could do about it.

The perfunctory getting-to-know-you conversations should have been enjoyable. Not tedious. Not an exercise in control.

“He had no right,” she muttered to herself. “No right to pry into my life like he has some kind of vested interest. He’s a damn stranger. He’s only interested in me for my tits and what’s between my legs.” It was obvious, although she couldn’t read him. Morgan was a man, after all. With her ability to sense emotions, to read dark thoughts, she knew most men were alike. She stomped down the street, sending a nasty look at a passing couple. “What the hell are you two looking at?”

The constant assault of evil on her senses, the negativity swelling and churning beneath the surface every day caused the tenuous grasp on her willpower to slip inch by inch until the bad feelings she fought against took hold.

She smacked her temples, feeling nothing. “Get out of me!” she screeched, running her nails over her skin and drawing blood to the surface. She ignored the curious looks from strangers. “I don’t want to!” The last words were forced, not hers, but Darkness rising in a wave to swallow any good intentions she had.

Her sisters claimed The One Who Walks in Darkness, once a flesh and blood woman intent on finding a way to save her people from rogue magic, had spoken to them inside their heads. Karsia experienced no such thing. The only voice in her mind was her own, and yet not her own. It whispered to her of the terrible sins of mankind. The things she herself was capable of doing if she would let go—let go and accept who she was and what she was meant to be.

Accept the power at her fingertips.

An ordinary person would have gone insane from the constant barrage of negative input coming from inside. Instead, Karsia went on the warpath.

She walked the streets of Kenosha and dared anyone to get in her way. Wished they would so she could retaliate. It was the only time she found relief.

On the street corner, a bundle of rags moved, held out a wrinkled hand for any bit of spare change. Karsia eyed the appendage and conjured a bunch of leaves meant to look like hundred-dollar bills. She handed them to the man and watched his expression change from despair to delight. Then a swarm of red ants emerged from the greenery to nip and bite his hand.

She continued down the frozen concrete sidewalk, listening to the agonized squeals and screams of the beggar. The ants would nibble their way along his wrist and up his arm until they reached the meatier parts of his anatomy, and she relished the thought of the agony it would cause. A small thing did so much in the long run.

Eventually, she picked up the pace, running instead of walking, pushing her body until she reached the outskirts of town. No matter how far or how fast, she heard the taunting of those malicious thoughts beating against the inside of her skull. It was much worse than having Darkness speaking to her. This she couldn’t outrun, couldn’t hide from or ignore. Like it or not, it was a part of her.

Karsia screamed, her feet pounding the pavement. Her breath rushed out in a great white gasp then back into her lungs like shards of ice. Magic flowed out of her unbidden and nothing she did stopped the stream. It was a product of everything she’d tried to control and couldn’t. Muscles clenched under the strain yet she kept on, power exploding outward in a tsunami.

Cows lowed in a nearby field and milled around in panic as she passed. Animals recognized great forces at work, understood the energies of the world naturally, and saw the tide of evil passing.

A second scream, another wave of power, and the grass fermenting in one of seven stomachs began to grow, coiling around organs until a single bull collapsed, killed from the inside out. Others fell alongside their brethren while some made a mad dash for freedom.

Karsia ran until she could no longer force her body to work. Until her knees quaked and her heart threatened to beat out of her chest. She fell and grasped at the ground, leaving long claw marks in the asphalt of the country road.

“I didn’t want to. I’m sorry!” she ground out, forcing her throat to form the words. Darkness leaked out of her like icy tendrils ready to spread evil through the world. Birds punctuating the telephone wires dropped like fat black raindrops and splattered on the ground. Any remaining wildlife in the area fell lifeless, the seeds and grass in their bellies exploding until fur and feathers littered the air.

The world stilled around her until even the wind refused to blow. Her mind felt sluggish. Her stomach roiled. “Please,” she begged, with tears blurring her eyesight. “I don’t want to do this.”

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