Page 34 of Revenant

Though it may be stupid, I refuse to bend to him.

“Gordan, get in the ring,” the guard snaps, never taking his attention from me. Gordan practically bounces on his feet in excitement as he hurries to obey, a malicious grin twisting his lips as he stalks me.

“Since you’ve been difficult, little girl, you’re going to train with him today.” I don’t even bother to protest, since it won’t matter, anyway. I circle the mat, determined to keep my distance from Gordan, shuddering at the thought of him touching me with his ghoulish hands.

As I pass the guard, he leans down and whispers in my ear. “Let’s see what you got. If you don’t tell the doc what you can do, I will beat it out of you. Eventually.”

I barely contain my grimace at his gloating. Because he’s right. While I’ve been training daily and gaining strength, so have the ghosts. I’ll only be able to hold them back for so long. If my control slips, if the people who run this facility discover what I can do, my stay here will become infinitely worse.

Just as I step over the faded circle painted on the mat, the redheaded nightmare across from me smirks. When he lifts his hand, he snaps his fingers, and a spark of flame bursts to life in his palm. I blink in surprise, my mouth dropping open in shock. When he draws back his arm and throws a fucking ball of fire, it’s only instinct that has me ducking.

Fire sizzles in the air, passing so close to me that heat sears along my arm, and I hiss at the unexpected bite of pain. When I glance down, my upper arm looks like it has a bad sunburn. Since I’ve never been out in the sun for long, I’m surprised at how much it stings.

For the next hour, I dodge and twist away from Gordan’s attacks. Sometimes, I’m successful, but more often than not, I’mtoo slow to escape completely unharmed. My clothes have holes from the sparks, my hair is singed, and my skin is spotted with dozens of burns of varying severity.

I almost expect to burst into flames when I take a direct hit, but either he doesn’t have the juice or he’s holding back. From the scowl on his face, I suspect it’s the former. The more he fails to leave me weeping on the floor, the more his face turns red in frustration.

Sweat pours off him, his ginger hair damp with it. I can tell he’s weakening when the fire is no longer as bright, the missiles he’s throwing smaller and smaller in size, and the heat not as vicious.

I don’t bother attacking him physically after my first attempt to defend myself failed so spectacularly. I had hoped to knock him out cold with a single blow. Instead, my wrist is covered in a perfect burn of his handprint where he caught my arm. The longer he held onto me, the harsher the burn deepened until I swear my bones were melting. He only released me when I nailed him in the balls.

When he bent over, I brought up my knee and smacked it into his face as hard as possible. There was an audible crack, and I took sadistic pleasure when blood spilled down his face. He cupped his damaged nose, blood seeping between his fingers to drip down his arms, and he fell back onto his ass. The shock lasted only a second, then he turned into a pissed off toddler.

He scrambled to his feet and swiped the back of his arm across his face, smearing the blood across his cheek, then renewed his effort to wipe me off the face of the earth. The only bright spot is that he’s now warier, keeping his distance as he tries to annihilate me.

As the darkness in the corner of the room thickens, the chill in the cavern deepens, and I do my best to push away the ghosts hovering at the edge of my awareness. While some of the spiritsmight seem benign, that can change in a heartbeat. More than a few of them linger with malicious intent, looking for an opening to attack.

Looking for vengeance.

It doesn’t matter no one here is responsible for their condition.

Any living being will do.

Their volatile emotions bleed into me, and I struggle to keep focused on the fight and not give in to their rage and despair. They want me to see what they suffered. They want me to get justice…or syphon power from me so they can do it themselves, uncaring I would become collateral damage.

Another fireball singes my thigh, the heat harsh enough that it burns a hole in my jeans, and I hiss more in annoyance than pain. Even though I’m so used to being hurt that I barely feel pain, the burns are persistent fuckers and harder to ignore. My wounds throb in time with my heartbeat. It’s annoying—a distraction I don’t need as I do my best to dodge his next fireball.

A crowd gathers and watches as I’m gradually whittled down, but I refuse to relent. If I cry mercy, my punishment will only worsen. A buzzer sounds, louder in the cavern as it echoes around the stone walls, and everyone turns and heads toward the entrance, fleeing like cockroaches scuttling from a light.

I turn to follow, committing the rookie mistake of taking my eyes off my opponent. The second I’m distracted, Gordan slams into me so hard, my breath is knocked from me…or that could be the punch he threw at my ribs. My shirt catches fire, and I quickly swat at the flames with an annoyed huff.

“What yourself, bitch,” he snarls in my direction, his shit-colored brown eyes promising retribution. “Crystal and I are in charge here. Cross us again, and we’ll end you.”

He struts away, uncaring of the people he burns as he passes—something I suspect he does on purpose, much like a boytrying to prove who has the biggest dick. He loves his ability, loves it even more that he can use it on others without fear of retribution.

I shudder at the thought of using my powers so openly. Hiding my abilities is so ingrained that I cringe at the idea of anyone discovering what I can do. They will either be like my mother, claiming that I am evil and need to be destroyed, or they will be like my father, willing to imprison me so they can use my abilities for their own gain.

My brain shuts down, flinching away from the thought of being stripped of my identity again until I become nothing more than a mindless drone. People like Gordan, people who believe themselves to be gods and fear nothing, think they have the right to do anything they want, that the rules don’t apply to them. Power corrupts people, and I have no intention of being around when they ultimately destroy themselves.

With my clothes in tatters, my skin red and irritated, I shuffle behind the others. A spot between my shoulder blades itches. When I surreptitiously glance around the cavern, I catch a guard watching me with a calculating expression that can only mean more trouble. I’m thankful when I enter the tunnel and disappear into the crowd.

A few of the others cautiously watch me out of the corner of their eyes. To my surprise, it’s one of the girls at the match who speaks to me, her voice so hoarse, it sounds painful even to talk. “You might as well use your abilities and show them what you can do now. If you don’t prove yourself useful, you will disappear into the labs.” A shudder goes through her painfully thin body, her lifeless green eyes apathetic as she stares up at me. “You only get one chance after that. No one comes back when they disappear a second time.”

She slips away before I can probe for more information. Everyone exits through a door next to the rickety elevator, onlyto climb an even ricketier set of metal stairs a person could get tetanus from by just looking at them. They creak and groan under our weight, but no one flinches at the ominous sound as they shuffle upward.

By the time we emerge, I instinctively inhale, desperate to eradicate the taste of dust and rust from my lungs. I mentally map the maze of hallways and blink in surprise when, three turns later, we walk into the large prison courtyard used as a cafeteria.

Unappetizing food is already set out, a small line forming, and I dutifully fall into step with everyone else.Keep your head down.Don’t draw attention to yourself.I repeat the mantras over and over.

---