Page 11 of Phoenix Academy: Mayhem

Chapter 4

Ari

I screamand grab for the guys, but they're gone. I'm alone in the hallway of this abandoned school. Desperate, I whirl around looking for them, but they're nowhere.

The doors behind me are shut.

Beyond them, only darkness.

"You bitch. You whore." The Heretic's voice is soulless, just like the husk of a man he is. "I'll show you what should be done to witches like you."

Surging towards the closed doors, I grab onto the handles and try to escape, but they're locked. So I move to the windows—boarded up. Screaming in terror, I call my flame to me. It responds, surging into my hands, unfurling into bright blue wings over my shoulders. I throw everything I've got directly at the windows and doors, trying desperately to burn it down, to escape—nothing happens.

His footsteps are heavy.

He moves closer and closer.

Slowly stalking his prey.

There's no need to move quickly, after all. He knows I'm trapped. Tears streak down my face as I turn around to face him, feeling horror and disgust in my gut, nausea and anger. I still remember the pain as he tied me down and slashed me open with his knives.

Trying to bleed the evil out of me.

To make the magic go away.

He did it to Mom first. I watched him. Then to Lizzy, after me, draining her life. Mad and soulless, that's what he is, with no humanity left in him.

Despite myself, though, I still plead for my life.

"Please." My voice is shaky and childlike. I call to my fire, try throwing it at him, but it sputters and whimpers just like me. "Please, don't... don't hurt me."

The Heretic smiles.

* * *

David

My father's favorite belt has a buckle at the end of it carved in the shape of angel wings. I know because he used to hit me with it when he was mad—or just because he could.

I still remember how it felt when I woke up in the hospital and realized we'd been in a car accident. For a brief moment I thought that he was dead. I didn't feel any grief at all. Just a bright flash of relief—and a hell of a lot of guilt.

It would make sense that he'd be down here in Hell. Of course.

"So." Staring me down, he surges forward suddenly, grabs me by the arm and drags me against his chest. "You're coming with me, boy."

"Don't—" I struggle in his grip, and shout out for help. "Reggie! X! Ari, where—where are you?"

"You're alone, boy." His breath smells like whiskey against my cheek. I turn my face away from his mouth, disgusted by him. "It's time for a goddamned reckoning."

Yanking me into one of the abandoned classrooms, he kicks the door shut behind him and drops me onto one of the desks. I land on my ass with a hard thump and glare up at him, seeing myself in the lines of his face, the bright color of his red-tinged eyes, how he cocks his head to the side and cracks his neck with a twist of his palm.

I hate how much we share, not just blood but appearance, a temper, everything.

Every time I think I'm done with him I look in the mirror and realize I grow more and more to look like him every day.

If it weren't for the Blacks putting me through Phoenix Academy, taking me in and showing me what a real family is like, I think I would be him by now. Would be drinking from a cheap whiskey bottle like he is as he paces in front of me restlessly. Would probably be wearing the same faded denim and making the same dumb mistakes with women.

Sometimes I think that I was never really good enough to get away from him. It's luck that brought me to Reggie and Xavier's parents, after all, not anything I did to earn it. Without the car accident, without Xavier's blood in me making me a feral uncontrollable shifter, they wouldn't feel obligated to take me in and care for me. And I'd still be his son.

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