Page 14 of Phoenix Academy: Mayhem

Ari

Over and over again, he kills me.

A knife to my gut that rends up through my rib cage and tears me apart.

Gun to my head, bullets exploding skin and bones.

Kicks and punches to my face, chest, stomach, until I fall down and curl on the ground, until he stomps on me over and over again.

I die.

Turn to ashes.

Blue fire.

And rise again, whole and unmarred, to face him and whimper.

To die once more, just like my mother did. Just like Lizzy did. Slow, torturous, fast, horrible—until I feel as if my very soul has left my body and is floating somewhere above our heads, watching him kill me, wondering when it will all be over.

I hear myself wail. Cry. Beg. Pleaded. Whimper. Scream. Sob.

Until.

Something changes.

Not around me, but inside me.

Deep within, in a place where his hands can't reach. Where his black eyes can't see. Through me and beyond, far from everything.

In that place I feel a warm glow. A beating heart, separate from my own. A sense of rightness and belonging. Breathing deep, I feel my body be reborn from yet another death, and I realize: I am stronger than him.

That's why he killed me. Why he haunts me down in Hell. Not just because he's a soulless monster. But also because he's afraid of me.

As I open my eyes and gasp back to life, staring up into the deep blacks of my father the Heretic's eyes, I sense that fear. Feel it deeply. Know that all I have to do is face him, and he'll go away.

So though my bones creak and my muscles are tight with pain, I force myself to get up. To turn towards him. To summon the blue fire that lives inside me, my wings unfurling behind my shoulders, magic dancing on my fingertips.

The Heretic snarls. "It doesn't matter what you do—you can't kill me. Can't destroy me."

"Maybe not up there in the real world," I respond, "but down here? You're not the real deal, and we know it. A little cleansing fire should be more than enough."

But just in case, I summon all the fire within me and throw it at him at once. Fireball after fireball. My wings stretch and curl towards him. Flames lick the walls of the school, leap up towards the ceiling, race across the floor. Stalking through my own fire, which doesn't burn my skin, I raise my palms and grab his shoulders as the fire reaches him and he starts to burn.

Beneath my touch, he screams in pain and fear.

The fire consumes him.

It turns him to blackness, then ashes and dust crumbling all around me.

Taking in a deep breath, I let the fire go. All that remains is the scorch marks it's left behind and a strange sense of emptiness in the air. I feel a sense of satisfaction—it's not the same as finally ending the real Heretic, but it does feel like a premonition of what's yet to come.

I will get revenge on my father for what he's done to my family.

Whatever blood of his runs through my veins, it matters not a bit now that he's a soulless being. A necromancer-risen member of the dead. I don't know how or who rose him, but I don't need to. All I need to know is that I can defeat him and make sure he'll never torture me again.

Spinning on my heel, I set off to find my guys—and find them already in front of me, wild-eyed and blinking around them. David looks rattled, Reggie out of breath, and Xavier deeply disturbed. Whatever they saw, it got to them; but their journeys seem to have ended the moment I burned the Heretic to pieces.

"Let's get out of here," I tell them. "This definitely isn't the place to be."

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