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Tears welled in my eyes as she fell to the floor.

This isn’t happening.

“Fire,” he said as her body collapsed at his feet.

The last one stood, keeping his eyes glued on mine. He rocked from side to side. I hoped the drugs they had given him would take away his pain. They were sick. Monsters. Sadistic pieces of shit.

I thought about what the woman they had called Abigail had said to me. Use my powers? I didn’t have any. Maybe I did, but I didn’t know how to use them.

He held the knife under the last man’s throat. They called him Alexander, and I felt like he was someone I knew. Someone Iloved.

Maurice reached into his pocket with the other hand and pulled out a necklace with a black stone dangling from it. His thumb ran over it with one stroke. “This used to be yours, you know,” he said. “My men found it in a safe house after you had carelessly left it there. It used to protect you from monsters like me.” His fingers wrapped around the stone, and he squeezed. I watched the gem turn to powder in his palm, sprinkling down like rain onto the platform around the man he held at knifepoint. “Now you have nothing.”

I stepped forward, but I winced as Julian pulled me back again.

“Say goodbye to your father, Mercy.” He slit his throat, and blood poured out of his neck. “Spirit.”

My father?

I looked up in horror as Maurice stepped down from the platform. I watched their blood ooze out of their necks and flow to the center until their blood mixed together in a pool of misery and death.

Maurice gripped my hands and squeezed. “Focus, Mercy. It’s your turn.”

He pulled my hands out, palms facing the five bodies in front of me. “Let me go!” I screamed.

“I need your power now,” Maurice said. “Use it, dammit!”

“I don’t know how,” I explained. “What’s supposed to happen?”

Maurice gripped my waist and leaned in close to my ear. “I just killed your father. I’ve made you believe you belonged to me for the last three weeks. I’ve tricked you into loving me.” He kissed me on the cheek. “I’vefuckedyou over and over again these last three weeks, and each time you screamed my name as if I was the only thing that mattered to you.” He stepped back with a huge grin. “Focus on how that makes you feel and then use that anger. How are you feeling at this moment, Mercy? Focus on that rage.”

Angry. That made me feel so fucking angry. It was all a lie. I knew I couldn’t love someone like Maurice, but I wouldn’t let my anger give these assholes the power they needed. I wasn’t going to let them use me this way.

Except, I felt something stirring inside just then. I felt these powers Maurice had spoken of. They rushed through my body and reached for my hands. I looked down and saw the green light for the first time, but I wasn’t going to give them the power they needed. Instead, I reached out, yanking at his collar and pulling him down. I then flung my head back and head-butted Maurice so hard I heard a crunch.

As I bolted for the door, Julian grabbed the collar of my shirt and yanked me back. I threw my hands forward and blasted him across the room as soon as he stood over me. Once I reached the door, Clara was standing in front of it. I lifted my hands to blast her too, but the moment the power landed in front of her face, she caught it in her hand and threw my magic toward the bodies on the floor.

No!

I backed up into someone, and a needle pricked my neck. Immediate dizziness took over me, and I sagged against the body that held me.

They pulled me toward the platform, and I watched in horror as my power, which she had directed their way, swirled in circles. The blood of their victims circled around like a tornado until it was mixed as one. The blood flowed up in a single crimson stream, green light crackling throughout it. I tried to concentrate, tried to recall the magic back to me, but nothing happened. Nothing worked. Despair racked through me. I had given them what they wanted.

Clara walked up to the platform and moved her hands from side to side, directing the liquid up to the large tank in the center of the room and lowering it inside.

She was a witch, and that scared me more than being around Maurice. She just took my own powers and used them against me.

Clara smiled and stepped toward me, but I couldn’t attack anymore. The drugs they’d given me had taken over.

And I shut my eyes.

CHAPTER 37

Mercy

THE CHAINS AROUND my wrists and ankles burned my skin. I cast my eyes around the room and realized that I was back at the house, in the master bedroom. I yanked on the chains, which only burned more.

Oh, come on!

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