Page 61 of Awakened Gifts
Jase, please get out of here. I’m close to losing it.
He doesn’t respond, and my heart drops to my toes.
“Get the hell back!” I hear him yelling at last, but I feel him coming toward me instead of going with the others.
Can’t he ever do a single damn thing I ask him to?
The ground starts vibrating again, but this time, it’s not the other hybrid doing it. The bald man on top of my mother is taunting her, keeping his hand around her throat, while a metal net courses with electricity and binds her.
My eyes widen as Uncle Brazen crawls on his elbows, trying his best to get to her, but his legs are in shambles, making it impossible for him to walk. Mom’s tears slip out as she suffers in silence, refusing to call for help or even alert anyone to her distress.
Fire blazes by me just as I throw my arms out, and my power combined with Jase’s forces the bald, snaky freak to fall backwards. With a flick of my wrist, the netting falls off, and Mom sucks in air like she can’t get enough. Just as she starts crawling to Uncle Brazen, she cries out, grabbing her side as a major gash appears and blood spurts out.
The bald man blurs to her, completely ignoring me. They’re not here for me; this is about Mom.
I charge toward them, running fast as the dress I’m wearing tears more and more.
“Your mother sends her fucking hello,” he growls before slamming his vibrating fists down.
Barely in time, I dive over her and my body absorbs the shockwaves of the hellacious impact. I feel a snap inside me, but the pain barely registers before I throw my arms around him and jerk him to the ground.
He struggles under me as I clutch his head between my hands. My twisted grin is just as sadistic as my savage’s, because this time I’m the one relishing fear. His fear. I’m sick of being afraid.
“Bitch,” he growls, continuing to struggle in vain. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
My sinister grin only spreads as I stare into his cold, falsified eyes. “Death,” I whisper, and his eyes widen as his whole body shakes beneath me.
I push my power through him, slowly compressing all of his organs. As much as I’d love to keep this slow pace, the battle cries behind me remind me I’m the only one strong enough to save us right now. Torturing one sadistic bastard isn’t worth losing everyone over.
“Time to die,” I say flippantly, overloading his body with more power than he can take, and I stand up, leaving him writhing as his body turns inside out.
It’s then I realize how dangerously close I am to being savage, and I stagger as the bitch leaves me. It’s almost a bereft feeling of abandonment, and I didn’t even know she was anywhere close.
“You might want to get back!” I yell, sensing most of my family is out of the line of fire. “It’s about to get messy,” I say to myself, summoning up all my power and channeling my empathic powers to isolate each and every one from our group.
Using my night vision, I try to see, making sure I’m right, but the fight has meshed back together, making visibility impossible. This had better fucking work.
The power that breaks free from me is raw, carnal, and uninhibited as it crashes through the brigades of men and women, lashing out in my charted map. Heartbeats call to my ears, and I squeeze the air, controlling the targets as I draw the lives out of them. Agonizing howls of pain rattle my ears, and a sick wave of disgust roils my stomach. But I press on, driving my invisible attack.
Pleads and promises whisper through the air as the ruthless bastards beg for their lives. But mercy is denied to those who don’t spare mercy of their own. Now it’s time to collect their souls, just as I warned them.
Familiar arms wrap around my waist as I continue to slay the attackers. They really shouldn’t have fucked up my wedding day. I should have known my mother’s bad luck would fall to me in some form or fashion.
As the last heartbeat targeted halts its attempt to find a rhythm and gives out altogether, I drop my hands and stagger back into the strong body that was already prepared to support me. When I fail to stand on my own at all, Jase scoops me up and holds me to his bloody chest.
“You’re hurt,” I whisper, running my hand over the deep gashes with a feather-light touch.
“I’m better than most. Are you hit?”
That’s a question I’m not concerned with answering when I see all the bloody, marred bodies of my family. Kellan is cradling his side, holding Simone to him as numerous men rush around with bags of blood.
Simone is unconscious, and I can hear her labored breaths from here. Her hair is matted with what I assume is her own blood. Melania is clutching her neck that is spilling red through her gapped fingers, while she bends over my ravaged brother.
Rex. Oh no.
“I can’t hear his heart,” I panic, desperately scrambling out of Jase’s hold as my tears gather in my eyes.
Melania is crying when I stagger to his body and drop to my knees. My tears fall all the harder when I hear him suck in a painful breath and cough on his own blood. I sink back and drop to the ground as two men throw blood bags in our direction, and they continue to run around to disperse more.