Page 108 of Despair

Her eyes snapped open. She gritted her teeth and formulated a plan. Unleashing Tony’s fire in this small enclosed space meant she’d likely burn herself alive with it. Maybe the electricity would work. Possibly Liza’s poison, but considering the animal had a toxin in its system, she wasn’t convinced. She didn’t think she had the energy for using more than one gift. Fire it was, then. But for it to work, she had to get as close to the plant’s heart as she could. She had to allow herself to be taken.

She stopped struggling.

She closed her eyes. Held her breath. And waited until she felt its slithering embrace enclose around her middle. Then she burrowed deep within her soul, found that kindling spark inside her, and she fed it everything she had. She tried not to think about healing this time, if she lived. She tried not to think about Axel, and how he’d feel betrayed when she died over this. She tried not to think about how she should be there with her family, softening the blow of Mary’s and Flint’s loss.

She trusted her instincts.

She let the fire out. But she didn’t stop there. When the plant monster—Julius—screeched in agony, she turned the tables and embraced him. She clung onto his withering and smoldering body as he tried to escape. She pushed the fire into his heart until it became all consuming.

For both of them.

Heat flared around her. Light blinded. But she wouldn’t let go. Even when the body she clung to became ash in her hands, she fell with it to the floor. The pain of the fire was too great. She feared her skin would melt off, but she clung to her consciousness.

Time seemed to slow as flames sizzled, crackled, and flared around her. She must be dead because she was still here, existing despite the torrid inferno and heat. Black smoke choked her and she coughed. Her lungs burned on the inside.

Suddenly her courage didn’t feel so invincible.

Suddenly she didn’t want to die.

She wanted to live, damn it.

She wanted to see Axel’s gorgeous eyes again. Wanted to hear him croon to her in his parent’s language. Wanted to cuddle. Everyone.

It started to rain. Weird. How could it rain when she was inside a sewage tunnel? The rain thickened and soon the smoke increased. She coughed and suffocated, wheezed as she tried to find air. Her lungs burned as though she’d inhaled the fire. A vague thought that she could perhaps push the smoke out with her gift entered her mind but it was too late. She was losing consciousness.

As her mind shut down she felt strong, expert hands fit a mask over her face. Clean air rushed in to bathe her abused lungs in freedom. The rush of straight oxygen made her feel giddy like she was flying. She was a bird.

No. Not flying. Being carried in strong arms.

“I got you, Daze,” Axel said, his rough voice distant through his fireman’s breathing apparatus. “I’m not letting you go.”