• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“I didn’t learn a damn thing except that you’re in a foul mood and taking it out on other people.”

“You want to know what’s wrong? You really want to know?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Get out of the way, Stephen,” he said, and Stephen didn’t even ask why, he just crawled out from between us.

We were left staring at each other, not quite two feet apart. What he’d done to Stephen seemed to have taken the edge off his power, but it was still there like some great slumbering thing pressing against the surface.

“Open the marks, Anita, feel what I’m feeling.”

“I opened the marks already. I figured I had to, to learn how to do this.”

“So it’s just my shielding?” He made it a question.

I nodded. “I can feel your rage, Richard, I just don’t know why.”

“Just my shields between us and . . .” He shook his head, almost smiling, then he dropped his shields. It hit me like a physical force, drove me back a step. Anger so raw it filled my throat with bile; a self-loathing so deep that it drew tears down my cheeks in two hot lines. I stood there for a minute feeling Richard’s pain, and it was suffocating.

I stared up at him, the tears still wet on my cheeks. “Richard, oh my God.”

“Don’t feel sorry for me, don’t you dare feel pity for me!” He grabbed my arms when he said it, and the moment we touched, our beasts poured up from inside us and spread across our skins in a hot dance of power. His beast crashed through me, invisible, metaphysical claws ripping through my body. It was as if Richard’s beast was trying to eat his way through my body. I screamed, and thrust my beast into his, and I felt claws ripping into meat. There was nothing to see with the eye, but I could feel it, feel fur and muscle and meat under claws and teeth. I screamed not just from the pain, but from the sensations of cutting Richard up. He hurt me, and I wanted to hurt him back. There was no more reasoning, no more thinking, just reacting.

Our beasts tore through each other, rolling, clawing, tearing. We collapsed on the deck, screaming. Dimly I could still feel Richard’s hands locked on my arms as if he couldn’t let go.

There was movement all around us. People hovering, but no one interfered, no one touched us. When we fell, they scattered, as if afraid to touch us. Voices shouting above our screams, “What’s wrong? What’s happening? Anita, Anita! Richard, control it!”

His beast was suddenly like a weight inside me, but it didn’t hurt. The two energies lay quiet, leaning against each other, not mingling, just leaning. I could almost feel the solid push of his beast against something inside of me that had bones and fur, and wasn’t me. I couldn’t hear anything but the thundering of the blood in my own head. I felt Richard’s weight on top of me, before I looked down to find him collapsed over me. His head rested on my chest. I could feel the pulse of the blood in his body, his heart racing against the skin of my stomach. I was covered in the cool slime from Stephen’s body. One, I was lying in a pool of it; two, Richard had been covered in it, and he’d slid down my body. I was going to have to shower before I could go to bed, even if it was dawn. And I ached, ached as if I’d been beaten. I knew I’d be stiff when I moved.

Everyone was standing in a ring above us, staring down. I found my voice, hoarse, almost raspy, but clear. “Get off of me.”

Richard raised his head, slowly, as if he hurt, too. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re always sorry, Richard, now get off of me.”

He didn’t move, in fact he settled heavier, hands curving at the edges of my waist. “Do you still want to help Gregory?”

“That’s what this whole show is about, so yeah.”

“Then let’s try again.”

I tensed, and started trying to wriggle out from under him. His hands tightened at my waist. “Easy, Anita, it won’t hurt. I don’t think.”

“Says you. It hurt like a son of a bitch. Let me go, Richard.” My voice held the beginnings of anger, and fear. I liked the anger, could have done without the fear.

“You fought me to a standoff. It’s over,” he said.

I stopped struggling and stared at