Chapter 28

The next few days blurred together in a haze of confusion and uncertainty. I spent hours each day trying to process everything Marcus had said, trying to come to terms with the power inside me—the power that had been buried deep for so long and was now surfacing with an intensity that left me both in awe and terrified. 

I couldn’t avoid it. The power was a part of me now, flowing through my veins like a firestorm, raw and uncontrollable. Every time I closed my eyes, I could feel it, a hum beneath my skin, beckoning me to give in. To surrender to it.

But I couldn’t. 

I couldn’t let it consume me. Not like it had consumed my parents. Not like it had destroyed everything they had worked to protect.

I had to learn how to control it. *How to survive.*

Marcus’s words echoed in my head, over and over again: *Power comes with a price. Are you willing to pay it?*

I didn’t know the answer yet, but I knew one thing for sure—I wasn’t going to lose everything. Not again.

***

It was late afternoon when Marcus appeared again. I hadn’t expected him so soon, but then again, I had learned by now that he didn’t do anything on anyone else’s schedule.

I was standing by the window in my small apartment, looking out over the town, lost in thought. My reflection stared back at me in the glass, but the girl in the mirror didn’t look like me anymore. Her eyes were harder, sharper. She was someone else entirely.

The power was changing me.

I didn’t want to turn around, didn’t want to acknowledge him, but I couldn’t help it. His presence filled the room like a storm cloud, dark and oppressive, and I felt the familiar chill race up my spine.

I turned slowly, finally facing him.

He stood there, his dark coat billowing around him, his expression unreadable. The silver of his eyes flickered like cold flames in the dim light. 

“Ready?” he asked, his voice smooth, almost taunting.

I stared at him for a moment, the weight of everything pressing down on me. Ready? I wasn’t sure I’d ever be ready. But I couldn’t keep hiding. Not from him, not from this world, and certainly not from the power that lived inside me.

I nodded. 

“I’m ready.”

He didn’t smile, but something in his eyes shifted. “Good. You’ll need every ounce of that resolve.”

I had no idea what he meant, but I didn’t question him. Instead, I followed him out of the apartment and into the night, the cool air biting at my skin as we walked in silence. The streets of the town felt different at night—empty, almost suffocating. Every shadow seemed deeper, every corner darker. The night had never seemed so alive with danger.

We walked for what felt like miles, until we reached the outskirts of town, where the land began to break apart into a dense, tangled forest. 

“This is where it begins,” Marcus said, his voice cutting through the silence. He stopped at the edge of the trees, his gaze piercing the darkness ahead. “This is where you’ll learn.”

I glanced at him, trying to mask my growing unease. “Learn what?”

He turned to face me, his lips curling into a predatory grin. “Learn to control your power. Learn to tap into it. To understand it. But most importantly…” He took a step closer, his presence overwhelming. “Learn the price of it.”

I felt a shiver crawl up my spine. “What do you mean, the price?”

“You’ll see soon enough.”

He didn’t wait for a response. With a swift movement, he stepped into the forest, disappearing into the shadows of the trees. I hesitated for only a moment before following him.

The further we walked into the forest, the thicker the air became, as if the trees themselves were closing in around us. The forest was alive with sound—the rustling of leaves, the distant call of an owl, the occasional snap of a branch beneath unseen feet. But there was something else, something I couldn’t put my finger on. A sense of wrongness, a heaviness in the air.

We came to a clearing, and Marcus stopped. 

“This is where you’ll start,” he said, turning to face me. His gaze was dark, calculating, as though he were assessing my every move. “Here, you’ll learn the first lesson of control. How to channel the power inside you without destroying yourself.”

I swallowed hard, trying to steady my nerves. The weight of his words felt like an anchor, pulling me deeper into the unknown. “What do I have to do?”

Marcus stepped back, giving me space. “Close your eyes. Feel the power inside you. Let it rise to the surface.”

I nodded, taking a deep breath. My pulse was quickening, my hands trembling, but I did as he instructed. 

I closed my eyes.

The first sensation was a hum. Soft at first, like a whisper in the back of my mind. But then it grew—louder, stronger, more insistent. I could feel it thrumming beneath my skin, like electricity, like a current too powerful to resist. 

It burned.

I gasped, trying to push it back, but it refused. The power inside me was hungry. It wanted to be used, wanted to be unleashed. It clawed at the walls I had built inside myself, demanding release.

“Don’t fight it,” Marcus’s voice came, low and steady. “You can’t control it by fighting. You control it by accepting it.”

I wanted to scream at him—*accept it?*—but I forced myself to remain still, to breathe. I concentrated on the hum, tried to feel it, to understand it, to tame it. 

Slowly, I reached out for it, feeling it curl around my fingers, like smoke, like fire. It was a force of nature—raw, untamed, and unstoppable. I could feel it pulling at me, testing me, daring me to let go.

The temperature around me began to drop. The air grew thick with energy, charged with something ancient and dangerous. The ground beneath me cracked, as if the earth itself was shifting in response to the power I was channeling. I could feel the trees trembling, the forest holding its breath.

And then, with a violent rush, the power surged forward.

I cried out as the force of it hit me, pushing me to my knees. I tried to steady myself, tried to focus, but it was like trying to hold back a tidal wave. The power poured through me, through every cell in my body, filling me up, overwhelming me. 

I felt *everything*. Every emotion, every thought, every fragment of the world around me. The trees, the air, the earth—they all seemed to pulse in time with the power inside me. It was all connected, all intertwined.

I gasped, my vision swimming, and then—

*Snap.*

The world went silent.

I opened my eyes, but the clearing was no longer the same. The trees were bent at unnatural angles, their bark cracked and splintered. The ground was scorched, as though a fire had passed through it. The air was thick with the smell of burning wood, the scent of something ancient and lost.

And I was kneeling in the center of it all.

Marcus was standing a few feet away, watching me with a grim expression. “Congratulations,” he said softly. “You’ve unleashed the power. Now, you must learn to control it. Because if you don’t, this will be the last time you stand here.” 

I stared at the destruction around me, the blackened earth, the broken trees, and I realized the terrible truth.

I had just destroyed everything. 

And this was only the beginning.