Utter silence was followed by a bloodcurdling scream, as I pulled one of the daggers from my hair and went to track down the rest of my team.

“We need to get out of here!” Aaron yelled, his back to me, as one of the Made lunged for him. The red-eyed Vamp snarled, but Aaron wasn’t deterred. I let them battle it out as I searched for Alexandra and Blair.

The column of fire that erupted toward the back of the room gave me a good idea where to start looking, and I took off in that direction. The red and gold lights suddenly seemed dizzying, even sickening, as my heart thudded in my chest.

Where is she? Where is she? Where is she?

By the time I saw Alexandra, she was already facing off, one against three, but holding her own as she lit each of them on fire from the inside. The smell of rotted, burning flesh was stomach churning, but I couldn’t afford to get sick. I slashed each of their necks, spraying both Alexandra and me in blood, as heads rolled.

“I had it, you know?” She pursed her lips, not seeing the dark-eyed Vamp behind her who moved to snack on her neck and suddenly found himself thrown into a wall. Alexandra spun around as a dagger went zinging through the air and nailed him to the wall by his neck. Black blood dribbled down, and I wasted no time beheading another of the undead.

Throughout the room, fights were picking up, as members of the Council tried to defend themselves, sometimes killing other Supernaturals in the process. I didn’t know where the hell Anastasia had gone, but she was behind this somehow. Some way.

Why would she want us to train for a war, only to leave us blind when the war came knocking? Something wasn’t adding up here, but I could figure it out after I killed her, or got everyone and ran. Whichever came first.

“We need to find Blair and get out of here!” I yelled to Alexandra, who was already facing another Vamp. The smell of blood and death called to me like the sweetest of lullabies, and I closed my eyes.

I was one with the world.

One with the universe.

One with matter.

And I was going to gorge myself on the snapping of bones and the feel of blood between my fingers before the night was over. The killing gene flipped on, the world slowed down, and I went to work.

Tomorrow, I would remember the next few faces I killed, and the ones after that, but then I started to forget as the battle drum beat inside my chest, compelling me to march. To slaughter.

Using only the daggers in my hair and my ability, I alternated between dismembering and beheading, while Alexandra baked them to ash. We were fighting our way across the room, when a low cackle brought me to a grinding halt.

“Anastasia,” I breathed.

She was watching me like a bug she was going to crush. The condescension and certainty were staggering, but I lunged nonetheless. She danced out of my way, but I brought my boot up in a roundhouse kick to the chest, sending her flying into the bar. Her back bent unnaturally as the stone top cracked in half. Plumes of dust and wood chips went everywhere, stinging my eyes as I stared her down. My muscles ached from my earlier fight with the Hydra, but now wasn’t the time for weakness.

“You knew they were coming. You told me this was all to stop a war. Why bother if you planned on giving them our heads on a silver platter?” I spat, mentally reaching out and dragging her across the shattered glass and through pools of blood. She kneeled before me, blood leaking from her bottom lip, but whatever other wounds she’d sustained were already healed.

I reeled back to punch her, when she gave another gurgle of laughter and said, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

She raised her hand and pointed a single finger at the stage, where spotlights snapped on, illuminating a terrifying sight. Lily. Bound and gagged like a piece of meat.

The person forcing her into submission?

Lucas.

Tick.

Tock.

Tick.

Tock.

Time flashed by, as I searched for an explanation, some reason for why he’d done this. But deep down, I wandered back over the past month, and, slowly, painfully, the pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

“Kneel if you want her to live,” Anastasia said, but I didn’t move an inch.

I didn’t hit her again, though, as I stared up at Lily, who was half unconscious on the stage. Lucas grabbed her shoulder roughly and fisted his hand in her hair as he tilted her head to the side.

Someone had bitten her.

Not once in my sixteen years had I ever been so consumed by an emotion that I couldn’t react. I was furious but I couldn’t scream. I didn’t know how to look away. All I knew was that the power was rising again, and this time, what I’d done to the Hydra would look tame. I was going to burn the world down, because a Vampire had defiled my sister in the most disgusting of ways.

Anastasia moved when I was frozen. A couple of Vampires jumped onto the stage and held Lily’s arms, as if readying to bite. Or kill.

“Do. Not. Touch. Her. Unless you want to be wiped off the face of this planet like the dirt on my shoes.” My voice was magnified by the loose grasp I had on my rage. Power crackled over my skin, making my hairs stand on end.

“You threaten me? The Head of the Supernatural Council? A Member of the Court?” she demanded, letting her own voice carry. The massacre was still going on, judging by the screams, but I didn’t care who lived and who died in this fight, as long as I protected me and mine.

Instead of answering her with pretty words, I pulled the last dagger from my hair, freeing my braid, as I aimed for the spot between her eyes. So fast that even the Vampires who jumped forward to stop me couldn’t protect her. But it seemed the Head of the Council could protect herself, and by the ease with which she caught the dagger, I was in some deep, deep shit.

“Why must you always be so predictable, Selena?” She gave an exasperated sigh, tossing the dagger in the air to catch it by its point. “First I send the demons for you, but you live and kill my darling Fernando. Then I send the Born after you, thinking you won’t fight at the cost of your friend’s life, since that’s where it seemed to go wrong with the demons. And now?” She didn’t smile or laugh as she twirled the dagger in her hands before throwing it straight between my eyes.

My powers were exhausted, from both the Hydra and the fight. My body too tired to try to catch it by the blade. The only option left was to move.

I flung myself to the side, spinning on my heel, but the dagger skimmed my ear and took a chunk of my braid instead. I didn’t hear the weapon land, but the swish of my hair hitting the floor was enough to make me look down and see that most of the braid was gone.

“You’re fast, girl, I’ll give you that. But you’re not the smartest.” She went on, buying me time to find a way out of this, as her minions approached. Lucas was shifting back and forth uncomfortably, and while I wanted nothing more than to kill him with my bare hands, I didn’t have the strength to take them all out. I didn’t have the control not too obliterate Lily as well. Anastasia could thank the Hydra for that…but then again, maybe that was the whole point of my little demonstration. Not to kill me, but exhaust me.

“I’ve suspected you were behind the demons. What I couldn’t figure out, though, was why. Why bother sending your pets after me in the first place if I’m so insignificant?” I asked, lying through my teeth, but deciding to kill two birds with one stone. If there was one thing I knew about Anastasia, it was that her pride was her downfall. She wanted to lord over me how much better she was, how much smarter, and I needed time to reach out to the others. To find a way to save my sister.

“Stay put. We’re coming.” The voice was distinctly feminine, and carried Johanna’s essence. I didn’t understand how, but frankly I didn’t care, as long as Lily got out.

“You are insignificant, and I’ve made sure you stay that way,” she purred, not quite buying into the lie as I’d hoped she would. I still couldn’t piece together why she’d chosen to target me, or how I was a threat to her.

Unless, like most things in my life, it was my fault for simply existing.

“What about him? What’s he got to do with all of this?” I asked, thrusting my chin at the dark-eyed stranger who held my sister hostage. I’d only just noticed that his eyes were black instead of green. At least they finally reflected his true nature.

“It’s quite simple, really. You bought the story that he’d failed to do something he’d said he would, and I was punishing you for it. I was worried you wouldn’t, that you would see what had really happened, that the Made had brought me your message. You bought his incompetence all too easily, though.” She clicked her tongue, stepping into the spotlight, and dragging a long fingernail down my sister’s cheek.

“I knew it would eat at you, that you’d gone down for what you viewed as his failure. You’re predictable that way. You cut him out of your mind that very first night, and planted the seed that let me take him, like a crop ready for harvest. You fostered the jealousy and hatred all on your own, so when I came to claim his mind for my own, there was nothing to stop him, to protect him, from my gift—because you’d relinquished your control. His mind was ripe for the taking… I told him what I planned to do to you, and the poor boy had no chance, really.” She switched to running her fingers through his hair, and Lucas didn’t flinch.

“He was blind, because he loved you—and so he gave away his soul to save you. Little did he know that I couldn’t kill you myself if I wanted to. But now that I have him…he’ll destroy you for me.” She started cackling wildly, uncontrollably.

When Anastasia raked her nail sharply across my sister’s cheek and brought the blood to her lips, my gin and tonic fought to come back up. I had to say something. To get her attention back, to buy more time for the others.

“What are you talking about, you can’t kill me yourself?” I yelled, and as I’d hoped, she paused and turned away from my sister.

“You think I’m daft enough to give away all my secrets to a pest I can’t kill? No…You’ll be gone long before you ever figure it out.” She turned back to Lily and offered one of my sister’s arms to the Vampires. They plunged their fangs into her, but Lily didn’t cry out when their teeth pierced her skin. I couldn’t stop trembling as I watched, unable to look away, too afraid of accidently killing her to stop it.

Violet’s presence was a numbness I couldn’t afford as I rallied the power within me to try for one final shot. Aaron still wasn’t here, and Johanna was nowhere to be found. With none of my team in sight, saving my sister and stopping Anastasia was on my shoulders. The pounding in my ears had reached its crescendo when Anastasia seemed to notice that something was amiss. That I wasn’t bowing down without a fight.

“Selena!” a voice screamed. Alexandra’s voice.

I turned—just a fraction—but it was a moment too long. Anastasia said, “Snap her neck.”

“No!” I screamed, sending a wild shot at the stage. The power was unsteady, though. It didn’t want to be contained. It wanted to break.

The power exploded against them, throwing Lucas and the others, but Lily… I missed, and Lily took the brunt of it. She hit the wall with a wicked crack, her neck hanging at an odd angle. It was only when the light left her eyes, and she collapsed entirely that I realized what I’d done.

Oh my god.

I couldn’t breathe.

I couldn’t see.

“No!” I screamed again, scrambling to get to her. To bring her back. To do anything.

She couldn’t be dead. She just couldn’t, because if she died…

Nothing was going to stop me from killing every living thing on the planet.

The ground rolled beneath my feet, but I didn’t care. My knees hit the floor before I could even process what was happening, and I gave myself over to my demons. Fire ignited, pressing in on me like a mob after a murderer.

“Dormi, dea, propter manicaveris.”

Sleep, little goddess, for you must rise with the dawn.

Those words wouldn’t work this time, because madness had me. Grief claimed my every thought as I crawled on my hands and knees toward the stage—ripping concrete up by the chunk.

Oh my— I can’t— I didn’t mean—

I killed my sister.

The one I’d sworn to protect. To cherish. The one I’d held through every nightmare and panic attack. The one who was only just learning to live, and to save herself. She would never love again. Never laugh. Never cry.

“Lily!” I screamed, summoning an impenetrable dome of dark matter as I collapsed in on myself. Letting it disintegrate anything that dared attack me, and absorb their energy.

One moment, I was being swallowed up by the pain, and the next I’d been sucked away and was looking through different eyes. Clearer eyes.

Alexandra’s face illuminated next to mine, like a warrior princess in battle. She grabbed me, this body, and brought my face to hers.

“You told me that you broke my heart for her. You told me that your entire existence depends on her. I can’t save her and fight, okay? So I need you to come through on your promise that you’ll get her out.” Alexandra’s eyes were glossy with unshed tears. Her voice cracked on a silent sob before she continued. “You take her to the place I showed you, and if I don’t return in twenty-four hours, you run. You run like hell, and you never look back. You hear me? You never let her look back.”

Images flashed of her in the bathroom, worried that this party wasn’t a coincidence. She showed him pictures of a house with a white picket fence and an alpine larch, and made him promise to take me away. Far away, if anything ever happened—as the only repayment for breaking her heart. He shuddered at the memories, and the lump in his throat at what he was about to do.

“She’ll never forgive me,” he said softly, but he’d do as she’d asked, and not because he’d promised, but because he thought it was the only way to keep me alive. It only took me a moment to realize whose body I was in, whose emotions I was feeling, and a moment more to understand that he loved her.

Aaron truly loved Alexandra. He loved her fire. He loved her will. He loved how she fought for me, but he wasn’t in love with her. Not like she was with him, and they both knew that. They both knew that he cared for her like a sister, because his heart—no, his soul—belonged to another. It belonged to me.

“I don’t care. As long as she lives, I don’t care what you have to do to make it happen. You told me you’re her signasti, right? That she’s your one and only half?” Alexandra asked, not a shred of brown in her eyes as the fire burned.

He only nodded.

“Then you and you alone can heal her, and make her happy when I’m gone. That’s all I ask. Make her happy,” she whispered.

Aaron’s throat caught when she hugged him tightly, briefly, and forgave him for dating her just to be closer to me. He turned toward the dark mass that was growing, eating everything that stood in its path as my body started to self-destruct.

Behind him, the fire grew as Alexandra faced off against my enemies, and trusted the man who’d broken her heart to save himself and the girl he was bound to. Letting her sacrifice it all in the process, just for one chance.

I tried to pull away, to go back to my mind as his emotions ran through me, one after another. So fierce and powerful, and yet I wouldn’t let myself feel them. I couldn’t stand the burn of them, and I screamed out to Violet.

Aaron broke through each layer of my shield, and when he looked at my face, the sight was one I never wanted to see again. I scrambled from his mind, wanting nothing more than to curl inside limbo and wither away. My consciousness left him, rushing back into my body the moment we touched.

He jolted for a second, as if he’d realized where I’d been, but didn’t slow as he picked me up and ran—letting the world disintegrate behind him as my shield caved in and collapsed the ground.

I closed my eyes and surrendered to unending despair as I let the fire and brimstone swallow me whole.