Here I am, sitting on my bedroom floor, with tears that refuse to stop falling. The walls seem to be closing in on me, and every breath feels like swallowing ground glass. My mind can't stop replaying over and over the disappointed faces, the judgmental looks, the ease with which everyone abandoned me.
"I thought you were different."
Kaius's words repeat like a toxic echo in my head. I close my eyes tightly, trying to make them stop, but it only gets worse. Now I can clearly see the exact moment when Adrian decided I was guilty. I can remember how Cali avoided my gaze when I asked her to believe me.
The pain in my head starts as a dull throb, but quickly intensifies until it becomes unbearable. It's as if something inside my skull is trying to break its way out, as if my own thoughts are becoming too big for my brain.
Knock, knock, knock.
The door. Shit. I don't want to see anyone. I don't want more explanations, more accusations, more disappointed looks that make me feel like I'm something that needs to be fixed.
"Go away," I murmur toward the door, but my voice comes out broken and pathetic.
"Alexander, it's us. We need to talk to you."
Adrian. Of course it's Adrian. And by the tone, Sara is probably with him. Great. Just what I needed: a group therapy session led by my ex-best friend and the girl who basically replaced me.
The pain in my head intensifies, as if Adrian's presence on the other side of the door is activating something I'd rather keep asleep.
"I said go away," I repeat, but I know he won't listen. Adrian never listens to me when he thinks he's doing the right thing.
"Alex, please. We just want to understand what happened."
Understand what happened. As if I were a problem that needs to be solved. As if after years of knowing me, they really believe I'm capable of magically manipulating someone.
I get up from the floor on shaky legs and walk toward the door. Every step makes the pounding in my head worse, but I have no choice. If I don't open it, they'll keep insisting until my parents come to force the situation.
When I open the door, I come face to face with Adrian and Sara. Adrian has that expression he uses when he's trying to be the responsible hero, and Sara... Sara looks at me with a mixture of curiosity and caution that makes me feel like a dangerous zoo animal.
"What do you want?" I ask, and my voice sounds colder than I intended. Good. Maybe that way they'll understand I'm not in the mood for this shit.
"We want to help you," Adrian says, and the sincerity in his voice almost makes me laugh. After everything that happened, does he really think he can just show up here and fix things?
"Help me?" I repeat, feeling something hot and furious begin to boil in my chest. "Really? Now you want to help me?"
Sara steps forward, with her hands raised as if she's approaching a wounded animal. "Alexander, we know it must be confusing to have powers you don't understand. But using seduction magic on Kaius—"
"I DIDN'T USE ANY FUCKING MAGIC!"
The explosion comes out of me with such force that both Adrian and Sara step back. The pain in my head becomes piercing, as if my own words had activated something that was waiting to come out.
"Alex..." Adrian begins, but I interrupt him.
"No," I say, feeling how the anger I've been containing for days finally finds an outlet. "Don't come at me with that 'let's calm down' voice. You've known me for years, Adrian. Years. And the first time someone accuses me of something, you immediately decide I'm guilty."
"It's just that we don't know what kind of magic you have," Sara says, and her condescending tone makes me want to strangle her. "Your ceremony was... strange. And Kaius is a powerful demon. For someone to manipulate him—"
"How the hell could I manipulate a demon's son when even you don't know which god I owe my powers to?" My voice is becoming deeper, raspier, as if something inside me is physically changing. "Do you really think that if I had that kind of power, I would have been hiding my feelings for Adrian for years like a coward?"
The silence that follows is deafening. I can see in Adrian's eyes the exact moment he processes what I just said, but I don't care anymore. I don't care about anything anymore.
"You know what," I continue, feeling something electric begin to tingle under my skin, "I can't stand my parents' hypocrisy. I can't stand you pretending to care about me when all you've done is treat me like I'm invisible. And I definitely can't stand you coming here to interrogate me like I'm a criminal."
"Alexander, calm down," Adrian says, but his voice sounds distant, as if it's coming through water.
"Calm down?" I laugh, but there's no humor in the sound. "You know what? You better get the fuck out. You're not going to be useful here."
That's when it happens.
The first spark comes out of my fingers like lightning in miniature, but I immediately know something is different. It's not the kind of controlled electricity I've manifested before during training. This is raw, wild, furious.
Sara instinctively raises her hands, creating a golden protective field around herself, but when my lightning hits her shield, it goes through it like paper. Her eyes widen in shock when she realizes her magic can't contain what's coming out of me.
The lightning coming out of my body starts golden, but quickly darkens, becoming a deep red that seems to absorb the light from the room. My entire room begins to shake, books falling from shelves, window crystals cracking.
I can feel my eyes burning, as if they're being rewritten from the inside. The mirror on my dresser shatters, but not before I can see my reflection: my eyes, which have always been dark brown, now glow with an intense sky blue that gradually transforms to golden.
My hair, black as I've always had it, begins to lighten at the tips, as if light itself is being woven into each strand.
"GET OUT OF MY ROOM!"
My voice doesn't sound like mine. It's deeper, more resonant, as if it's coming from somewhere deep inside me. With a gesture of my hand, a wave of pure force comes out of my body, lifting Adrian and Sara off the ground and pushing them toward the hallway.
I slam the door shut and lean against it, gasping. My heart beats so fast I feel like it's going to explode, and the buzzing of energy on my skin is so intense it hurts.
What the hell just happened?
I look at my hands, which still sparkle with residual electricity, and try to process what I just did. Sara is a Bearer of Isis, one of the most powerful goddesses in the Egyptian pantheon, and I just destroyed her magical defense like it was nothing.
I don't have much time to think about it because the emergency bell starts ringing throughout the fortress. Three long chimes followed by two short ones: everyone to the center. Immediate mission.
Great. Just what I needed.
When I leave my room, I can feel all eyes fixed on me. My eyes are apparently still golden, because I see bright light reflections on every surface I pass. I walk through the hallways with a grace I didn't know I had, as if my muscles had been reprogrammed to move more fluidly, more... feline.
When I reach the center of the fortress, my parents see me with that expression of disdain I've come to know very well in recent days. But when my golden eyes meet theirs, I see something else: fear.
Good. Let them be afraid.
I look at them with such pure and concentrated rage that I can physically see how they step back. Everyone in the room can feel the tension, the way the air itself seems to vibrate with contained energy.
The commander on duty begins explaining the mission: reports of supernatural activity at the docks. Unidentified creatures attacking civilians. Assigned team: Cali, Adrian, Sara, and me.
Of course. Because what I really need right now is to be trapped on a mission with the people who just decided I'm a magical manipulator.
I walk to the arsenal as I always do, but when I take my bow, the bloody wood that is magical wood created by the god Osiris immediately disintegrates in my hands like it was nothing. The red lightning still coursing through my skin has turned my favorite weapon into ashes.
I grab my backup sword. Same result. The solar metal granted by Ra melts like hot butter.
"I'm going without weapons," I announce, and I can hear murmurs of shock around me. Never, in my entire life, have I gone on a mission without my complete equipment. But right now I have no choice, plus I have the feeling my hands are going to be much more lethal than any forged weapon. I didn't realize a maniacal smile was coming out of me thinking about that.
The trip to the docks is tense. Adrian and Cali keep trying to talk to me, to understand what's happening, but every time they open their mouths, all that comes out of mine are curse words.
"What the fuck do you care?" I tell Cali when she asks if I feel okay.
"Now you want to know, idiots," I respond to Adrian when he tries to ask me about my eyes.
When Sara, in a moment of particular stupidity, suggests that maybe talking to Kaius would help me know what that strange energy coming out of me is, I stop completely. Lightning begins to come out of my body again, and when I speak, my voice sounds like it's coming directly from the underworld.
"That son of a bitch. Don't ever mention him to me again."
The rest of the trip passes in silence.
When we arrive at the docks, the scene is strangely quiet. Too quiet. There are no civilians, no creatures, nothing except a dark port and the sound of waves against wooden pillars.
"This feels like a trap," Sara murmurs, and for once, I agree with her.
That's when the first creature emerges from the shadows.
It's something I've never seen before: a mass of tentacles and teeth that moves with supernatural speed directly toward Cali. My sister tries to use her air powers to push it away, but the creature seems immune to her attacks.
Adrian tries to help, summoning the bright star-like swords that came from Nut's power, but they only looked like lights that simply bounce off the creature's skin without causing damage.
Without thinking, I throw myself forward. Red lightning shoots from my hands with an intensity that electrifies the air itself, and when they hit the creature, they disintegrate it instantly.
But there's no time to celebrate, because more creatures emerge from the darkness. Dozens of them, all with impossible shapes and eyes that glow with malice.
Sara raises a protective shield around the group while I prepare to fight, but I can feel my anger reaching a boiling point that goes beyond what my body can contain.
My eyes change again, from golden to blood red, and the lightning that has been coming out of me stops abruptly. Instead, I can feel my hands transforming, bones elongating, skin hardening until they become claws so sharp that when I accidentally scratch a metal pillar, I cut it cleanly in half.
The creatures launch themselves at us in waves, but I'm no longer completely human. I'm something primordial, something that moves with predatory grace I didn't know I possessed. Every swipe destroys multiple enemies, every movement is calculated to cause maximum damage.
I can hear my teammates screaming behind me, but their voices sound distant. All that matters is the slaughter, the primitive satisfaction of destroying everything that dares threaten what's mine.
It's when I hear Sara's scream that everything changes.
I turn around and see her on the ground, a new creature standing over her. This one is different from the others: bigger, more intelligent, with a scorpion tail that drips venom and eyes that glow with malevolent intelligence.
Without thinking, I throw myself at it. My claws pierce through the creature's body like butter, tearing it to pieces before it can harm Sara.
But in my fury to protect them, I don't see the scorpion tail until it's too late.
The stinger goes completely through my chest, piercing my heart with surgical precision. The pain is immediate and unbearable, as if my entire body is being torn apart from the inside.
I fall to the ground, feeling my blood mix with the salt water of the port. I can hear everyone screaming my name, but their voices sound increasingly distant.
The last thing I see before everything turns black are Sara's eyes, filled with tears and a late understanding that maybe, just maybe, they had been wrong about me from the beginning.
And then, everything fades.
But in the darkness, I can swear I hear laughter. Two voices, one deeply masculine and another fiercely feminine, laughing as if they had just heard the best joke in the world.
"Finally," whispers the masculine voice.
"It was about time," responds the feminine one.
And then, even the laughter fades, and there's nothing left but silence.