The Darkest Legacy (Darkest Min - Alexandra Bracken Page 0,1
metal, a sharp snap of static passed up my arm, prickling each individual hair. By the time it raced up the back of my neck, a frisson of power had already gathered at the base of my skull. Behind my closed eyelids, the bathroom’s light flickered again, and I knew I should let go.
But I didn’t.
I pulled on this silver thread in my mind, coaxing it across my nerves and through the thousands of bright, sparkling pathways in my body. The blue-white heat, like the heart of a flame, burned away the dark thoughts in my mind. I clung to the feeling of familiarity racing through me like unstoppable lightning. Inside the walls, the wires hummed in acknowledgment.
I can control this, I thought. Whatever had happened, it wasn’t my doing.
The smell of smoldering drywall finally forced me to release my grip on the bar. I pressed my hand to the scorch marks on the dingy floral wallpaper, directing the power out of the wires and cooling the insulation before it could ignite. The insensible murmuring of the television cut off, only to snap back on a second later.
I can control this. In that moment, I hadn’t been frightened, or even angry. I hadn’t lost control.
It hadn’t been my fault.
“Suzume?”
In the few days I’d known Roman, his quiet, calm voice had only broken a few times—in anger, in concern, in warning. But there was an edge to it now that I didn’t recognize. Almost as if, for once, he’d let fear shape my name.
“You need to come see this,” he called. “Right now.”
I stripped off my ruined blouse and threw it into the trash can, then wiped my face one last time with the soiled towel before tossing that in, too.
My tank top wasn’t as tattered or stained, but it did nothing to protect me from the damp chill of the motel room’s window AC unit. I limped forward on my broken heels, well aware that the split up the back seam of my skirt was growing with each step. There hadn’t been time to ditch our clothes and find something more suitable for traveling. In a way, it seemed right to look as wrecked as I felt.
“What is it?” I croaked out.
Roman stood directly in front of the TV, his dark hair falling across his forehead. He was in his usual pose: his hand clenched into a fist, his knuckles resting against his mouth, his brows drawn together in thought. The sight of him there, carefully working through some plan, was actually reassuring. One steady thing in this mess, at least.
He didn’t answer. Neither did Priyanka from where she sat on the bed, staring at the television screen. She had stripped a pillow and bunched up its pillowcase to stanch the flow of blood from a cut over her left eye. The sleeves of her yellow silk dress had been shredded, the fabric drenched with sweat, blood, and what had to be gasoline. The tattoo of a star on her wrist was dark against her brown skin. As she stared straight ahead at the flickering television screen, her free hand struggled to reload the pistol she’d stolen.
“Just…watch,” Roman said tightly, nodding toward the screen.
The newscaster was a middle-aged white woman. She wore a bright pink dress that clashed with her look of severe concern. “Investigators are combing the scene of the incident, and the search is still on for the Psi responsible for the deaths of seven people. The victims are slowly being identified—”
The victims.
The static was back, buzzing in my ears. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Roman turn to watch my reaction, his ice-blue gaze never wavering, even as the screen began to click on and off, matching my quickening pulse.
My own face stared back at me.
No…no. This wasn’t right. The words drifting along the bottom of the screen, the angle of the footage they kept playing over and over again—this wasn’t right.
The deaths of seven people.
“I need the burner,” I choked out.
I did this.
“What burner are you talking about?” Priyanka asked. “The one you took is dead—”
I didn’t have time for this. “The one you found in the manager’s office and conveniently forgot to tell us about.”
She opened her mouth to argue.
I cut her off before she could begin. “I can feel the battery’s charge in the pocket of your jacket.”
The dead. All those people…
Roman turned, stalking over to where the other teen had dumped her ruined jean jacket on the room’s desk.