Page 62 of Ravage
Nope.
I can’t do this.
This man…he’s too much like Gordon.
I can feel panic beginning to accelerate my heart rate and make my palms sweat. I won’t be a victim again. I’ll never be a victim. This is my choice.
“You understand what I’m asking, Rebecca. Don’t you?”
I’m struggling to keep my gift from bursting out of me as it spits and hisses in my gut. He has no idea the danger he’s in, and I can’t even speak to tell him that while all of my attention is zeroed in on keeping my gift contained.
The sound of something hard rolling into the room grabs both of our attention as we look up to see what it is. A black ball spins toward us, and then smoke shoots out on either side. The doors to the room slam shut.
“What the hell is this?” Joe yells and stands.
I kick it away and cover my mouth, but I can taste it on my tongue and burning the back of my throat.
My vision swims, and everything goes dark.
Chapter seventeen
Raegan
“Kill him before I lose my patience with you, pet.”
“I-I can’t. Why are you asking me to do this?” I cry out. My hands are already shaking from the full day of training he’s put me through. I’m exhausted. I’m not sure how I’m still standing, but he dragged someone in while I was finishing my last exercise.
The guy is bound and gagged in a chair with a machine on wheels next to him and wires attached across his chest and extremities. We’re in the large gymnasium where I’ve spent the last month on my own with only Gordon’s company. We train from the moment my alarm goes off until he decides he’s satisfied for the day and leaves.
“You can, and you will,” Gordon responds flatly while noting something on his tablet.
“Who is he? Why do you want him dead?” I push further.
Gordon sighs and lowers his tablet. “He’s no one. A failed lab rat. But you can make his existence worthwhile. Show me how your gift works on people and then his life will have meant something.”
No one. The same words he’s been calling me.
Worthless.
“No.”
“No?”
“I won’t do it. I’m not killing anyone with my gift. Anything but that.”
“You killed Vera easily enough.”
“That wasn’t—”
Gordon cuts me off with the wave of his hand. “I don’t care what sob story you’ve sold yourself on. You killed your friend with your own hands and have no one to blame but yourself. Killing this stranger who means nothing to you is pale in comparison to the monster you pretend you’re not.”
My hands fist and shake. “I’m not a monster.”
He scowls and snatches a handful of my hair, yanking it back. “You are whatever the fuck I say you are, pet. Now, kill him, or I’ll kill one of your friends.”
Gordon jerks me back before releasing me. I stumble and catch myself, but he’s occupied poking a finger at his tablet repeatedly. He turns the screen toward me.
The boys’ room fills the screen. It’s angled from the top corner somewhere, so the entire room is in view. Only Jackson is in it, floating his origami animals around in different formations to practice with his gift.
