by Jemma Grey
Eric was suddenly at my side, standing inches away from me and so close I could feel the warmth of his body. He made no move to touch me and without thinking, or caring if he was going to pull away, I threw the bouquet I was still clutching aside and took his hand, tightly interlocking our fingers. Eric’s fingers remained loose around mine for a long, endless minute, but then he slowly closed his fingers, squeezing my hand, and at his undying faith in me I suddenly felt strong and powerful.
My mind clicked awake, taking in everything around me. I was instantly aware of my parents who hadn’t moved a muscle. I was conscious of Dr. and Mrs. Wilson who were tense and ready for a fight. I took in Katalin and I immediately knew that something was wrong. She wasn’t careful and controlled, which was so unlike her. I knew and understood all of this with just a single glance.
“I'd had high hopes for you… I really don’t want to do this…” she trailed off and I saw truth in her words. “Then don’t…” I swallowed, my voice coming out stronger than I thought possible. It was a long while before she answered. “You know I can’t do that, Jenifer.”
“Why?”
“I’ve already told you, Jenifer,” she paused, “power is of no use if it can’t be controlled.”
“Fine then,” I said all emotion draining from my voice. “Do what you have to do to me, but leave my parents and the Wilsons out of this. They have nothing to do with this so let them go. I stopped, it was all me.”
She was silent for a while as her eyes shifted to Eric’s parents and then a second later my parents and aunt. Instantly my heart sped up thinking of what she could do to them. “Dr. and Mrs. Wilson may leave… your parents, are loose ends and all.”
In a blur, Eric’s parents were standing at our sides. “We’re staying,” Dr. Wilson said. I looked to Mrs. Wilson, silently pleading. They were getting the chance to leave; they should take it. Instead all Mrs. Wilson did was send me a small, sad smile. I knew instantly she was thinking of Eric, she wouldn’t leave him.
“Very well then,” Katalin sighed, taking a deep breath and in that moment, she literally shifted in front of my eyes. She was no longer a teenage girl, she was an elite killer, hard and emotionless, yet her eyes remained the same as a human’s. I saw power radiating off her body like green smoke. I smelled the potency of it, and as it filled my nose, it created a strong after taste on my tongue.
My hand tightened around Eric’s, squeezing his fingers with so much force I felt as if at any moment, I would break his bones. My eyes burned blue, drinking in the powerful aura that was coming off Katalin.
Without so much as a warning, the shield around Katalin shot out towards us, launching itself directly at Dr. and Mrs. Wilson. My body reacted automatically and before I could consciously tell what I was doing, I was standing in front of Eric’s parents, waiting for the tiny hands to hit me. Behind me Dr. Wilson stretched out his hands towards Katalin and a huge ball of shimmering light shot out flying towards her.
Just a fraction of a second later something hard pushed into Mrs. Wilson and I, sending us crashing to the floor. I looked up at once, horror coating my face as I realized that Eric was now standing exactly where I’d been just moments ago. He’d knocked us down and Katalin’s shield was about to smash into him.
Meanwhile, Dr. Wilson’s ball of power collided into Katalin’s shield, which had slammed down around her body, making itself hard, smooth, and solid as if it were a glass wall with steel properties moments before the ball of power hit. At contact, the ball blew through the steel wall, shattering it around Katalin, throwing her back a few steps. A flash later the ball crashed into her body, sending her gliding back again. Her body slammed into the doors immediately and she doubled over, blood leaking out of her nose.
Katalin’s eyes glazed over in confusion, as if she was lost in some other world and I knew that this was a side effect of taking the hit. Even if Dr. Wilson’s ball of power hadn’t hit her directly or the shield had absorbed most of the physical blow, it was still strong. The shield, now in pieces like broken glass began rolling to her, re-joining itself to form a solid glass bubble that surrounded her. The moment it was all connected the haze floating around Katalin vanished and she stood up as if nothing had happened.
“One shot every ten seconds, right, that’s your limitations, is it not?” Katalin stated and a ball exactly like the one Dr. Wilson had thrown, shot out of Katalin’s shield, heading directly towards us.
We all scattered. Dr. Wilson grabbed his wife’s hand yanking her to him at the exact moment that Eric grabbed me, pulling me away from the path of the oncoming ball of raw power. Literally a moment later, the ball stopped mid air and vanished.
“If I wanted you and your wife dead you wouldn’t have had the time to attack,” Katalin stated looking to Dr. and Mrs. Wilson. My eyes follow ed hers and I saw that they were trapped in a square cage made of the exact material as Katalin’s shield. “If I were you, Eric, I’d stay exactly where I am. Jenifer tell Eric why...” Katalin commented, now looking at me.
Instantly I turned to Eric and the scene sent me in a panicked frenzy. My heart kicked off in my chest, threatening to explode. My pulse raced, beating in my veins violently. I stumbled backwards, my mouth hanging open in shock and pure horror. What I saw haunted me. Surrounding Eric was Katalin’s shield, floating around every inch of his body like thousands of tiny ice-like crystal daggers about to pierce his body at any second.
I turned back to Katalin with tears forming in my eyes. “Please,” I begged her. “Don’t hurt him, he hasn’t done anything. Eric’s done nothing!” I was suddenly yelling at her and at the same pleading. “Please don’t hurt him, Katalin. Please!”
“Okay,” she shrugged carelessly and then disappeared from in front of me. Frantically I spun around searching for her. A moment later she reappeared behind my dad. “Watch carefully, Jenifer,” she ordered her voice blank as she stared back, showing no emotion. Then without blinking she pulled out a small sliver knife from somewhere in her clothes and plunged it into the base of my dad’s throat.
All I could do was watch. My body froze, beginning to shut down for the second time in one day. I couldn’t move or hear anything. My sense of feeling vanished. The only sense that stayed with me was my sight, but I didn’t want to see this.
I knew it was the third eye. I wanted to go blind, to somehow find a way to shut off the third eye, to seal it away somewhere, never to be found again. For the very first time since the night that Daren died, I found myself wanting to exist in complete darkness - in a place where no light existed and I was completely blind. I wanted to go back to that dark and lonely place, the very place I’d tried so hard to get out of.
Katalin yanked the knife out of my dad’s throat and his body crumpled to the floor. My heart gave an agonizing echo in my chest. Without so much as a second thought she stepped over his body, making sure not to walk on his blood. She walked up to me, stopping a few footsteps away, offering me the knife. All I saw was the blood staining it, my dad’s blood. This shocked my body awake and I stepped back quickly, completely terrified of the knife. All I could think was that his blood stained the blade. The words screamed inside my ear like a harsh, vile thunderstorm; it was my dad’s blood.
She grabbed my hand roughly, pulling me to her forcefully as she pressed the bloody knife in my hand, staining the white glove. In a split second, she was holding my hand up to her neck, pressing the edge of the knife to the base of her throat.
“Do it,” Katalin commanded, her voice was cold and hard. “Do what you need to do! You’re the third eye, Jenifer, so I can’t kill you, but I can kill them. You’ve three seconds until you and I are the only persons still breathing in this room! Stop me before I kill them!” Tears ran down my eyes, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill her; I wasn’t a killer. My hand was shaking against her neck.
“One,” Katalin stated blankly and the cage trapping Dr. and Mrs. Wilson literally exploded leaving nothing in its aftermath. I yanke
d out of her hold, slowly drifting back as my fingers tightened around the blade of the knife with so much force that it was cutting into my palm. My hands flew up to the sides of my head as my legs turned to ice and broke under me. I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t do anything.
“Two,” she continued and behind her my aunt and mom crumpled to the floor.
I squeezed my head tighter between my hands, trying to get the images out. I scratched and clawed at my eyes, desperate to go blind and not see anymore. Blood ran down my cheeks where I was digging at my eyes. I put so much strength into my hands, crushing my head to the point where it felt as if my skull was going to give in from the pressure and burst open. My fingers were clasped so rigid and tightly that the knife was cutting through my hand, almost rubbing against bone, yet I felt no physical pain. All I felt was my heart being crushed - torn and twisting, ripping apart in my chest.
My feet curled up to me, my legs pressed against my chest. I felt my head - still crushed between my hands drop, hiding itself between my knees as my body rocked back and forth. I could hear my voice crying, constantly muttering, repeating one word I couldn’t recognize as if I were a broken CD.
“Eric is next.”
At his name, my mind snapped back into my body and my head flashed up in terror. In a flash I dashed up to her just as she was about to open her mouth to begin counting. “Three,” she muttered just as the bloody knife left my hand, hurling towards her.
In that instant of a second two things happened exactly at the same time. A hand shot out in front of Katalin’s throat and the blade of the knife tore through the palm of the person’s hand, stopping exactly where the hilt met the blade. The person - Dean, I realized - moved his hand and I saw a tiny dribble of blood where the tip of the blade had nicked Katalin’s throat, even after going through Dean’s palm. He ripped the knife out of his hand and at the same time grabbed Katalin’s shoulder, spinning her around to face him as he slapped her harshly. A split second later, he yanked her to him, crushing her in a hug.
The next thing that happened was worse. In the instant that I’d launched the knife from my fingers, I spun searching for Eric - just in time to see thousands of dagger-like ice crystals shoot towards him, piercing his body from every angle possible. A loud aching scream tore through the air, filling the room. It was only when I found myself cradling Eric’s head in my lap and the scream died, I realize it was me. I had screamed.
“Eric!” I yelled, shaking him forcefully. Eric just remained still and rigid. “Eric wake up! Wake up right now!” I demanded clutching onto him, shaking him desperately. “You promised Eric, you promised me you’d never leave me. Don’t leave me, please Eric please! Stay with me! You promised you would - you can’t leave me!
“Eric, I love you… please come back. I’ll marry you - I want to marry you. Please… I love you - come back… I’ll do anything you want - you can’t leave me - you’re all I have left… I need you… don’t leave me please… just come back… I love you so just… just breathe for me… please…” I begged, yelling at him, pleading with everything I had left in me.
Then it happened. Eric’s chest went still and along with it so did everything inside me. Ignoring the blood leaking out of his body, I let my head fall to his chest listening to his heart slowing and then after a second, I heard nothing absolutely nothing. The entire room seemed to fill with screaming silence.
Tears ran down the sides of my face. He was gone. My breathing stopped - or I didn’t feel as if air was filling my lungs anymore. Blood stopped travelling through my veins. My heart stopped beating, or at least it felt like it did. I could no longer feel it’s presence in my chest. It wasn’t pounding against my ribcage anymore and I couldn’t hear it thudding in my ear drums. It was just gone.
I didn’t move from where I was - I stayed completely still knowing that the cracks and dark holes in my body had returned, this time with a vengeance. Even through the cold shell I was in, I could sense the edges of the holes poking through me throbbing, and vibrating. If I moved now, even at the slightest twitch I would literally fall apart. I would die. Even in complete and utter stillness, I felt like I was dying.
I should have told him I loved him the moment I knew I did. I should have married him… but I was too late now, I had lost him. Sometimes we don’t know what we want, until the moment we’re about to lose it and sometimes the love you fight against is the very thing that holds you together…
23
It was like a dream. I stayed with my head on Eric’s chest, unmoving and looking on at exactly what was in front of me - which was Katalin and Dean. I was looking at them, yet I wasn’t seeing them. Nothing was registering in my mind, my brain wasn’t working. I wasn’t taking in or interpreting information, it was all just passing through me as if I was a net trying to hold sand grains.
I saw Katalin push Dean away and he stumbled backwards. “Why are you here, Dean? What do you want?” she snapped at him, her voice cold and hard.
“Are you crazy, Kat?” Dean shouted at her, grabbing her roughly, shaking her. “Why wasn’t the fucking shield up?” he screamed.
Katalin batted his hand away as if it was a feather. “Leave me alone, Dean,” she whispered turning her back to him. Her voice was so low that it almost seemed as if only her lips were moving.
I risked movement then, closing my eyes. I didn’t want to see anything. I just wanted to shrivel up and die, but instead the third eye let the scene in front of me play out in my head as if it were a movie. I wondered if clawing out my eyeballs would somehow shut off the third eye.
“From now on wards, you are to have no contact with me. I want absolutely nothing to do with you or anything that involves you,” she paused sucking in a slow shaky breath. “Leave me alone, Dean; do not mention me to anyone; do not try to talk to me, just forget that I was ever a part of your life,” Katalin told him and began to w alk away but just as she was a few footsteps away Dean grabbed her hand yanking her back to face him harshly.
“What is going on?” His voice was hard and commanding - his alpha voice. I waited, expecting to feel something at the scary demanding tone, but nothing happened. I felt nothing - no fear or terror - just nothing but emptiness, and I realized that when you had nothing to live for you had nothing to lose.
“I don’t know what you mean?”
“Cut the shit, Katalin. You’re forgetting that I know you, the real you, not the numb, stone cold, evil bitch you pretend to be.”
“Let me go, Dean,” she whispered as she closed her eyes and I could hear her voice breaking. “Please let me go.”
“I’m not letting you go until you tell me what’s going on!”
“My father wants you dead,” she whispered opening her eyes and looking up to him. “We both know when Victor wants someone dead, they die eventually…”
“He knows,” Dean realized. I didn’t know what was going on. I gave up then, I didn’t care to know or understand anything, it w asn’t worth it anymore.
“Yes,” Katalin swallowed, tears running down her eyes. “Victor knows… You almost died Dean... I had to give you my chi. I weakened myself - my abilities - my blood… It was all weakened because I saved you… and I don’t regret that I did. I’ll never regret saving you, no matter what the consequences are… I love you Dean... more than I should…
“Victor already thinks you’re my weak link, I’m his best weapon and he can’t have me being weak. He saw what I would give to protect you, to keep you alive…”
“Is this what you want Kat?” Dean asked grabbing her shoulders with both hands, his blood staining her clothes. Katalin didn’t answer, instead she closed her eyes turning away from him. “Katalin,” Dean shook her violently, “is this what you want?”
“If keeping you alive means staying away from you, what choice do I have?”
“Fine then!” Dean spat releasing her shoulders. “Say it.” He spun around, turning his back to her, his hands clenched into tight
fists making his injured hand bleed even more now. “Say it, Katalin! Release me from my oath.”
Katalin sank to her knees, hanging her head as she sobbed. Her entire frame shook. “I release you...” she choked out, her voice broken. At this Dean turned around to face her, staring at her in shock as if he didn’t expect this.
Something stirred awake inside me then and I was no longer numb. The hole in my chest, where my heart should be, throbbed and vibrated with pure un-healing agony. My body ached as though I was being crushed. Raw pain shocked me.
And then Katalin’s words were echoing through my head, again and again as if it were a broken record. She was saying goodbye to Dean even though she loved him. She was saying goodbye to protect him, to keep him from getting hurt.
This was it; this was what she w as trying to tell me all along. The third eye had seen it before I had, that’s why I couldn’t shut it off. I had to see Katalin saying goodbye to Dean. At once all the things Katalin said to me since I’d met her came back instantly.
Power was useless if not controlled. You did what you needed to. In Thirdworld, you needed to be selfish. It all meant something. What was the point of having power if you didn’t use it to protect the people you loved? You needed to be selfish and save those you loved no matter what. Daren did - he saved me and lost his life. Eric was willing to do it and Katalin was doing it right now. But what did it matter - Eric and everyone I loved was still dead.
I shot up into a sitting position and found myself in complete and utter darkness, and soaked to the bone. My clothes - not the bloody wedding dress I’d been wearing just seconds ago - was sticking to my skin with sweat. I was somehow in my bedroom at the Wilson’s house. My heart was pounding in my chest, rapid and like drums inside my head. My pulse was racing and my breathing was uneven, shallow, and panicked. Even my face was wet with both sweat and tears.
