"Don't fucking touch her," Mav snarled behind me, deeper and richer than his voice had been a minute ago, but I didn't dare turn and give the Origin my back. I didn't trust her to have even a bit of honour.
"You want to fight me?" the Origin asked, her grey eyes full of cruel amusement. She might have done all this to save humanity from monsters, but there was no doubt sheenjoyedhaving us all at her mercy. No doubt she enjoyed our suffering. "Alright, Hala. Then fight."
I was wholly unprepared for a scalding steam to cover her body, thrashing into mine and making my skin blister.
I tore away with a brittle cry, but the pain in my arms and neck made my magic finally erupt again, and my hands burst into deadly fuschia light.
When she came for me again, I knocked her palm aside with the void gauntlet on my forearm and pressed my palm to her face, earning a deep growl of pain. Good. It was time she learned how it felt.
Everything inside me hurt almost as badly as my scalded outside. She killed and resurrected my only friend. Void was unconscious. Sang was missing. And Mav … behind us, Mav fought off his brother and the dozens of weapons trying to kill us both, his tentacles slashing in a blur.
I saw his fight from the corner of my eye, a worrying flash of glowing hands, scythe-sharp magic, and desperate tentacles. He was losing; I knew that even without his grunt of pain. He was outnumbered and overwhelmed.
I was going to lose him, and the rage that followed that thought was enough for me to lift my raw, shiny hands. I knew it would hurt. I knew it might kill me. But for the glint of care and affection these men had shown me, I’d embrace the darkness.
"You don't get to take anyone else I love," I growled at the Origin, and threw my burned, bleeding body at her.
My armsscreamedwith pain when I raised them, aiming at the parts of her I already hit with acidic power, but she knocked my hands aside with scalding palms and then I was the one rearing back with a sharp cry.
Fuck, it hurt. My eyes welled with tears, a catch in my breath that warned I could break into sobs far too easily. But Mav was struggling, and if I didn't keep the Origin from him, she'd tip the scales against him.
I've been itching to kill a monster all day.
That's what she said. She'd kill him in a heartbeat, and I couldnotlet it happen. She bred me to fight, to hunt, to kill, so that's what I'd do. It was the one thing I was good at—killing. That was what had brought me to the void in the first place.
I dropped my teary stare from the woman to my hands for a second and saw red, burned flesh. Oh, god.
"Healthis, abomination," she taunted, the edge in her voice sharp enough to cut me.
I barely twisted out of the way when she came at me with steam-wreathed hands, but I didn't jerk back far enough to escape the billow she blew from her mouth.
I screamed my voice hoarse when it scalded down my neck, any edge I'd had against her slipping away from me. I'd been trained to kill, I was good at killing, but killingthe Origin?The original monster hunter?
It was impossible.
"I hate you," I said brokenly, and spat, acid landing on her chest, burning through her clothes and into her skin. But she hardly even baulked; she just gritted her teeth and came at me again, the steam threatening to burn even more of me.
"I'm devastated," she deadpanned.
Behind me, Mav inhaled a hissed breath, and deadly rage poured through me at the sound. My hands flashed brighter, the colour stronger, and I didn't think about how bad the burns would be this time. All I thought about was what the Origin would do to Mav, the monster who could have killed me, who rightly should have, but who'd shown me mercy and humour and pleasure instead.
The pink glow extended past my wrist and halfway up my forearm as I grabbed her outstretched hand, clenching my jaw against a scream at the blinding pain. Tears flowed so heavily I couldn't see her anymore, but Irefusedto let go, digging my nails into the back of her hand and pumping deadly acid into her.
This time, it was her who wrenched back with a cry of pain, and a thrum of victory went through my blood, even if I wavered on my feet.
"Youdeservepain," I choked out, cradling my burned hand to my chest, "for everything you put us through. For every weapon you shocked with the cattle prod. For every child you made sleep in a room withbarson it. For every freedom you stripped, and every bullshit punishment you handed out."
The Origin laughed and spat on the floor, blood speckling her saliva in my wavering vision. Maybe it was my imagination, but some of the activity around us paused for a second before resuming with vigour.
"By all means," the Origin sneered, wiping her bleeding mouth on the back of her hand. "Try to monologue your way out of this. You're the one who betrayed us and sullied yourself with monstrous allies."
"I did more than justallywith them," I laughed, a bubble of bitterness and hysteria rising. "Do you know they're the only people who've ever been kind to me? Who've hugged me instead of sending me to my knees, screaming in pain. Who haven't threatened to hurt me unless I followed orders. We call them monsters, but they never did the thingsyoudid to me."
Now that I'd opened my mouth, it all flooded out, all my rage at the injustice, all my pain at the betrayal. She was my grandmother. She was supposed to be sweet and caring and look after me, and instead she threw me in a cage the moment I was born. Instead of teaching me to cook or sew or ride a bike, she had her keepers teach me how to slit a throat and track prey and they held my head underwater until I learned how to regulate my breathing.
"We didnothingto deserveanyof what you did to us. You hurt us over and over and over, until we just accepted that pain is a normal part of life. But it isn't. Itisn't," I said fiercely, breathing hard, my whole body locked against the pain of my burns.
I got the sense she rolled her eyes as she took a rough step towards me, but I couldn’t see clearly enough.