Like I broke him. Like I could breakallof them if I just let myself—
“Riva,” Andreas is saying, and I get the impression he’s been talking longer than I’ve been hearing. “He’s being a fucking idiot. Listen to me. I—”
He takes a step toward me, and my body recoils. A sliver of a shriek hitches from my throat.
I clap my hand over my mouth, but I see him wince. I taste the pain that one brief smack of the power in me provoked.
The thing squirming and thrumming inside me craves more. It’s clawing its way up from my chest, on the verge of exploding.
I am going to destroy everything, and part of me is going to revel in it.
Jacob steps toward me too, his eyes glinting like ice. “That’s right. Tell us how you really feel.”
I yank my gaze from him to Andreas, who’s frozen in his tracks. He’s looking at me as if he can see the storm of emotion raging inside me—or maybe it’s so close to the surface now it’s written all over my face.
I back up, and the door slams shut behind me with a heave of Jacob’s talent. He stalks closer with that cruel smirk I want to scratch off his face.
Break him, twist him, make him suffer. And the rest of them just standing by, watching him hurt me. Lashing out in their own ways.
Show them all what real pain is.
No.
The protest barely stems the surge of rage inside me. My vision starts to haze.
I have to get away.
My hand shoots out, snapping the chain with the movement. The necklace slips from my fingers and clinks onto the floor.
“Stay away from me,” I gasp out. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
But I also do, I do.
And the only escape from the pressure howling through my body is to throw myself toward the window that’s between me and Jacob.
My shoulder slams into the pane first. I’m hurtling fast enough to shatter the glass and careen out into the open air.
Shards slice across my arms and calves, but I barely notice those tiny pains. For a few seconds, I’m in freefall, hurtling through the air.
My body rotates on instinct, and I hit the ground with a puff of exhaled breath and a jolt through my limbs.
Voices are already carrying from the building behind me, my name ringing out through the jumble of shouts. Panic races through me ahead of a renewed roar of anger.
They’re going to come after me.
They won’t let me go.
My legs propel me forward. I sprint across the grass as fast as my feet can fly, veering away from the lane and the road.
Farther down, near the train tracks, scattered saplings offer a tiny bit of cover. I race toward them automatically, my pulse thundering in my ears, my lungs shuddering with the power that wants so badly to burst out.
I’m a monster. Only a monster would want to put the men she’s loved through the agony I can sense I’m capable of.
Only a monster wouldenjoythe idea.
My name pierces the air again. Someone’s hollering at me to stop.
No, I can’t. I can’t.