“Come on. Do it again,” Ali commands.
I turn my hands over in the light, part of me expecting to see the flames I don’t feel. If I can’t fire up, I can’t kill zombies. If I can’t kill zombies, I might as well curl up and die. It’s all I’m good at—all I’m good for.
Okay, so maybe my faith-o-meter isn’t actually full. Fear is a drain and it can empty an ocean of faith in seconds.
“Again,” Ali repeats.
I’m fighting for breath as I backtrack. Calm. Steady. I can do this. I know I can do this.
Again, Gavin waves his fingers. I jog toward him, every cell in my body willing dynamis to come...but once again the flames fail to appear.
“Again.”
I remain in place. What’s wrong with me? Why is this happening? I’m the same girl I’ve always been. The only difference is the toxin now swimming through my—
The toxin!
“Tiffany!” A bomb of rage detonates inside me, just boom, and bolts of emotion explode out of me. I stumble back as if I’ve been pushed, heat consuming me in an instant.
“Milla,” Gavin shouts. “Enough! You have to stop.”
His voice sounds as if it’s being filtered through a long tunnel. I turn toward him, but he’s not standing where he was—because he’s not standing at all. He’s floating in the freaking air. I can’t make out his features; his image is too distorted through the flames. Red flames. Deep, angry red. The color of congealing blood. The color of my dreams.
Only, this is real and I’m not dying.
Am I? I’m weak, so weak, and only growing weaker.
Crap! Crap, crap, crap. What did the journal passage say before? Two kinds of fire. One destroys, one purifies. Obviously, the red destroys. But what else, what else?
Covered, covered, covered. Yes. Right. Darkness can only cover light. So, if red represents dark and white represents light, dynamis might still be inside me, simply covered. If I can uncover it, I can stop this.
My limbs shake as more and more energy seeps out of me. Just how am I supposed to uncover the white flames?
Frantic, I try dismissing thánatos...it crackles, spreads and sings, soon blistering every inch of me.
“Milla!” Ali’s voice is filtered through the same tunnel. And like Gavin, she’s floating several feet in the air. She’s curled into herself and clutching at her ears, as if she’s battling the worst kind of pain.
I’m doing this? I’m hurting her? Hurting Gavin?
Crap! There’s a third body in the air. I’m hurting Bronx, too?
I have to stop, now, now, freaking now, but the more I fight the flames, willing them to go away, the hotter and higher they grow. What should I do? What the hell should I do? I stumble to my body to brush spirit against flesh. In an instant, the two halves of me are joined—but it only makes things worse. My body goes up in flames, too. My skin remains unharmed but my clothes burn to ash, leaving me bare-ass naked.
The cell phone flops to the ground, the plastic already charred, the screen melted. I whimper. Now I’ll die without knowing what Frosty said in his message.
And oh, wow, that’s my first thought? Really? I’m freaking naked! Hurting people.
I’m so messed up. A menace of the highest order. “Help,” I shout. “Help!”
Wait. What if other slayers come in here, and I hurt them, too?
“No! Don’t help!”
“What’s going on?” a new voice proclaims. Jaclyn maybe.
“You have to leave,” I scream at her. “Please. I can’t control it.”
Bees sting my neck. No, not bees. More darts? A cool rush of liquid spills through me, fatigue fast on its heels. My knees tremble and collapse, but even when I land, I don’t have the strength to remain upright, so I pitch forward.
Three heavy thuds echo, followed by three grunts of pain.
“How did she do that?” Gavin demands through panting breaths. “What did she do?”
My eyelids weigh ten thousand pounds and I can’t open them.
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Ali says, sounding worried. “I lift zombies with my energy. No one has ever lifted slayers.”
“I’ll get Cole,” Bronx says.
“Gavin,” Jaclyn gasps. “You’re bleeding from your eyes, ears and nose!”
“This is bad,” Ali says. “This is beyond bad.”
I did hurt them. And I did it while I was exhausted. What would have happened if I’d been at full strength? Would they have ended up in bits and pieces? Would I have made them explode the way Ali has made zombies explode?
I can’t stay here, I realize. I can’t stay with Frosty. He’ll be safer without me. They all will.
Something I learned last night: another name for stakeout is torture in a hot box.