Page 113 of Fearless

I don’t think before flipping the dagger in my hand and launching it at her face. It flips through the air in a feeble attempt I know she will simply halt with her mind. But I don’t care. I’m content to let her cower behind an ability, if only so I can watch the life flicker out in her eyes.

They’re vicious, these thoughts. Cruel. So unlike Adena—

Adena isn’t here to save me from myself anymore.

Blair lets out a low whistle as she stares down the length of my blade. Its tip is mere inches from burying between her eyes. “I didn’t think you had it in you, Gray.” She lets the dagger clatter to the ground. “You’re different.”

I bare my teeth. “You made me this way.”

She backs away, clicking her tongue. “No, this has always been inside of you.” Candlelight pools into the hallway when she opens the door to her room and steps inside. “You just wanted someone to blame for it.”

Snatching my dagger from the floor, I follow her into the room. The blade shakes in my raised hand. “You don’t know me. You don’t know what I’ve been through.”

“Plagues, Paedyn!” Blair leans against a bedpost with a roll of her eyes. “Don’t act like you’re the only one who’s been through some shit. Yes, I killed your friend, and you know what?” Her throat bobs in the flickering light. “It haunts me. But that was the Trial. And I won.”

A crash behind us has me whirling toward the door.

An Imperial pants in the doorway, his red hair rippling in the firelight. “What the hell?” Lenny’s eyes dart between us. “Paedyn, you need to go right—”

“Quiet, gingersnap,” Blair huffs. Her eyes never leave mine as she throws his body against the wall, pinning him there with her mind. “The girls are talking.”

“Paedyn!” Lenny wriggles against Blair’s hold on his body. “Please, you can’t do this!”

“Personally, I agree.” Blair gives me a dull look. “I don’t think you can either.”

I charge.

My feet pound against the wooden floor, dodging the dozens of candles littered across it. Dagger in hand, I—

I stop.

My body is suddenly stuck.

I rage against Blair’s power, roaring when her mind tightens its hold around me. “I do marvel,” she says quietly, “at how incredibly Ordinary you are.”

I still within her invisible grip.

Because for the first time in my life, I don’t hear weakness in those words.

No, I hear a little girl crying over her father’s dead body and surviving despite it. I hear the roar of an Elite crowd, chanting for the Ordinary beneath their noses who crafted her own power. I hear strength where shame once was, fearlessness where I would once cower.

A slow smile spreads across my lips. Blair blinks at the expression, a flash of fear flitting over her features.

“Of course you marvel at it,” I say slowly. “Because you will never know real power. Yours was given. But mine…” I shake my head. “Mine was found.”

She gawks. “I could crush your heart with a single thought.”

“Maybe your ability could.” My gaze is lethal. “Butyoucouldn’t.”

I watch her take a deep breath. Watch the words fall from her mouth and still don’t believe she’s saying them. “I am sorry about your friend.”

Then her eyes flick to Lenny.

And the room goes up in flames.

A wave of heat slams into me, and with Blair’s hold on my body now broken, I nearly fall over. Fire flares around my ankles, crawling up bedposts to swallow us whole. I don’t know how it happened, but I’m suddenly choking on the thick smoke.

Blair stumbles away, arms lifted to shield her face from the heat. I leap over a wall of flame before it can lap at my legs. But I don’t head for the door, for my escape from this sweltering heat. The only freedom I seek resides in ending the girl who took away my light.

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