Page 76 of The Tracker's Dawn: Sunderverse
Or maybeIhad.
Maybe Mekare had used her magic to somehow... what? Teleport me out of the warehouse? I shook my head. No, that wasn’t possible. Mages and witches couldn’t teleport themselves or anyone else. That wasn’t something anyone could do.
But then what?
My panic roared in my ears. I took a deep breath, trying to keep my cool.
There’s nothing scary here,I told myself.It’s just dark. And empty.
“Jake?!”
I took a step forward.
“Ulfen?!”
Another one.
“Marcus? Olivia? Travis?!”
Nothing. No one was here.
I whirled around and retraced my steps, searching for the door, but it wasn’t there either. Swallowing thickly and gun at the ready, I whirled, searching for signs of... anything.
He will die, an oily voice spoke all around me. Or was it only inside my head? I couldn’t tell.
Pain. So much pain before he finally goes.
I shook my head.
No. No. No.
“Get out of my head!”
And it will beyourfault.
I clenched my teeth, willing whatever this was out of my head.
He’s doing this for you. And he will die because you don’t love him enough to let him go.
A piercing pain shot through my temples. I threw my head back as the jolt of agony slid down my spine, dropping me to my knees. The gun slipped from my hand and clattered to the floor. Shrinking from the pain, I patted all around me until I found it and gripped it tightly again.
The pain receded slowly, its ebbing waves making me rock back and forth.
Selfish. You’re so selfish. You take and you take and you take.
“It’s not true. Not true!”
This time I let go of the gun so I could dig my fingernails into my head. My claws snapped into place, and I cried out as they pierced into my scalp.
“None of it is true. None of it!” I hissed between clenched teeth and, without thinking, released a short blast of energy straight into my head.
My body spasmed with the load of sensory signals. The deafening cacophony of multitudes. Flashes of color and light on psychedelic strobes. The scent of death over lilacs and roses. The taste of sweet chocolate and rot. The touch of a thousand clammy hands and the caress of a feather. Back and forth sensations yanked my system up and down, left and right, to and fro, like a fish on a hook.
Insanity brushed its bony fingers down my back.
I threw my hands to the sides and screamed, lost in the agony of too mucheverything. For the first time, I knew what the others had felt when I’d used my singular power on them.
The quality of so much awareness was maddening and painful. My eyes and ears felt as if needles had pierced through them, and my skin seemed raw, all of its nerve endings exposed.
