Thank you SO much for 100k reads! I'm freaking out, who knew one little dream I had would lead to a hopefully workable novel? I am so thankful for all of your support and feedback, every comment and vote makes sharing my work so worth it--to know you guys find it worth reading. I love you all.

-Ann

Water droplets ran in thin streams down my thighs, trailing long tangled branches of black across my skin as the blood and dirt washed from my hair. It stung my neck and my bicep and the hundreds of scratches marring my body, but I didn't feel it. I didn't even care for feeling it. My mind was only capable of comprehending one thing: Conrad Blackwood's death.

Fatigue was inevitable. After showering and changing into a shirt belonging to Isaac's roommate--who was big enough to provide a top that hit the top of my knee--I bided time, pacing up and down Isaac's kitchen as he rubbed anxiously at his jaw, his eyes occasionally flickering to mine with doubt.

I was starting to feel the slow creep of exhaustion as the sky darkened. Though I still couldn't feel my injuries, my limbs were growing heavy. The buzz of power trickling down my spine wasn't enough to sustain my movements. I was in no condition to attack, but it was all that clouded my brain, time fuelling the frustration crippling my body.

How long would it take for him to realise I'd escaped? It probably hadn't taken long at all. He'd have found their bodies by now.

I halted, an unexpected dread filling me, threatening to tear down the wall of numbness surrounding me. Alone. I'd left her alone, her mangled figure abandoned. She would be cold by now. She was dead.

My breathing was quickening, and by the time I processed it, air was racing up and down my windpipe in ragged heaves, my lungs refusing to contain it. I was having a panic attack. My hands flew to my throat--which was wrapped heavily in fresh bandage--and I tried desperately to create more room to breathe.

"Aspen," Isaac said, straightening from where he was leaning against the cabinet. Through the blur of my vision, I sensed him stand before me, clutching my shoulders. "You need to sleep. You need to rest. We don't know where he is, and even if we did you're not in any condition to--"

I cut him off with a heavy nod, slowly taking control over my breath. He was right, I knew he was right. Though I was desperate, I was still rational. I wasn't going to risk this because I was impatient.

I needed to find him before he found me. But there was only one place I knew he'd be, and that was psychology class. They were too valuable for him to abandon. But they were also his army.

"Sleep," I agreed, my breathing stabilising. If I rested and conserved the energy I'd consumed--no, stolen from the others--I could have a fighting chance.

I almost laughed. A fighting chance. It was a desperate grasp for hope. A hope I didn't deserve anymore.

Isaac put a chair against his bedroom door, in case the lock failed. In case he came to find me. It added more reassurance than it should have. I mean, if he was capable of making me slit my own throat, surely he could tackle a door.

Isaac was scared. I could feel it in him as he held me beneath his duvet, and I willed him to find some kind of courage. To find what I had, to overthrow the fear that made him weak. Was that what Gia was? A broken barrier that allowed me to be fearless?

If you'd asked me a month ago what I wanted most in the world, it was to live without fear. To live without the crippling shyness that paralysed me. But now that fear was comforting. Now, I was broken, damaged beyond repair, waiting for a way out of the mess that had grown around me. Waiting to be freed. Fear kept me stable, and now I'd been unleashed.

I found consciousness before the sun rose, but I didn't move. There was something dangerously tempting about the lack of awareness behind my closed eyes. My other senses were swimming in the illusion of comfort, a warmth enveloping me. His arm heavy around my waist. His breathing quiet at my ear. His scent cloaking me in a make-believe reality.

It was so dangerous. In the small sliver of peace was a different world, a world without Gia or Isobel or anyone else but Isaac and I. Nothing existed outside the realms of his bed.

But then I remembered. And still, I had no fear. Just a savage need to feel Conrad's power drain from his body. To feel his life obliterated into nothing. For Gia. For the countless deaths he'd caused, the countless people he had enslaved. For me. For the life he'd stolen from me. For me never being able to face my family again, to face Isobel.

I looked beside me, to Isaac, who was starting to stir. Would he have taken me in last night if he'd known what happened to Gia? What I'd done?

Of course he would. Because I would have made him. Hell, maybe I did make him. I was as bad as Conrad, corrupting the innocent.

Corrupting the innocent.

I remembered our conversation about killing Conrad. The conflict in Isaac's eyes when we pondered killing him. I'd already lost my innocence, my morals. But he hadn't. He was just another puppet, really.

And that's when I realised I couldn't lead him to the same fate as everyone else. I couldn't get him any more involved. I couldn't risk Conrad finding out about him, about someone else he could take from me.

I needed to use Isaac--I was still confident I couldn't do it on my own--but I also couldn't harm him.

My mind swelled with the dilemma. I wasn't strong enough on my own, physically or mentally. But worry for Isaac would weaken me too.

"Are you okay?" were the first words he spoke, his tone cloudy with sleep.

I let out a hollow breath. I didn't think I'd ever be okay again. I didn't want to be.

"I'm okay," I lied, straightening. "I need to go."

He grabbed my hand before I could fully slip from his grasp.

"Aspen, you're not going alone."

I gave him a small, sad, smile. "I can't bring you into this. It was wrong of me to use you."

"You're kidding me," he said, straightening in the bed, his grip on me only deepening. "Do you know how much danger you're in? My friends are in?"

I looked at him for a long moment. From the sun just starting to creep beneath the curtain of his small window, I could make out the worry of his brow, the curve of his beautiful lips.

"You're not coming with me," I said. "I've already made up my mind."

His expression changed, from insistent to angry. "You're going to... you wouldn't. You wouldn't use it on me."

But I had no choice. Not after Gia.

So I kissed him.

There's something about kissing that crushes your walls. Maybe it's the vulnerability, or the raw connection created. In that moment, our walls fell, both of ours. His mouth melted me, melted the hardness growing around my chest, and for a moment I felt the pain. I felt the pain in my body, and the pain slicing my heart.

I felt her. Gia. I felt it all and I wanted to scream.

But, his walls were down too, I could feel him weakening as my mouth moved against his and his hand crept to my hair, the smallest moan of pleasant surprise leaving his lips before they were back against mine.

And as I felt him weakening, I felt myself growing strong.

Adrenaline filled me when I worked out what was happening. It was overwhelming, my body incarcerated by his proximity, but my mind running wild around his own. Without our walls, it was each of us for ourselves. And I was feeding off of him.

As my fingers traced his skin, I could feel his energy dissipating, the heat flowing back into his bones, through his body, and into mine. He was weakening, while my body found strength. While my weaknesses fused and my skin thickened, his was softening into my grasp.

I could feel his pulse from where my hands landed on his neck. The beating rhythmic. A song sinking into silence, the gap between flutters growing longer and longer, his lips melding further into mine.

I needed to stop, or I was going to kill him. I was aware of this, but still, my greedy body wanted more.

What did I have to lose?

Everything. I had everything to lose. Because I had him.

I stopped, pulling my lips from his. His weight was resting completely on my hands, his posture dependent on me, and with horrified eyes, I gently lowered him back onto his pillow. His eyes were closed, but his heart was still beating. Barely.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. And then, after shoving on my boots, I ran.

The first time I'd entered his lecture theatre, I'd been riddled with shyness, my heart fluttering with tentative excitement. New beginnings.

Today, my focus was seized with an obsession for his death. Nothing more, nothing less.

As I flung open the door, eight minutes late for class, I expected all heads to turn in my direction. But then didn't. It was like entering a frozen land, everyone fixed into statues. Students turned to stone.

And him. There. At the front, by the whiteboard, his hands writing something in black ink.

Wake up, Aspen.

Goosebumps flared up the back of my arms, but I forced my legs to work. I was better at working my body, better at control. The mental energy was translating into superhuman strength, and I wasn't sure if it was real or a figment of my imagination.

"I already am awake," I said, my voice cutting through the quiet. There wasn't an ounce of uncertainty in my tone, the words sharp and confident, something they hadn't been in a long time. Something they hadn't been maybe ever.

His face was amused when he turned around, his perfectly carved features bright. As if I hadn't broken from his containment. As if I hadn't been forced to kill my best friend.

I wasn't forced to do anything. I didn't have to kill her, but I did.

My fists clenched tightly at my sides.

The room was dark, the lights dimmed. Every student was orientated symmetrically, their stares straight ahead. I took another step forward, down the aisle, closer to him. I needed touch. If I wanted to feel the surge of his power, like waves tugged with the tide, I needed to create the vessel between us.

"When you're asleep, you don't always know it," he mused, his voice carrying through the space easily. He smirked, as if thinking of something amusing. My heart stuttered a little. But just a little. "You're a victim of your imagination."

I continued my walk. The back of my neck was tingling, and I realised that for every row of students I passed, a row of eyes followed me. As Conrad's hands folded in front of his chest, every head in the room turned in unison to stare at me.

I ignored them, instead calculating his expression. A usual, it was faultless, giving nothing away. But I knew I must have caught him by surprise. Because if he wasn't the least bit curious, he could have easily subdued me by now. That was the risk I was taking.

Most people may have trouble discerning between unconscious and conscious. Hell, I did. I have. But not now. My eyes were filmed with clarity. I knew not one inch of me was tainted with his spell. I was in control.

I laughed, the bubble sliding easily from my tarnished throat. I let the smile settle broadly over my face.

Like branches snapping from a tree, one by one, every member of the class turned to him, with not vacant expressions, but with smiles that rivalled my own.

I was overpowering him. With not only stolen power, but a vengeance so strong I could taste it on my tongue.

And for the first time, Conrad's face looked worried.

I reached the few steps leading up to the lecturer's podium. And I took them agonizingly slow, waiting for a retort. Some kind of reaction.

And then, just as I reached the top, my feet glued to the ground, like tree trunks rooted deep into the earth.

And the students started laughing. Laughing at me.

I could almost feel his power cloaking me, like a heavy blanket wrapping around my body. And I fought it, with every piece of strength I could muster, but it was tightly folded around me in no time. I was paralysed.

"I knew you'd be back," he said fondly. "I knew that after you killed her you'd come back to me."

I couldn't speak. He was not only controlling my mind, but my body now too. The frustrating war within me continued, trying to break free. It brought tears to my eyes, but I didn't stop.

He'd been holding back. He'd been holding back his power, making me underestimate him. Not only was he controlling every student in the room, but he was controlling me, and Gia, and Isaac, and Peter. The lives I'd stolen. And I was helpless.

"This is the end, Aspen," he said, his tone reserved as his black eyes searched mine. He was moving closer. I could smell the pine needles of his skin. I could see the grey beneath his eyes, the lines between his brows.

Kill me, I begged. If I can't save them, then just kill me.

He sighed. "I wanted this so bad, Aspen. I wanted you so bad."

And then his hand reached out and clasped around my own. And my entire world tipped on its axis.

The room, dim before, was now flooded in vibrant colour. My smile was broad again, but this time not with insanity. His hand was not a trap, it was my vice, warm and strong and holding me upwards. He wasn't menacing. He was kind, and protective, and held all of my trust.

Around us were students, still seated, but now laughing and chattering and hooting. I blushed, looking around, my eyes adjusting to the bright sun filtering through the open windows, the thick curtains now gone. In the front row was Isobel and Aaron, grinning childishly up at me and Conrad. Beside them was Gia, her legs in casts and bandages covering her head.

We were powerful, Conrad and I. I knew it because when I looked back to him, he laughed lightly, his other hand taking my waist and his chest meeting mine, swaying me around as if we were dancing. We didn't have to care anymore. Because we answered to nobody.

My heart was electric, my chest bursting with a happiness I couldn't contain. I had everything I needed. Everything. Why did I ever question him? Fear him? I couldn't remember. But now, with his handsome face inches from mine and the excited chatter of our audience, I couldn't think of anything but us.

Until the door at the back of the room opened.

I could see Isaac over Conrad's shoulder, pacing down the aisle of the steps as I had before. His face wasn't happy. It was mad, and it was coming right for us. In fast movements, he bounded to the stage, and I felt his hand grip me from Conrad's grasp.

And then the world was dark again.

I gasped for my breath, feeling as if I had just run a marathon. Isaac really was there, and his hand was on my shoulder, tugging from Blackwood as he swayed on his feet. I stared at him as if he were a ghost, but his attention was turned towards our professor.

Bile rose in my throat. He'd been controlling me. And I'd been so close to falling for his trap.

"It's there," he said dangerously. His glare left Isaac and found me. "It can be real."

But it couldn't. I screamed, the sound filling the room with razor blades, surprising even Blackwood himself.

I shook Isaac off, which wasn't hard. He was weak. And then I lunged. The room exploded, but not with happiness this time. Because this time, he wasn't the one controlling us. I was.

His skin felt like fire, and I screamed again. It was like plunging my palms onto a burning stove, but I tightened my grip on his neck. His hands flew to my arms, pulling me away, but I was too strong, filled with anger. He'd come so close to making me give in. It only fuelled me.

This time I was controlling the image around us. Flickers of the forest, mud caking my feet. The blade of a knife scraping across his throat. The crunching of my best friend falling to the floor. Isaac was gone, and so was the classroom, and in that last moment, I pictured her. Gia's tongue poking from her mouth as she teased me, her pout as I left for home after soccer camp.

And then, Conrad fell to the floor. And so did I. There was a scream filling my ears, but I knew it wasn't my own. I felt like my eardrums had burst.

I blinked slowly. Once. Twice. Then everything went black.

I didn't know how much later it was that I stirred, but I was in the middle of a stampede, feet flowing past me wildly. Someone was standing over me, protecting me from the crowd passing us.

"Please, please wake up," he pleaded. Isaac. I smiled, although I wasn't sure my lips really moved. His voice was like velvet. Through my warped vision, I saw one of his black curls fall across his forehead.

"He ran, Aspen. He ran. But you took it from him. Everything."

I wanted to say something, to ask him if he was sure. But my lips were too heavy.

"Everyone is free."

Everyone. But not me.

An epilogue will be coming very soon!