Defying Destiny (Afterword Academy #3) - Katie May Page 0,4

latch onto her soul, giving her life.”

“Feels like I’m making a horcrux,” Preston mutters to himself before we all fall silent.

I close my eyes, bow my head, and concentrate, like Aggie said. I push away the doubt, the one telling me that I shouldn’t be taking advice from fucking Aggie, and focus on my girl. My Hadley, the girl that lights my heart on fire and makes me feel things, things I’ve buried deep inside me since we arrived at the Academy.

I let my walls fall away brick by brick, piece by piece, and allow myself to feel. I feel my love for her, my admiration, my deep, unquenchable desire for her. My chest aches at the emotion, and my heart thumps rapidly as I begin to see the ball of power inside of me.

My hand begins to burn as I reach for it, seeing all the things I’m proud of or that I like about myself. I see myself as a Guardian, my massive white wings and the halo burning over my head. I see myself in high school playing football on Friday nights, running for touchdowns over and over again, setting the school record.

I see the pride in my mom’s eyes when I earned a college scholarship and the day she helped me move into my dorm freshman year. And then again, when I was offered a modeling contract. I see the love in her face during the fleeting moments when my brothers and I had game night with her, forgoing our friends to spend time with our mom.

Then Hadley appears before me, so innocent yet so full of pain. I see how beautifully she gave herself to me, even though I have such a rough exterior. She saw through the hard-ass for who I really am. And in that moment, I fell in love with her.

Love.

That’s what I feel most inside of me. Love for myself, for my brothers, and for her.

My hands feel as if they’ve been dipped in a pot of boiling water, but I still hang on. My brothers grunt beside me, their pain obvious as the grip on my shoulder tightens. The heat travels from deep inside of me and down my arms, connecting my brothers and me to Hadley.

“I can’t take this!” Preston shouts as the burning becomes unbearable, all of our limbs shaking violently as a colossal heat threatens to incinerate us whole. And just when I think I can’t take it another second, a new sensation grows alongside this one.

I feel nauseated, as if something is working its way through my stomach and up my throat. Then an excruciating pain strikes, causing me to shout in agony. My vision blanks, going completely white, and I lose consciousness.

Chapter 3

Hadley

My mind is groggy, almost as if I’m twenty feet under water. No matter how hard I try, how fast I swim, I continue to sink deeper and deeper beneath the ocean waves. Breathing is virtually impossible as I drift away, losing myself to the pure and inevitable darkness.

Conscious thoughts begin to return to me, slowly at first, like waking up after an intense slumber. Images bombard me, but try as I might, I can’t understand exactly what I’m seeing. A dagger. Administer’s cruel face. And then pain. Agonizing pain that wipes away the last of my sanity, relegating me to this tiny pocket of pure darkness.

And then…I remember.

The battle on campus, where grotesque monsters escaped from Hell. And Administer. He stabbed me with one of the only weapons capable of killing a Fate.

Phantom pain erupts in my chest where the dagger landed, and I have the irresistible urge to rub at the over-sensitive skin, to soothe the pain away. But despite my best efforts, it’s nearly impossible for me to control my weighted limbs.

The pain in my chest is numb now, though I can still remember the explosion of fire that burst behind my ribcage. It felt as if someone had stuck their hand into my chest, grabbed my rapidly beating heart, and then squeezed it until I was no more. The pain had been excruciating, agonizing, until I lost myself to the darkness.

Familiar, barely audible voices begin to reach me, muffled as if I’m hearing them through a tunnel.

“Hadley.”

“Fuck, is she okay?”

“Hadley…”

Am I dreaming? I must be dreaming. The only other alternative is that I’m dead…again. Which would suck pretty damn hard, because I already died once.

Slowly, almost incrementally, I allow myself to drift out of the darkness. First, I move