Defying Destiny (Afterword Academy #3) - Katie May Page 0,6
emotions and sanity is tenuous at best. The slightest amount of pressure could destroy it completely.
“Hadley, stop panicking!” Caius begs, but all I manage to do is shake my head erratically, tears streaming down my cheeks.
“What’s happening to me?” I cry.
“You’re invisible, Hadley, but you need to calm down. You need to come back to me, my beloved.”
“Invisible?” Panic continues to eat away at me like a collection of disgusting scavengers swooping in on my dead body. I can barely breathe through the panic clenching my heart in an iron vise. “How is that possible?”
“Hadley?” a familiar, groggy voice whispers. And then, more alert, “Hadley!”
“Karston?” I whip my head in his direction to see him scrambling to his feet, his eyes wide in his face. His gaze travels over where I’m lying, never once meeting my eyes, before he desperately whips his head towards Caius.
“Where is she?”
“Karston!” I scream again. Fuck, what is happening to me? Am I slowly fading away? Maybe I did die again…
Terror intermingles with the panic, both of them curling around each other like a ball of yarn that you couldn’t possibly begin to untangle.
“She’s invisible,” Caius explains, voice terse. “You need to talk her through what to do.”
Karston still appears confused and panicky, but he smooths his expression over and rushes to my side. I grapple for his hand, only breathing easier when his warmth penetrates the coldness seeping into my body.
“Okay, baby, I need you to listen to me. Do you understand?”
I nod vehemently before remembering that he can’t fucking see me. “Yes,” I croak out.
“Okay, first, I need you to calm down. Can you do that for me, baby? Can you calm down?”
His soothing words cocoon me in warmth, and I cling to that sensation. To the way he makes me feel. Slowly, the panic recedes from my mind as I focus on his presence and only his presence. When I feel as if I can breathe without hyperventilating, I whisper, “I’m calm.”
“Good job, baby. Okay, now I need you to focus on your body. I need you to imagine yourself visible. Can you do that?”
“I can try.” My voice is nothing but a breath of air. Squeezing my eyelids shut, I do what he instructed, starting at my feet. I picture each of my toes, and then I move up to my legs and stomach. My arms. My fingers. My chest.
“You’re doing good, baby,” Karston praises, and I smile weakly at his compliment. I’m not doing good, despite his claims. I’m a fucking mess.
Finally, I picture my head and my hair, and only when he heaves out a relieved breath, do I allow my eyes to open.
His smile is luminescent as he grins down at me, his white teeth blinding.
“I’m so fucking proud of you, Had.”
“You can see me?” I whimper.
In answer, Karston lowers his lips to mine and kisses me with a feverish intensity. With each swipe of his tongue against my own, I can feel his pain and his love. His fear and his devotion. His need for me.
He pulls his lips away and rests his forehead against my own.
“I can see you, baby,” he assures, his raspy voice reverberating through me. But if he can see me, why do his eyes still flare with unencumbered panic? And though he tries to maintain eye contact, his gaze occasionally flickers to something over my shoulder and then to the top of my head.
What…?
I tentatively bring my hand to my mane of hair, only to remove it immediately when I feel two horns protruding from my scalp. Two motherfucking horns. My panic intensifying, I sit up and twist my head over my shoulder, only moderately surprised to see feathered Angel wings extending from my back. As I watch, horrified, they ruffle, a few feathers cascading to the ground.
“Oh my god!” I cry, and like with the invisibility, my panic causes yet another power to emerge. Though I’m not sure if you can even call these powers. Character traits? Disfigurements?
In my hand, a pitch-black scythe appears, the curved blade so sharp, I have no doubt it could easily slice my head straight off.
Oh. My. God.
“We needed to save you,” Karston whispers, voice taut with emotion.
“What?” I tremble desperately as my gaze volleys from the scythe in my hand to the wings just barely visible in my peripheral. They must’ve been the heavy things that prohibited me from sitting up completely. And the horns…