I’d been doing so well with Titus and Exos, and now—
Vox grabbed my wrist. “Claire.”
I blinked at him, startled. “What…?” I swallowed, my throat tight. “What can I do?”
“Can you feel the darkness?” he asked, his voice too calm for the chaos flourishing around us. “The power? Can you locate and isolate it?”
More shouts came, then screams followed by a crash, and I winced.
“Claire,” Vox insisted, demanding me to focus on his voice. “Try to latch onto it. Together, we can destroy it, but I’m not strong enough to do it alone. I need you to try to lasso it with me.”
Lasso a tornado.
Right.
Yeah, a walk in the park.
“It’s picking up speed!” someone screamed.
“Shit!”
“Run!”
“It’s going to take the building down!”
My blood ran cold, the insanity spiraling out of control and trying to tug Exos from my grasp. “No!” I shouted, but the word was lost to the howling winds. My hair tangled before my eyes, the lethal tunnel sucking everything into its inky abyss.
Like a black hole, I realized. Oh God…
Vox screamed something over the roar of sound, but I couldn’t hear him.
I need to focus.
I need to stop this.
By calling the elements to me.
Just like Exos and Titus always say.
I can do this.
I have to.
Or I’ll lose my Spirit, my Exos…
Closing my eyes, I searched within myself—the way Titus and Exos had shown me—and called forth my connection to air. Only, I didn’t recognize the whirl of power dancing before me. It felt foreign, tasted wrong, as if it hadn’t come from me at all. Not like in the courtyard yesterday when Exos helped me calm my out-of-control elements.
This didn’t feel like me.
But my power located it, caressed it, explored it, searching for a way inside, trying to find a weakness to exploit.
There, my instincts whispered. Punch a hole there.
Using a gust of wind shaped like an arrow, I sent the sharp end into the core, locking onto the heart of the darkness, and gave it a tug.
Sweat dampened my brow from the effort, my breathing escalating, but my gifts took over, leading my every move. I punched another hole with a second arrow, then a third, all while keeping a mental rope tied to each.
Then I yanked them simultaneously with the force of all my power, shredding the vortex from the inside out.