Everything was numbing, all the pain, all the fear. My body simply couldn’t process it anymore.
I’d read about that. When the body finally realizes it can’t struggle to survive anymore, it will numb out the pain until the pain finally ends.
I blinked, languidly, slowly, almost as if someone had cut the muscles that connected my eyelids to my face.
I heard Fagan take several steps away from me, stretching his shoulders, cracking his back.
He twisted hard on his foot, his mud-covered shoes coming close to my nose. “It wasn’t meant to happen like this. It was meant to be easier. But you still got here in the end, ha? Your fairy abandoned you, leaving me the only opportunity I needed. And now, now you’re finally here.”
Max abandoned me? That’s what the vision had meant? Max hadn’t abandoned me – he’d sacrificed himself to fight Dimitri.
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. I was dumbstruck by how stupidly wrong I’d been. Clearly, it was a mistake to let scraps of truth about the future guide your actions. But I wouldn’t have time to learn from that important lesson. Because I hadn’t been wrong about everything: Fagan took a threatening step towards me, intentions clear.
In four-and-a-half minutes, I would lose my heart to this asshole.
And whoever he was working for – the Lonely King – would gain my abilities.
Fagan chuckled, stretching once more, patting down his suit, and clearing his throat. “You have a unique skill set, seer. A skillset that is in high demand. I can’t even begin to imagine how many points I will gain with the Lonely King when I bring your heart to him.”
Again, I didn’t answer. Again, I simply lay there and stared at the floor, pale, cold cheeks pressed against the plastic as I waited for those four-and-a-half – no – four minutes – to end.
And yet, somehow, I hadn’t quite given up hope. For, somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered my ability. And I waited. Waited for the sparks to spread across my vision, for the future to spread before me.
I waited for my ability to tell me what to do, to save my life.
It wouldn’t come.
Wouldn’t come.
Fagan chuckled once more as he paced away from me, appearing to walk towards the other side of the factory as he checked something.
As I shifted my head, forced my eyes to open, I realized it was the sword on the upturned milk crate.
He placed it on his arm, turning it around as he appeared to check the quality of the blade.
He clicked his tongue and laughed.
I watched him draw up a hand, pulled his sleeve back, and check his watch.
“Only a couple of minutes now,” he said, still chuckling.
Maybe this was when I was meant to ask some questions – where he was meant to tell me the rest of the plan. But what was the point? It was so damn obvious what the plan was. He would kill me, chop out my heart, and give it to the Lonely King.
Though I was in no condition to ask, apparently Fagan didn’t want to while away the last four minutes in total silence. He chuckled once more. “You made a mistake moving to this city, you know that now, don’t you?”
Again, I didn’t answer.
That didn’t seem to bother him. “Not every day you come across a seer. Powers like yours?” he whistled. “They can make men like me filthy rich. Strong, too. If I’d been you, I would have used my powers to stay the hell away from Bane City.”
I simply listened to him chuckle as my body became so cold, it was a surprise my face didn’t stick to the plastic like a tongue against ice.
“But you can’t access your powers in full, can you? Which makes me lucky, doesn’t it? If you had been a full clairvoyant, I doubt I would have had the foresight to catch you. But you?” He walked all the way up to me and paused above me. “You’re too young to understand what you are. Lucky,” he said through another one of those awful chuckles.
It was the chuckles more than anything that were pushing back the numb feeling spreading through my body. It was the chuckles that finally stiffened my lips, that made me bare my teeth. “Go to hell, asshole,” I managed.
He was like a bully who’d finally gotten a reaction from his victim. He now chuckled so loudly, it sounded like he would lose a lung. “Gladly, but I’m afraid I’ll be taking you there with me.”
It wasn’t exactly what he’d said in my vision, but it was close.
Fagan appeared to wait for me to continue the conversation, and when I didn’t, he reached forward and poked me on the shoulder, almost as if I was a half-dead insect he’d found on the floor.
My shoulder instantly blazed with pain. It was the same arm that the cloud-Dimitri had slammed into.
I had no idea what that power had done to me, but it was excruciating. It also pinned me to the ground, kept me stuck there.
Though I tried to keep my pain hidden, my lips split open, and I groaned out loud.
This elicited another laugh. “Don’t you want to know what you’ll be used for? Aren’t you curious what those future powers of yours will achieve?”
There was no point in staying quite any longer. “What? What heinous things are you going to get up to, asshole?”
“Not me, the Lonely King. You probably haven’t heard of him – too young and innocent, ha? He is the true kingpin of Bane City. A wonder. An ancient wonder,” he added, voice rattling on the word ancient.
I swore a chill wind raced through the room as
