“I’m so sorry,” I cried out, pressing my head against the hot glass. Their heads swiveled over to me at the same time. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I repeated over and over again. I was in too much shock to get any other words out.
Tomb seemed to realize what was happening first. He got to his feet and stormed up against the container with protective fury, punching in a sad attempt to get to me, but it was no use. The glass was too strong—probably reinforced by some magical elements I couldn’t see.
Crow started yelling so loudly that the veins in his neck bulged with pressure. “Get out of here, Motley!”
I shook my head. I wasn’t going anywhere.
Oz was going to die for hurting them.
My decision was swift and definite. I turned around, straightening up to my full height, and stared at Oz with the smug, satisfied look on his face. Tomb was right. Power didn’t make a monster. A monster made itself.
I might be the one with the demon inside of me, but he was the one who was evil.
I shot my webs out with quick precision, sending Oz flying backwards. He tried to bring up some pathetic air elemental power, but all he managed to do was whip my hair around my face. I had him pinned against the wall in an instant, my webs relentless as they covered him, keeping his body plastered there. He tried to reach for his gun, but that was yanked away from him with more webs, and I sent it flying across the room.
He let out a short, frustrated scream, but I simply shoved more of my webs into his mouth, blocking the sound. I knew that the guards watching the security cameras would quickly send out reinforcements. I shot more webs at the training room doors, piling layer upon layer of impenetrable protection to buy me some time. I didn’t care about the consequences. I just wanted him to be punished.
I was tired of Spector holding all the cards. I wasn’t a meek little puppet anymore, scared of my own shadow. I wasn’t going to let them use my aunt against me. I wasn’t going to let them torture my mates. I was going to make them all pay. Starting with Oz.
Once the wall of web was sufficiently thick enough, I flashed to Oz and sunk my hands through the webs to where I knew his holster was. The silky strands parted for me immediately, and as soon as my fingers closed around the tablet and yanked it out, they knit back together again. It didn’t take me long to figure it out, and when I found the control center to the burn cage, I pressed the button and opened the door.
Oz screamed against his webbed gag, choking on the strings as I cocked my head and looked up at him. My spider and I were one—a united, vengeful front.
This man was going to die.
Crow and Tomb were weak, shuffling toward me with slow exhaustion. The sound of their struggle in their labored breaths and shuffled steps only made me even more enraged.
Oz tried to send more of his unimpressive air element toward me again, but his hands were strained against the bindings, limiting his movements.
I took a step closer, my hair blowing around my face. “Need your hands free, Oz?” I asked him with a malicious undertone in my voice. “Here, let me help with that.”
With a flick of my wrist, I directed the webs near his hands to start coiling around his wrists. Layer upon layer, it entwined. At first, he just watched warily, his neck straining to look down as far as the webs allowed. Then he began to grunt at the first signs of pain. When he started to scream around his muzzle, my eyes glittered. He thrashed and yowled, like a dying animal trying to get away from a predator’s teeth. But my webs kept wrapping. They cinched tighter and tighter and tighter. Until finally, his hands popped right the fuck off.
Agonized screams filled the room as blood seeped into the webs and pooled onto the floor on either side of him, dripping from his stumps in gruesome synchronicity.
Crow and Tomb reached me, flanking me on either side, and they said nothing as they watched me enact my vengeance. They didn’t judge me or expect me to walk away. They just let me have my wrath.
Pounding fists suddenly sounded against the training room doors, shouts from Spector guards muffled behind the webbed wall that held them back. I knew I had only minutes—seconds—before they would burst through and take me.
“Motley...” Crow murmured in warning.
“I know.”
I focused back on the prey I’d caught in my web. Oz’s head was hanging down, sweat soaking his hair and running down his face in rivulets as he stared at the floor where his severed hands lay.
There were so many ways I wanted to kill him. Rip out his jugular and let him slowly bleed out. Constrict his entire body with webs until he popped. Rip out his heart, since he obviously didn’t use it. But really, there was only one way that gave my mates the justice they deserved.
Tomb read my mind, because he looked over at me, his stony gaze holding my eyes. “You sure?”
I nodded, and then I pulled at my webs until I was yanking Oz away from the wall. His body fell to the floor with a smack, and then my webs were slinking across the room, dragging him over the floor. A pair of bloody lines trailed after him.
As soon as he realized that he was being dragged into the fire cage, he started to scream and thrash, his legs desperate to kick out of the webs binding him. His body was pulled inside,
