Origin (Lux 4)

We stopped in front of the doors I’d come to loathe. Taking a deep breath, I stepped through when they opened. No point in delaying the inevitable.

Sergeant Dasher waited inside, dressed in the same uniform he’d been wearing since the first time I saw him. I wondered if he had an endless supply of them. If not, he had to have one hell of a dry-cleaning bill.

These were the stupid things I thought of before I was pummeled into one giant bruise.

Dasher gave me a once-over. From the brief glimpse of my reflection in the foggy mirror in the bathroom, I knew I looked like a hot mess. On the right side of my face, my cheek and eye were an ugly shade of purple and swollen. My lower lip was split. The rest of my body looked like a smorgasbord of bruises.

He shook his head and stepped aside, allowing Dr. Roth to check me over. The doctor took my blood pressure, listened to me breathe, and then shined a light in my eyes.

“She looks a little worse for wear,” he said, tucking his stethoscope under his lab coat. “But she can participate in the stress test.”

“It would be nice if she actually participated,” grumbled one of the guys at the control panels. “And not just stand there.”

I shot him a glare, but before I could open my mouth, Sergeant Dasher cut in. “Today will be different,” he said.

Folding my arms, I fixed my eyes on him. “No. It won’t. I’m not fighting them.”

His chin went up a notch. “Perhaps we’ve introduced you to the stress test incorrectly.”

“Gee,” I said, smiling inwardly at the way his eyes narrowed. “What part of this whole thing is incorrect?”

“We do not want you to fight to just fight, Katy. We want to make sure your mutation is viable. I can see that you are unwilling to hurt just another hybrid.”

A tiny smidgen of hope flared inside me, like a fragile seedling poking through the ground. Maybe making a stand, accumulating all these bruises, had meant something. It was a small step that probably meant nothing to them but everything to me.

“But we must see your abilities under high stress.” He motioned to the guys at the panels, and my hope crashed and burned. The door opened. “I think you will be more accepting of this test.”

Oh God, I didn’t want to walk through those doors, but I forced one foot in front of the other, refusing to show an ounce of weakness.

The door closed behind me, and I faced the other door, waiting while knots formed in my stomach. How in the world could they make this acceptable? There was nothing they could—

In that instant, the other door opened, and Blake stepped through.

I choked out a dry, bitter laugh as he swaggered into the room, barely paying heed to the door closing behind him. Suddenly Dasher’s words about being more acceptable made sense.

Blake frowned as he stopped in front of me. “You look like crap.”

The simmering anger sparked. “And you’re surprised? You know what they’re doing in here.”

He thrust his fingers through his hair as his eyes moved over my face. “Katy, all you had to do was tap into the Source. You’re making this harder on yourself.”

“I’m making this—?” I cut myself off as the anger heated up in me. The Source stirred in my belly, and I felt the tiny hairs on my body rise. “You’re insane.”

“Look at yourself.” He waved a hand at me. “All you had to do was do what they asked, and you could’ve avoided all of this.”

I stepped forward, glaring at him. “If you hadn’t betrayed us, I would’ve avoided all of this in the first place.”

“No.” A look of sadness crept across his face. “You would’ve ended up here no matter what.”

“I don’t agree.”

“You don’t want to agree.”

I sucked in a deep breath, but the anger was getting the better of me. Blake moved to put his hand on my shoulder, but I knocked his arm away. “Don’t touch me.”

He stared at me a moment, and then his eyes narrowed. “Like I told you before, if you want to be mad at anyone, get mad at Daemon. He did this to you. Not me.”

That did it.

All the pent-up anger and frustration whipped through me like a category-five hurricane. My brain clicked off, and I swung without thinking. My fist just grazed his jaw, but the Source had reared its head at the same time. A bolt of light shot from my hand and spun him around.

He caught himself on the wall, letting out a surprised laugh. “Damn, Katy. That hurt.”

Energy crackled down my spine, fusing with my bones. “How dare you blame him for this? This isn’t his fault!”

Blake turned around and leaned against the wall. Blood trickled from his lip, and he wiped at it with the back of his hand. A strange gleam entered his eyes, and then he pushed off the wall. “This is completely his fault.”

I flung my arm out and another bolt of energy shot forward, but he dodged it, laughing as he spun around, his arms out at his sides. “Is that the best you got?” he goaded me. “Come on. I promise I’ll go easy on you, Kitten.”

At the use of the pet name—Daemon’s pet name—I lost it.Blake was on me in a second. I darted to the side, ignoring the painful protest of my muscles. His arm came out in a wide sweep, and whitish-red light crackled. I spun at the last second, narrowly avoiding taking a direct hit.

Letting the rush of energy swell through me once more, I sent another blast arcing across the room, hitting him in the shoulder.

He stumbled back, hands dropping to his knees as he doubled over. “I think you can do better than that, Kitten.”