Curse of Ferreus

25 - Haze

Clarity gives way to an instinct that has me slashing my knife at Rowan. He rips away from me; I follow like the cold promise of death, tackling him until we land hard on the floor in a tangle of limbs.

I swipe and slash and grapple for the upper hand with the ferocity of a wild animal as he reaches up to stop me, calling my name, his eyes alight with terror. I can barely hear him over the piercing white noise drilling into my head.

Everywhere I look is sharp and electric. The symbols on my arms are a white fire scalding across my skin, tearing a strangled cry from my throat.

Awareness is shoved to the back of my mind and locked away— panicked thoughts claw to be free, throwing around words like ritual and Haze and oh fuck that won't quite penetrate the fog.

My body is not my own. My limbs settle into an archaic dance of fighting and slashing and I'm powerless to stop it. I'm a conduit for pure, charged lightning. I'm going to kill him, right here, and I can't stop myself.

He won't stop moving. Struggling and holding me back as best he can and shouting for someone. He's not hurting me, but still I throw everything I've got at him. I slash at his arms, at his chest, aiming for a more fatal blow. Every solid connection, every line of blood I see, sends a bone-deep exhilaration ripping the air from my lungs. My eyes are searing as though a white-hot poker has been shoved in them.

Frames go missing in my head, as though my mind is losing signal.

The door crashes open and Beau storms in— eyes ablaze. He sees us and falters as I lay the heat of my gaze on him. "What the fuck—?!"

"Don't hurt him!" Rowan exclaims. Desperate. His voice tugs at my focus and I slash and pin him down and raise my knife for a fatal blow.

Hands drag me up. Beau. The next instant, he's gone. Sprawled on the floor, clutching at his bloody side. Shouting for Lachlan.

Gone.

Focus rushes back right as my fist goes flying towards Rowan's jaw.

Gone again.

There's hands on me, dragging me away. I struggle with unnatural ferocity, forcing myself free with clinical precision and receiving grunts of pain for my efforts. There's nothing stopping me from rushing at Rowan. I descend on him in a blur, thinking of nothing but the satisfaction of shoving my knife through him.

I can't stop myself. But it's more than that. I don't want to stop. I want him dead. I need him dead.

He's a threat. He's going to bite me if I don't kill him first.

No. No—

"River, please! Come back to me!"

Rowan. His voice is strained and desperate, and it seems to cut right through the chaos and into the little corner of my mind still grasping for awareness. Instinct wars with reality. I don't know what's real.

I come to a gasping, shuddering mess. My limbs jerk and shake as though a lightning strike has shot through me and a headache pounds behind my temples.

Silver seeps from the world; a fog lifting. I find myself holding Rowan against the wall with my knife pushed firmly up against his neck. His skin sizzles beneath the burn of the blade and his eyes are hard and focused, trapping me in a haze of honey and terror. There's hands on my arms, on my wrist, trying fervently to keep me still. To keep the knife still.

"Come back to me, River," he breathes. He's not fighting me. He's frozen beneath my unyielding hold.

Rage blazes white-hot through my blood, but I rip the knife free of him and let it slip from my trembling hands and clatter harmlessly to the floor. "Fuck," I manage, stumbling back.