The People with Useless Power

Chapter Eighteen

[A/N: Okay, guys, I'm sorry for just sort of giving up a few days ago. I was going through something but I'm pretty sure it's okay now.

The thing is, the reason I came back to this story is because I read my first book again.

I wrote that book when I was hopelessly in love with someone else and so it featured a character that was, you know, them.

We don't speak anymore.

After that book, and after that fight, I thought I'd abandon everyone and everything because I felt like I had just lost everything.

But I'm not abandoning this book. I love this book. And I'm not going to lose this book. I'm finally happy with my life: I have a new group of friends, two best friends whom I love with all of my heart, and I'm getting better. Injuring myself isn't a problem anymore.

Enjoy.]

Tears spilled from Emily's eyes as she saw the hatred in Emma's and she struggled as more zaps of electricity crawled up her spine. "I'm sorry," she forced out. "Let me go, let me go!"

The pain increased as the volume of her screams until the world finally became an empty, inky black.

...

Emily woke up, shivering from the cool night air piercing her skin. She sat up.

The room was unrecognizable. The walls were a blinding white, and the floor was made of peach, square, flat tiles. Emily was on one of the beds, covered in one thin, cloth sheet, and was dripping with sweat.

"You're awake," Grayson whispered, and she yelped. He was sitting on the bed across from her.

Gray came and took her temperature, gave her a few shots and wiped the sweat off of her face and neck, applying some thick, burning clear lotion onto her. Emily winced, and he whimpered. "It's worse than I thought."

"What is?" Emily snapped. A flash of fear crossed his eyes, and he picked up a mirror cautiously, holding it up to her.

Across her face, like tiger stripes, were black, ashy scars. They stretched down to her neck and disappeared from view underneath the hospital gown. In the area around the stripes were thin, pink lines of raw skin. She stared at herself in horror, tracing the stripes and cutting into one with her fingernail. Grayson grabbed her wrists and snapped at her, but Emily was paying attention to the black blood dripping out of her face.

"What happened to me?" she asked breathlessly. "Please... what happened?"

Grayson pouted. "I... I really don't want to be the one who tells you this, Emily, but I don't think you can fight anymore."

She felt mixed emotions crash into her. There was a cloud of excitement- no killing! -but a leeching feeling of disappointment. Emily wasn't sure why. "Why not?" she whispered, her voice shaken, for some reason.

"If you ever get punched in the face, um, and the cuts split open... Emily, this is black magic. And it's bad," Grayson sat down on her bed and kicked the mirror under the bed. "I couldn't heal it. No one could."

"What would happen if the cuts split open?" she asked, putting more strength and annoyance into her voice.

"You would either get really, painfully sick and die," he began, and Emily felt nauseated, "or you'd make everyone around you really, painfully sick and die. Or both. Probably both."

She let out a low, sad whimper.

"You're an unnecessary risk," an exhausted voice grumbled. Emily looked to the door, and Vincent was walking to them, holding three coffees and looking disheveled and unshaven, with his hair messed-up, his eyes half-closed, and dark, grey circles under his eyes. He handed a coffee to Gray. "Emma told me that."