Chapter4
903 Words
Chapter Four
The library couch is too stiff to sleep. I toss, shift, pull the blanket over me, shove it off again. My head won’t stop replaying the cuffs, the way they shoved the energy back into me, and Viktor’s maddeningly calm face.
Cooking helped earlier. It pushed the anger down. But the pressure is still here, hot and restless under my skin. If I stay put, I’ll snap.
It’s past two a.m. when I give up and head downstairs. The Training Room hums faintly when I step inside. The walls glow with runes, racks of cuffs waiting in neat rows.
Perfect.
I grab a pair, snap them on, and pull from the buzz in the air. Energy hums all around me—always has. I feel it, restless and sharp, pressing at my ribs. I shove it outward in a hard burst—a surge.
That’s what a surge is: raw energy forced out before it can eat me alive.
The cuffs flare, catch it, and slam it back into me. My chest burns with the push. I grit my teeth and force it down.
Again. Harder. Sweat beads on my temple. My legs wobble, but I refuse to stop.
“You shouldn’t be in here alone.”
I freeze. Of course. Viktor leans in the doorway, sleeves rolled, hair mussed like he never slept. His eyes go straight to the cuffs.
“I didn’t invite you,” I mutter.
“And yet here you are, cuffed and already shaking.” He steps inside.
“I know what I’m doing.”
“You don’t.” He presses his palm against a recessed panel on the wall. A cabinet slides open, revealing a small tablet edged in runes. He pulls it out, the surface glowing faintly at his touch.
My stomach dips. “What the hell is that?”
“Monitor,” he says. “Tracks spikes before they blow.”
“Spying on me now?”
“Keeping you alive.” He glances at the screen. “Level two. You’ll think you can handle more. Then you’ll spike.”
“Spike?” I echo.
“Energy builds too fast, rises past what you can hold,” he explains. “Then comes the crash—your system folds, and you drop. Sometimes for hours. Sometimes worse.”
I swallow. “I don’t crash.”
“Everyone does,” he says. “Especially the ones who think they don’t.”
I roll my eyes. “Spare me the lecture.”
He doesn’t argue. He adjusts the cuffs with calm fingers. The rune glow brightens, the hum deepens in my bones. I shove another surge out. The cuffs hit harder, slamming it back until my teeth rattle.
“Balance it,” Viktor says. “Thirty seconds.”
I plant my feet, jaw locked, and hold. The cuffs bite again, again. My arms tremble. Sweat burns my eyes.
“Ten seconds.”
“Shut up,” I hiss.
The timer beeps. He unlocks the cuffs. The glow dies. My wrists are raw. My knees want to give, but I don’t.
“Again,” he says.
“Go to hell.”
“Level three.”
The bite doubles. My breath stutters. The cuffs shove the surge back, every ounce. My chest burns hotter.
“Fifteen seconds,” Viktor says.
I count on my own. My vision spots white. When the timer beeps, I let the surge collapse. My body almost folds with it.
“You grind yourself down and call it control,” he says quietly. “That isn’t strength. It’s desperation.”
“It works,” I rasp.
“Until the crash puts you flat on the floor.”
I lift my chin. “I don’t break.”
He studies me for a long second. His voice is calm, low. “Everyone breaks.”
“Not me.”
“Especially you,” he says.
The words sting worse than the cuffs. I glare at the floor, furious.
He crouches a few feet away, monitor still glowing in his hand. “You came down here because you couldn’t sit still. You thought bleeding energy would settle you. It won’t. It’ll eat you alive.”
“You don’t know me,” I snap.
“I’m learning you,” he says. “That’s my job.”
I laugh without humor. “You sound like a therapist.”
“I’m not,” he says. “I’m the wall between you and collapse.”
“I don’t need a wall.”
“Then why are you cuffed?”
My throat tightens. I don’t answer.
He waits a beat, then powers down the monitor and sets it aside. “Enough. Orientation’s tomorrow. You’ll need strength.”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“I just did,” he says.
I scoff. “You think you can control me?”
“I don’t have to. The cuffs already do.”
He stands, resets the cuffs on the rack, and leaves without looking back.
The silence after he’s gone presses heavier than his voice. My arms shake. My chest aches.
I yank the cuffs off and slam them down. My wrists burn. I tell myself it doesn’t matter. I tell myself I’ll beat him at this.
But the hum still echoes in my bones as I drag myself upstairs.
It’s nearly dawn when I collapse into bed, too tired to fight anymore.
- Writer
