Silvio’s face swam in front of my eyes, his bronze skin melting at the edges, just like the marshmallow clouds had. But I sucked in a breath and forced myself to concentrate, to focus, until his features solidified.
“Gin?” he whispered again, his tone more urgent than before. “Do you understand?”
I stared into his eyes, his gray eyes that were almost the same color as mine, as my power, as my magic.
Elemental magic . . .
Silvio’s words swirled around and around my mind. Burn contained some sort of elemental magic? His shocking statement cut through some of my confusion. Well, that would explain why Benson hadn’t been able to reverse-engineer the formula yet and also why the drug affected elementals the most, like Benson and Bria had both told me. I didn’t like the feel of other elementals’ magic, much less it actually being absorbed into my system. Silvio was right. If I didn’t figure out what kind of power it was, or at least how to counteract it, the drug would kill me.
So for the first time, instead of trying to push it away or dampen it down or ignore it, I actually concentrated on the feel of the drug. But it wasn’t enough. Even as I tried to focus on it, my own natural defenses rose up, trying to smother the heat with my own cold rage.
“Fight it, Gin!” Silvio gave me one more urgent whisper before moving away.
Benson stepped back into view, holding a large needle full of pale yellow liquid. Somehow I knew that if he stabbed me with that, if he pumped adrenaline into my veins, it wouldn’t help me—it would kill me outright instead.
So I forced myself to relax. I let my legs go slack against the chair, unclenched my hands, and tilted my head back so that it rested on the cushion. Toe by toe, finger by finger, muscle by muscle, I relaxed every single part of my body as much as I could. I shuddered in a breath.
And then I let go completely.
My pain, my anger, my fear. I just . . . let go. I’d already eased the tension in my body, and without my emotions locked up tight behind their usual wall, the drug raged through my system unchecked.
It was brutal, like being boiled alive, but I swallowed down my screams and concentrated on the horrible, agonizing sensations sweeping through me, comparing them with all the other kinds of magic that had been used against me over the years.
Burn didn’t contain my own Ice or Stone power, for I would welcome those cold and solid sensations, even when they were killing me. And it wasn’t Air either, or pins and needles would have been stabbing into my body. Whatever magic was in the drug seemed the closest to Fire and the bright, hot burn I’d always associated with that power.
But it wasn’t Fire.
Not really, not exactly.
So what the hell was it, then?
I forced myself to focus on the sensations and the fire that wasn’t Fire that was still surging through me. The lab melted away, and suddenly, I was back in the Pork Pit, picking up that fork from the floor, the one the auburn-haired woman had been using.
Understanding flashed through me like lightning.
Maybe it was the drug and the hallucinations that went along with it, but in that instant, everything clicked into place, including Burn and exactly what kind of magic was in it.
And I knew what I had to do to save myself.
I lolled my head to one side and tilted it forward, so that I could see my right wrist shackled to the chair. I couldn’t move my arm all that much, but I managed to curl my hand around so that I could see the silverstone symbol branded into my palm—that small circle surrounded by eight thin rays that represented patience.
The Burn drug might have sent threads of acidic fire spinning through my veins, but I had spiders of my own.
Two of them, one in either hand.
I looked at my rune, and I thought of it as a real spider, sitting there in the palm of my hand, ready to do my bidding. And I pictured the same thing happening to my other rune on my left hand. Then I reached for my Ice magic. More of that damn acidic green fire covered the cold crystal spring of my power, trying to burn it to ash, but I ripped and clawed and tore off those stinging threads of silk, slicing through the sticky cobwebs of heat, until I could feel my magic—cold, hard, unstoppable.
Just like me.
I grabbed hold of that power and imagined pouring it into those spiders in my palms, until their bellies were as fat and swollen with my silvery Ice magic as the ones under my skin had been with their bright green chemical heat and pain and suffering.
Then I let my spiders loose.
They zipped through my body, carrying their own Icy strings of silk along behind them, weaving their own cold, crystalline webs in delicate but deadly patterns. Slowly, very, very slowly, a numb feeling began to spread through my body as my imaginary spiders froze me from the inside out.
And slowly, very, very slowly, things started to change.
My vision cleared, my breathing came more easily, and the sweat covering my body cooled. The agony from the drug lessened, although I could still feel the fiery combination of the chemicals and the elemental power licking at the strings of my Ice magic, trying to scorch right through them. So I focused on my own cold power that much more, using it to maintain and spread the numbness in my body. Anything else was too much for me right now.
But it was enough.
The longer I held on to my Ice magic, the more I could feel it freezing out the Burn drug in my body. I wasn’t a hundred percent—not even close to that—but I knew that the danger had passed.
This danger, at least.
“What’s happening? Why is her heart rate dropping?” Benson muttered, staring at the monitors. “She should be crashing hard right now, not stabilizing.”
“Perhaps that batch of pills was not as strong as the supplier promised,” Silvio murmured, his voice as bland as ever. “It did seem to flare out of her rather quickly.”
Benson stared at the monitors chirp-chirp-chirping out my vitals, his face completely crestfallen, as though someone had just taken away his favorite toy. He set the needle full of adrenaline down on the table, then started flipping through his pad, reading back through his scribbles.
It was the first time I’d seen him show any real emotion, other than twisted pleasure, so I decided to lash out with the only thing I could: words.
“What’s wrong, Beau?” I croaked, my voice hoarse and raspy from all my screams. “Did you not get the results you wanted? Aw, it’s too bad that your little science project failed. But really, you should have known better.”
He stiffened and gave me a withering glance. “And why is that?”
“Oh, c’mon, Dr. Frankenstein. Don’t you know that the monster never reacts how you think she will?”