I woke to silence.
Not the peaceful kind. The suffocating kind. The kind that made you wonder if you were even still alive.
My eyes cracked open slowly, and for a second, I thought maybe I was dead. Maybe that explosion had killed me and this was… what? Heaven? Hell? Some weird in between?
But then the pain hit.
Every muscle in my body ached like I'd been run over by a freight train. My arms burned, my head pounded so hard I thought my skull might crack open, and when I tried to move god, even breathing hurt.
I gasped and fell back against the pillows, my chest heaving.
That's when I noticed my wrists.
They were wrapped in soft white bandages that smelled faintly of herbs, sweet and earthy. But underneath, I could still feel it—that warmth, that pulse, like my blood had been replaced with liquid light.
"Easy."
I jerked my head toward the voice, which was a mistake because the room spun violently.
Lilly sat in a chair beside the bed, and she looked terrible. Dark circles under her eyes, hair messier than I'd ever seen it, her face pale and drawn. She looked like she hadn't slept in days.
"Lilly?" My voice came out raspy, broken. Like I'd been screaming.
Had I been screaming?
She tried to smile, but it didn't reach her eyes. "You've been asleep for two days."
Two days.
The words hit me like a punch to the gut.
"What " I tried to sit up again, but my body refused to cooperate. "Felix. Is Felix okay? Did I did I hurt him?"
"He's fine," Lilly said quickly, but there was something careful in her tone. "A little shaken up, but he's fine. We all are."
I didn't believe her. Not completely.
Her eyes flickered away for just a second. Everything wasn't fine.
"The room," I whispered, my throat tight. "Did I did I destroy it?"
Lilly was quiet for a long moment. Then she nodded slowly. "Yeah. Most of it."
Oh god.
"The walls are scorched black," she continued softly. "Some of the furniture is just gone. Burned to nothing. Leo said " She paused, choosing her words carefully. "He said he's never seen anything like it."
I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I just wanted to vanish into the bed.
"I'm so sorry," I choked out, tears stinging my eyes. "I didn't mean to. I swear I didn't "
"I know," Lilly said gently, reaching over to squeeze my hand. "I know you didn't."
But knowing I didn't mean to didn't make it better.
It didn't change what I'd done.
"Gwen," Lilly said carefully, her voice almost a whisper. "What you did, that kind of power? It's not normal. Even for here."
My stomach twisted into painful knots. "What does that mean? I didn't ask for this power. All I wanted was to apologize to Felix, and now he hates me more."
She hesitated, then stood and walked to the window, staring out at the pink sky. "My brothers have been arguing since it happened."
"Arguing about what?"
"About you. About what to do."
The words felt like a slap across the face.
"What to do with me?" I repeated, my voice rising. "Like I'm some kind of problem?"
"You're not a problem," Lilly said quickly, turning back to me. "But Gwen, you almost brought the house down. Your power—it's wild. Untrained. Dangerous. Not just to us, but to yourself."
I wanted to argue. To tell her I'd be more careful. But how could I promise that when I didn't even understand what was inside me?
"So what?" I said, my voice breaking. "They want to get rid of me?"
"No," Lilly said firmly. "But they need to figure out if they can help you. If it's even safe to try."
Safe.
The word felt heavy, impossible.
I wasn't safe. I was a bomb waiting to go off.
Downstairs, I could hear them before I even got close.
Their voices carried through the house—sharp, tense, angry.
"She's a risk." That was Felix. Cold. Harsh. "You all saw what she did. If she loses control again "
"Then we teach her not to," Leo interrupted, his voice firm but strained. "We train her. We help her."
"And if she can't be trained?" Felix shot back. "What if next time, someone actually gets hurt? What if next time, she kills one of us?"
My breath caught in my throat.
He thought I might kill them.
"The mark chose her for a reason," Heath said quietly. "That has to mean something."
"Or maybe the mark made a mistake," Felix muttered.
I stopped at the top of the stairs, my legs shaking so badly I had to grip the railing to stay upright.
Lilly appeared behind me, her hand resting gently on my shoulder. "You don't have to go down there," she whispered.
"Yes, I do."
Because if they were going to decide what happened to me, I deserved to be part of that conversation.
I took a shaky breath and forced myself down the stairs.
The moment I stepped into the room, everyone went silent.
Leo stood near the fireplace, arms crossed, his face unreadable. Heath leaned against the wall, watching me with those quiet, knowing eyes that saw too much. Lilly stayed close behind me, ready to step between us if things went bad.
And Felix
Felix stood by the window, his back to me at first. When he finally turned around, his ocean green eyes met mine, and what I saw there made my chest ache.
Fear.
Not anger. Not disgust. Fear.
He was afraid of me. I hated it.
"Gwen." Leo's voice broke the terrible silence. "Sit down."
I didn't want to. Every instinct screamed at me to run. But my legs felt like jelly anyway, so I sank into the nearest chair, gripping the armrests so hard my knuckles turned white.
"We need to talk about what happened," Leo said carefully, like he was talking to a wild animal that might bolt at any second.
"You mean about how I almost killed everyone," I said flatly.
No one opposed me.
That somehow made it worse.
Felix's jaw tightened. "You lost control. Completely. Do you even remember what that felt like?"
"Of course I remember!" The words burst out of me. "The heat, the light, the way everything just exploded out of me. I tried to stop it, but I couldn't. I never imagined I had this much power."
My voice cracked on the last word.
"That's exactly the point," Felix said, his voice hard. "You couldn't stop it. So what happens next time? What happens when you're around other people? What happens when "
"There won't be a next time," I said desperately.
"You don't know that."
"Felix," Lilly warned, her voice sharp.
But he didn't back down. He walked closer, stopping just a few feet away, and for the first time since I'd met him, I saw past the cold exterior.
He wasn't just angry.
He was terrified.
"You want honesty?" he said quietly. "Fine. We don't know why you're here, or what that mark really means. We don't know if you're meant to help us—or if you'll end up destroying us."
Each word was a knife twisting deeper.
"Then why am I still here?" I whispered.
The question hung in the air.
Felix was quiet for a long moment. Then, softer than before, he said, "Because when you lost control… You looked terrified. You weren't trying to hurt anyone. You were just scared."
Something in my chest cracked.
"That's the only reason I didn't walk away," he added.
The room fell into heavy silence again.
Finally, Leo cleared his throat. "We've made a decision."
My heart jumped into my throat.
"We're going to train you."
I looked up sharply, not sure I'd heard him right. "What?"
"You need to learn control. Your power is raw, unskilled but extraordinary," Leo said. "Right now, we're the only ones who can teach you. It won't be easy. You'll fail a lot. You'll want to give up. But if you're willing to put in the work "
"I am," I said immediately, desperately. "I'll do whatever it takes. I swear. I don't want to hurt anyone. I just want to understand what's happening to me."
Leo nodded slowly. "Then we start tomorrow."
Relief crashed over me so hard I almost started crying right there.
But then Felix spoke again.
"One condition."
I turned to him, and the look in his eyes made my stomach drop.
"If you lose control again," he said quietly, his voice like steel, "if anyone gets hurt because of you, you're done. No second chances. No excuses. I won't care if you're chosen "
His words were final. Absolute.
But underneath them, I heard something else.
Please don't make me regret this.
I swallowed hard and nodded. "I understand."
"Good," Leo said. "Get some rest. Training starts at dawn."
That night, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep.
My wrists still glowed faintly through the bandages, pulsing softly like a second heartbeat I couldn't control.
I kept replaying Felix's words in my head. The fear in his eyes. The way he'd looked at me—not with hatred, but with something that felt almost like hope buried under all that terror.
He was giving me a chance.
They all were.
And I couldn't. I wouldn't. Let them down.
Even if it killed me.
Because the alternative—being sent away, being alone in this terrifying world, not understanding what was happening to me—was worse.
I pressed my bandaged wrists against my chest and whispered into the darkness, "I won't lose control again. I promise."
Even as I said it, I wasn't sure I could keep that promise.
And that scared me more than anything.