"Stop it," I said. The feel of this twisted magic was making me nauseous. She and Adrian had mentioned something like this before, this idea of making people see things that weren't there. They'd jokingly called it super compulsion—and it was horrible. "This isn't how spirit is supposed to be used. This isn't you. It's wrong."
She was breathing heavily, sweat breaking out along her brow. "I can't let go of it," she said.
"You can," I said. I touched her arm. "Give it to me."
She briefly turned from Jesse and looked at me, astonished, before fixing her gaze back on him.
"What? You can't use magic."
I focused hard on the bond, on her mind. I couldn't take the magic exactly, but I could take the darkness it brought on. It was what I'd been doing for a while now, I realized. Every time I'd worried and wished she'd calm down and fight dark feelings, she had—because I was taking it all from her. I was absorbing it, just as Anna had done for St. Vladimir. It was what Adrian had seen when the darkness jumped from her aura to mine. And this—this abuse of spirit, using it to maliciously harm another and not for self-defense, was bringing the worst side effects of all in her. It was corrupting and wrong, and I couldn't let her have it. All thoughts of my own madness or rage were completely irrelevant at this moment.
"No," I agreed. "I can't. But you can use me to let it go. Focus on me. Release it all. It's wrong. You don't want it."
She stared at me again, eyes wide and desperate. Even without direct eye contact, she was still able to torture Jesse. I both saw and felt the fight she waged. He'd hurt her so much—she wanted him to pay. He had to. And yet, at the same time, she knew I was right. But it was hard. So hard for her to let go …
Suddenly, the burn of that black magic vanished from the bond, along with that sickening sensation. Something hit me like a blast of wind in the face, and I staggered backward. I shuddered as a weird sensation twisted my stomach. It was like sparks, like a coil of electricity burning within me. Then it too was gone. Jesse fell to his knees, free of the nightmare.
Lissa sank with visible relief. She was still scared and hurt over what had happened, but she was no longer consumed with that terrible, destructive rage that had driven her to punish Jesse. That urge within her had disappeared.
The only problem was, it was in me now.
I turned on Jesse, and it was like nothing else existed in the universe except him. He had tried to ruin me in the past. He'd tortured Lissa and hurt so many others. It was unacceptable. I lunged for him. His eyes had only a moment to widen with terror before my fist connected with his face. His head jerked back, and blood spurted from his nose. I heard Lissa scream for me to stop, but I couldn't. He had to pay for what he'd done to her. I grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him hard against the ground. He was yelling now too—begging—for me to stop. He shut up when I hit him again.
I felt Lissa's hands clawing at me, trying to pull me off, but she wasn't strong enough. I kept hitting him. There was no sign of the strategic, precise fighting I'd used earlier with him and his friends, or even against Dimitri. This was unfocused and primal. This was me being controlled by the madness I'd taken from Lissa.
Then another set of hands ripped me away. These hands were stronger, dhampir hands, backed by muscles earned through years of training. It was Eddie. I struggled against his hold. We were closely matched, but he outweighed me.
"Let me go!" I yelled.
To my complete and utter horror, Lissa was now kneeling at Jesse's side, studying him with concern. It made no sense. How could she do that? After what he'd done? I saw compassion on her face, and a moment later, the burn of her healing magic lit our bond as she took away some of the worst of his injuries.
"No!" I screamed, straining against Eddie's hold. "You can't!"
That was when the other guardians showed up, Dimitri and Celeste in the lead. Christian and Adrian were nowhere in sight; they probably couldn't have kept pace with the others.
Organized chaos followed. Those from the society who remained were gathered up and herded off for questioning. Lissa likewise was taken away, led off to get her injuries treated. A part of me that was buried in all that bloodthirsty emotion wanted to go after her, but something else had caught my attention: They were also removing Jesse for medical help. Eddie was still holding onto me, his grip never faltering despite my struggles and pleas. Most of the adults were too busy with the others to notice me, but they noticed when I started shouting again.
"You can't let him go! You can't let him go!"
"Rose, calm down," said Alberta, her voice mild. How could she not get what was going on? "It's over."
"It is not over! Not until I get my hands around his throat and choke the life out of him!"
Alberta and some of the others seemed to realize that something serious was happening now—but they didn't appear to think it had anything to do with Jesse. They were all giving me the Rose-is-crazy look I'd come to know so well in recent days.
"Get her out of here," said Alberta. "Get her cleaned up and calmed down." She didn't give any more instructions than that, but somehow, it was understood that Dimitri would be the one to deal with me.
He came over and took me from Eddie. In the brief change of captors, I tried to break away, but Dimitri was too fast and too strong. He grabbed my arm and started pulling me away from the scene.
"We can make this easy or difficult," said Dimitri as we walked through the woods. "There's no way I'm letting you go to Jesse. Besides, he's at the med clinic, so you'd never get near him. If you can accept that, I'll release you. If you bolt, you know I'll just restrain you again."
I weighed my options. The need to make Jesse suffer was still pounding in my blood, but Dimitri was right. For now.
"Okay," I said. He hesitated a moment, perhaps wondering if I was telling the truth, and then let go of my arm. When I didn't run off, I felt him relax very, very slightly.
"Alberta told you to clean me up," I said evenly. "So we're going to the med clinic?"
Dimitri scoffed. "Nice try. I'm not letting you near him. We'll get first aid somewhere else."
He led me off at an angle from the attack location, toward an area still at the edge of campus. I quickly realized where he was going. It was a cabin. Back when there had been more guardians on campus, some had actually stayed at these little outposts, providing regular protection for the school's boundaries. They'd long since been abandoned, but this one had been cleaned up when Christian's aunt had visited. She'd preferred hanging out here than in the school's guest housing where other Moroi regarded her as a potential Strigoi.
He opened the door. It was dark inside, but I could see well enough to watch him find matches and light a kerosene lantern. It didn't provide a huge amount of light, but it was fine for our eyes. Glancing around, I saw that Tasha really had done a good job with the place. It was clean and almost cozy, the bed made up with a soft quilt and a couple of chairs pulled up to the fireplace. There was even some food—canned and packaged—in the kitchen off to the side of the room.
"Sit down," said Dimitri, gesturing to the bed. I did, and in about a minute, he had a fire going to warm the place up. Once it was in full blaze, he grabbed a first aid kit and a bottle of water from the counter and walked back over to the bed, dragging a chair so he could sit opposite me.
"You have to let me go," I begged. "Don't you see? Don't you see how Jesse has to pay? He tortured her! He did horrible things to her."