That idea of taking the win was short-lived, as the man in black dashed to Lex, putting the knife to his throat. I mimicked the look on his face, jaw in a tight line, the sides of his mouth pulled back. Wide eyes bulged from his head as I felt mine do the same. I focused in on the blade, though. Caked with dried blood, it pressed into the skin on Lex’s neck. It would be what killed him. I knew that, and felt the truth of it in my bones, that this was the last cut his body could take while in these magical chains. I had to stop it, but the two of them were so close.
“Stop what you are doing or I will end him,” the man shouted over the roar of the wind, definitely like a freight train as it bounced off the walls to come back to our ears. “Turn yourself over to me, or I slice his throat and end him. Your willing surrender is his only shred of hope right now.”
“No,” came from me in a crying whisper, softly, on a sob, so that I didn’t even know if he could hear me over the wind I created, which picked up, throwing something more tangible, metal maybe, against the far wall. We heard it hit the wall and then land with a few bounces on the floor.
As I shook my head, my hands, tight, arthritic looking, the knuckles poised but bent up in odd ways, moved up to chest height. They trembled visibly, the energy making odd, wavy patterns in the darkness. I lost control of them, watching them as if they were possessed, no longer even belonging to me.
The knife suddenly flew from the man’s hand, speeding across the room like someone had shot it from a cannon, only to hit a wall behind me, causing a dent with the handle before it hit with a thud and then a clink on the ground. My light hadn’t touched it, but still, it had moved as if I’d done it. Surely, he hadn’t thrown the thing. He wouldn’t have gotten that sort of force anyway, even if he had.
With his hand still on Lex’s neck, the man just stared at me as if he didn’t know what to do next. Shaking his head, he fell to his knees from his crouched position, and pressed his hands against Lex’s shoulders, his fingers digging into the wounds there, making Lex moan weakly with the pain. He seemed delirious with it, like he couldn’t see me, and didn’t know anything else but the pain.
“To save him, you still need to give yourself to me. I will not allow the chains to be taken off without you in my possession. You have no choice. Move whatever you want. Kill me even. He still dies in these chains. I can take them off with the snap of my finger. My sorcerer made me the key to unlocking them,” the man yelled at me, taunting, his own panic revealed in his voice, the itches changing like a boy going through puberty. Though, he still held onto the idea of having the upper hand.
“You believe I will not sacrifice my life to save his, that you will take me by force and let me watch him die, so why the show? If you think you can, come take me by force,” I challenged, spitting the words, really. “Look, whoever you are, my magic is taking over. I don’t understand it, and no one, especially me, has any clue what it is truly capable of.”
“Is that a threat when I hold his life in my hands?” he managed to get out, his voice loud but shaky.
“No, just an explanation. You need to set him free and leave, or I won’t be responsible for the consequences. I’ve never killed anyone. Even now, in this enraged state, I don’t want to have to. As much as the thoughts of your death have come into my head, thrilled me even, I don’t want to live with blood on my hands. Even that of a man as disgusting as you who has caused me more pain than I thought possible in the past weeks, even you; I want to, but don’t want to have to kill. Still, you don’t seem to understand the lack of control I have over this. I fear I will kill us all. Do you understand that? Without him, what else do I have to live for? So, my counter-offer is, if you don’t unchain him and let us both go, then when he dies, I will end us both, kill you and not have to live with it.”
Some sort of light show began then, like tiny lightning bolts that shot from my hands to the ground, causing small fires to start in the dust. At times, a single flame would shoot up from the ground only to snuff itself out. I forced myself to keep my palms as steady as I could. The man had the protection of Lex at the moment, as he was too close for me to shoot anything at him.
A scream of frustration laced with fear escaped me, and streams of a yellow light came from my hands, blinding even me for a moment as they seemed to follow an imaginary circle around me before disappearing. I felt the shock of it, the mild sensation of electricity rippling through me. It must have traveled along the floor as well, as Lex moved a little, but the man in the black suit stood up, his hands out to his sides as he looked at the floor as if it had just attacked him.