I was trying my best not to scream.

Its seems to me that if you cry out or whimper or yell in pain you're giving the enemy what they want and that in general, is a bad thing. However, when it's your wrist that's been reduced to a pile of marrowy mush and it's being twisted ninety degrees and you can actually see the bone moving, there's not much you can do about it. As James clapped the heavy iron cuff down onto what was essentially splinters, I howled like I'd been hit in the face with a red hot iron.

The little freak was very much enjoying himself as I screeched like a banshee. We may have been frozen in place but the ten-year-old nutter could casually stroll through as he pleased, laughing like it was the best joke he'd ever heard. His mouth was laughing at least. What his eyes were doing was anyone's guess.

With my other intact wrist secured, the wall disintegrated and I found I could move again. Well not really move but you get my meaning. We looked like we were in the stocks. Heavy iron manacles bound our wrists to an even heavier neck iron that was just tight enough to make it uncomfortable to breathe. The only thing missing was the tomatoes.

The heaviness was definitely not normal. It felt like the train carriage Scarlett had locked us in, like being trapped under a million blankets. Sure enough, when I tried to summon a spark it came up completely dry. Right, no powers at all. This could be interesting. Shadow obviously didn't see this as a hindrance as the moment James came within striking distance, he spat at him with such force the yobs at school would have been proud.

James recoiled in disgust. "There's no need for that," he snapped. When he took his glasses off to wipe them down he kept his eyes tightly shut, screwed shut even. "I thought we used to be friends."

Shadow scoffed defiantly. "You tried to kill me. You gave me an aneurysm."

As you do.

"And when the boss is done with you're little friends I'll do it again. Only much more slowly." James snapped his fingers and four soldiers, all armed with spears, jumped to his side. "You may not be able to pop your clogs my old friend but the thing is with agonising torture is you don't have to die."

"I'm going to tear you apart," Shadow growled.

James waved a hand dismissively. "I look forward to it." The soldiers positioned themselves behind us and jabbed into our backs. We're doomed. "Now chop-chop boys and girls, our lord and master awaits."

The guard behind me stuck his spear tip into my back, no doubt drawing quite a bit of blood. Sure enough, I felt something warm dribbling down my spine. I gritted my teeth, my wrist burning every time the heavy weight of the manacle pressed against the fractured bone. We were frogmarched out into the corridor which, surprise surprise, was now overflowing with people.

Insults were hurled like rocks and every taunt under the sun was lobbed at us. Others simply laughed and hollered like drunks stumbling out of a pub, getting right in our faces and aiming kicks at the back of our legs. Shadow was getting the brunt of it, no surprises there. A glass object, probably a leftover from our little experiment, was thrown at his head, shattering messily against his temple. He stumbled into Sheria who, props to her, didn't even flinch under his weight and shoved him upright before his shredded scalp knitted itself back together.

We all could have been kicking and screaming and fighting back against these bastards but we weren't. It seemed that some telepathic link had established itself. To struggle was to give these gits what they wanted and there was no way in hell we were going to stoop to that.

James led us upwards, away from the mocking crowd. We marched upwards, along a draughty corridor overlooking the mountains on a familiar path. This time the grand doors were shut tight, more than likely for dramatic purposes than security, but the enormous pipes still pumped their foul black liquid through the stone walls at breakneck speed. I hoped that the smell of copper and death in the air was just a memory on my behalf, but then again with Molly, you couldn't be sure.

James seized the two heavy handles and pushed them open. A gust of freezing air billowed out to meet us which just about drowned out mechanical whirs that thumped like a heartbeat from inside. He grabbed my manacles and tugged me into the room (the pain was almost enough to make me feel a wee bit queasy), the others following close behind.

It was exactly as I remembered. Steel pipes hanging from the ceiling like tentacles from some deep-sea beastie? Check. Vat sunken into the floor that could have held the water from every swimming pool in London? Half check, after all, it was empty when I last saw it. This time it was damn near overflowing with that vile wriggling serum. Last but certainly not least, psychopathic build-a-beast lurking in the corner? 'Fraid so.

It had been damn near two weeks since I'd last seen the waxy skinned figure before me and let's just say she wasn't any better looking the second time around. Her mattered hair congealed with fresh blood, her olds rags had been exchanged for stained and mutilated new ones and then there was that smell, the odour of rotting meat that clung to her like the reanimated corpse she was.

She didn't acknowledge us as Mum was shoved inside the room. One of the ragged stitches had come open on her arm so the blackened flesh was exposed with puss and bile leaking from the open wound. It was almost enough for my breakfast to make a reappearance. She didn't even look up as the door slammed shut behind us and the guards retreated from the room, she just kept stitching. Looping the black thread through her skin again and again and again.

I strained my eyes into the shadows. Where was that frog? I clapped him squatting on the dirty floor by Annie's black buckled shoes. The little girl couldn't quite meet our eyes, but Soot most certainly could. It was a look that said 'I hate you and everything you stand for'.

Molly pulled the final stitch through with a snap and then, like a shopfront mannequin come to life, she turned her head smoothly, without any effort, to look at us. She bared her teeth in the pretence of a grin.

"Oh how I've been dreaming of this moment," she crooned. "All my little problems in the same room, all trapped and completely bent to my will. It's almost too good to be true. Quick! Someone pinch me!" She laughed tonelessly, but her smile quickly dropped into a grimace. "Oh come on, laugh! It's a joke! Not the best joke I've heard all day. No, no. The best one is that you really thought you could walk into my building and then walk out with no consequences? And here I was thinking so highly of you when you're all dumber than I thought."

"How long did you know we were here?" Sheira asked, more boldly than I could have managed all things considered.

Molly smirked. "My machines are fine-tuned, my dear naive girl. My systems are precise, elegant in their efficiency. They may break but they certainly don't just blow up for no reason. There may be no camera's in this miserable building but that doesn't mean your little diversion wasn't obvious. After that, it was just a case of finding the hole you'd crawled out of." She shook her head. "To think I had such high hopes too. You see after Aleena here broke free the first time I had this building scanned for any potential exits, hidden or otherwise. Fool me once and all that."

"So you knew the entire time..." Mum said.

"You may have been able to break in but escape is impossible. However...unless you're hiding your children under your coats it seems you weren't entirely unsuccessful. Where are the brats?"

"Long gone by now," Mum spat, "you couldn't catch them if you tried."

"So it seems. Ah well, they never mattered in the long run anyway. It was just fun to watch you scream as I broke their bones."

I lunged at her. I didn't care that my arms were tied and I had one wrist that was essentially as useful as a bag of sand, I was going to tear her apart. James hauled me back as a fist connected with my sternum. I felt my lungs spasm as Mum screamed my name. Well, that went well.

Molly crinkled her face disdainfully at me. "You're just as stubborn as your father. Foolish too. But I can't help but admire you either. It's very irritating but it's the truth."

I was barely listening to the nutter as I gasped for a normal breathing cycle. I hate to give credit to her but something felt like it had cracked under the sheer force of the punch. What the hell was she made out of?

She strode away to a small console on the other side of the vat and started fiddling with the switches. Chains clunked and screeched heavily, straining under the weight as the vat was pulled upwards. It stopped just so Molly could peer into its contents without having to bend over. A side door swung open and, hurrying in with his pure white hair seriously dishevelled was Marx.

But he looked awful.

It had barely been two days since we'd last seen him but during that time he looked like he'd served a hundred years of hard labour. He was thin and gangly with his hair plastered to his grey face by sweat and blood. A fresh cut the size of a pencil slashed across his cheek. It was still oozing thick blood.

Judging by the burning look of pure hatred on his face, we were the cause of his recent dilemma. He handed a black case to Molly and fell into place besides James and Annie, his gaze permanently fixed loathingly one us. Poor Black Magic was nowhere to be seen.

"It pains me to admit that you three are not easy individuals to track," Molly went on without looking up from the struggling liquid. "Convincing you to start your little journey? Now that was the easy part. Three vials of blood dropped on your doorstep was one of the few decent ideas that Marx here has come up with–"

Marx averted his gaze quickly.

"It just about saved his life. After that keeping up with you was simple until, of course, it wasn't. I'm presuming that was your doing, my old friend," she snapped at Shadow.

He scoffed defiantly. "Says the woman who set fire to a forest to flush us out. Setting your goons on us was a dead giveaway. We'd be morons if we didn't hide after all that."

"You killed half of that platoon," she snapped back. "You think you've been so clever but you've done nothing but leave a trail of destruction in your wakes. I must thank you for that, its been most useful."

"What else were we supposed to do when they tried to kill us?" Sheira muttered.

Molly span round, glaring. "You had to play the heroes. Those people on the train, Truespear Hollow, you just couldn't help yourself from showing off." she but on a stupid high silly voice, "'Oh, I'm doing so much good by helping random strangers!' Pathetic. You could have just walked away and stayed invisible but no, you had to be goody-two-shoes and come charging to the rescue. We always had a rough idea of where you were, no matter how hard you tried."

"If we didn't we'd be as bad as you," I whispered.

She heard that alright. She giggled like a horror movie ghost girl. "Oh sweet little boy, you think I like all this bloodshed?"

"Yes," we responded unanimously.

"Dumb question," Shadow added.

She deflated a little. "Well, that's beside the point. Sometimes a little death has its uses, sometimes not." I swear her eyes flicked venomously to the cowering Marx. "Some of us actually prove to be useful for over six months. Like me for instance! When the boss says jump I jump to it, no questions asked and I always follow through."

"What!" We all cried out, floored at what we had just heard.

The boss? Eh? What – what – what is happening right now?

"You're...not in charge?" I could hear Sheria's brain short-circuiting.

I glance painfully at Shadow. I'd never seen him lost for words and yet here we were. Mum didn't have her jaw on the floor but whatever colour she had in her face was now non-existent and her pupils were no more than pinpricks.

"Yore not in charge?" I dared to ask even though my brain was melting.

Molly cocked her head. "You really believed I could pull all these strings? Aww...I'm flattered but no. Even the leader of an army still has a superior and at the end of the day, I am simply an agent of chaos at the whim of someone much greater. Someone who plans every little detail and we simply follow his bidding, from soldiers to scientists to spies."

Oh boy, here we go.

"Like her," Mum jerked her head towards Annie. "You start them off young, don't you?"

"Huh? Oh yes!"

Molly extended a claw-like finger and used it to beckon Annie closer. The tiny figure shuffled forwards without meeting our eyes. Molly clamped a greasy hand around her shoulders and grinned like a shark staring down its prey.

"Now this one, she has definitely proven her worth. It's not often I get a pair of eyes within your walls. She's especially valuable."

"Let me guess," said Shadow. "You took her brother and then offered his safe return in exchange for her loyal service."

She snapped her bony fingers and grinned. "Still know your stuff, my friend. Yes, at first it was just useful to have an understanding of my enemy but then..."

Bulbous eyes landed on me.

"Then a name appeared in my books. A name I thought I'd exterminated two years ago. I'll give you and your husband credit Aleena, you certainly kept your brats well hidden. I'm presuming it was a sigil of some sort, perhaps something from another segment of the world, but one way or another it worked and left me in a very peculiar predicament."

Molly abandoned Annie and crossed the room, crouching down in front of me. Up close the scent of decay was almost unbearable as it oozed from the yellowed stitches and rotten teeth that I knew once belonged to someone else. Maybe several someones.

But her eyes? Simultaneously disturbing and mesmerising. They had no whites but the pupils and iris looked like they'd exploded. Fragments of black swirled like a galaxy against a sky of green and pink and red. I'll say it again. Disturbing but mesmerising.

A finger hooked under my chin and forced me to look upon that vile face. "You look so like your father. Now he was an interesting man. One of the most powerful elementals of his day, and not just ability-wise either. At twelve years old your father saw something no one is meant to see. Can you guess what it was?"

I kept my mouth firmly shut. Partly because I didn't trust my own tongue, partly because I didn't want to breathe in.

"He learned the day he'd die. Down to the exact second. Can you picture that? Twelve years old and you discover that you're going to be dead before you hit forty. It drove him a little mad after that. Some argue that he was on a path of self-destruction. After all, why wouldn't he be? Our destinies are like clay, mouldable until they become fixed in the kiln of the universe. To learn that your future is already out of your hands is enough to drive anyone crazy."

I glanced at Mum. This was news to her too.

"But then something happened to little Jackie. Aleena, my dear? Do you remember those six months when you thought he was dead? Those six months after he rather foolishly took a bolt of raw power to the head."

"He'd been paralysed," Mum replied stiffly.

"You aren't wrong about that but while he was recovering in the mountains he met a hermit. A wise man who showed your dearly beloved something quite interesting. Six years after that fateful day in the fortune tellers tent he made another discovery. A discovery that he didn't even tell his wife or even his own children. But he told me. They were his last words after all."

My blood turned to ice as if a cold bucket of water had been dumped over my head. If I hadn't have been kneeling at the time I probably would have keeled over.

"When I was sent to kill him I was honestly surprised at how easy he made. Don't get me wrong, he fought so bravely but it was like he wasn't trying. He could have torn me apart but he didny."

She sniffed at the memory. "Should have realised something was wrong when he stepped out from his cover. My blade entered his chest but missed his heart by an inch. He lay there dying as the flames roared around us but he didn't beg or cry. He laughed. Laughed! Like I was missing some enormous joke! I told him that as well, I said 'What's the big joke?' And he looked at me. No fear in his eyes and said something to me, something I didn't understand at that moment. Something I still don't fully understand...He told me, 'I've damned the river of fire, and your empire will burn."

She stood quickly, frowning. "You can't make a dying man talk no matter how much you burn him. So your father died laughing and left me and my superior wondering for the next two years what he meant. We researched constantly, poured over every possible meaning to his words but we found nothing."

She sighed as if she hadn't just stunned me to my very core. My father had known he was going to die? How the hell did he walk out of the house on that morning and not give anything away? Nothing had been out of the ordinary to us, his wife and son, but in his head, he'd been counting down the seconds till he had an appointment with the great beyond.

"But then," Molly went on, "you came along and suddenly it made sense. The son of Jonathan Hayden, a fire elemental. At first, I thought nothing of you, a loose cannon with raw potential that simply flickers away, but then Annie whispered a secret in my ear. A fully-fledged fireball on your first day of training...now that got my attention. Then there was the unfortunate situation in the forest where you became a vortex. In Truespear Hollow you fought back with a strength that should be foreign to someone your age. The sword you wear on your back is designed for warriors of legend, not a sixteen-year-old boy. Then aboard Scarlett's train, you held onto an artefact designed for gods that should have reduced you to ashes, but look! You only a burn to show for it." Molly chuckled, "you really are something else, aren't you?"

Shadow scoffed, "he's a kid. He's no more special than any of us."

"Says the immortal," Sheria said.

Mum shook her head, "I've heard every prophecy in the books and I've never heard that one. Who's to say you're not lying through your teeth?"

Molly shrugged. "What reason do I have to lie about this? Face it, Ally, your family is tied up in all this for better and for worse. For example, it was Johnny's little 'prediction' that spurred production into action, and for that, I must thank him."

Molly spread her arms wide and clicked a remote in her hand. A massive image projected into the wall and my stomach plummeted to Australia. Hundreds of tanks, each bubbling over with serum, perfectly lined up like steel soldiers, ready for action. "All this in two short years. A perfect way to control anyone and everything. Of course, it wasn't cheap but at the end of the day no expense could be spared."

"What about the human cost?" Sheira argued. "What about them? Hundreds– thousands of people have died screaming because of you! All because of your sick, twisted experiments! You're a monster!"

Molly's expression blanked. "Every empire," she said without a hint of emotion, "is built on blood and bodies. History has proved that a few have to die for the many to proceed. And what's that expression? You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. Or in this case, heads. Who cares about a few insignificant ants under the boot of progression?"

"Their families. Their loved ones. The world at large!" Mum retorted. "That's why that little girl is standing at your side. You took her brother! You drove her to this!"

"That's not true!" Annie finally spoke up. "They did! Ms Harper. Mr Seeker. Even you Sheira. You didn't do anything to help him. You just left him all alone! You didn't leave me with a choice!"

At that moment it hit me. Annie and I were almost completely the same. A tragedy had torn our lives apart, leaving us clinging to that last broken door of hope in the wreckage of a sinking ship. She had Darryl, I had Mum, that was it. When she lost what she loved she made a deal with the devil. I'd decided to punch the devil in the face.

We'd both been desperate, but only one of our gambles had paid off. Annie had betrayed her friends and family all for a sliver of a chance. A chance that was rotting in a cell a hundred feet below us.

By what happened next, it seemed Sheira had they exact same thought as well.

She laughed bitterly, each word said probably feeling like a stab to the gut, as she spat back. "Oh really? I'm guessing that she hasn't told you that he's here!"

The silence that enveloped the room was deafening. But that might have just been my ears giving up. The room felt a few degrees colder.

"What?" Annie looked at Sheira. Poor little thing, she was so confused.

Then I looked at Molly and immediately wished I hadn't.

"Sheira–" I tried to warn her.

"Darryl," Sheira continued, completely ignoring me in a blind fury, "he's downstairs right now. He's rotting in the dungeons and do you know what she's done to him? She's pumped him full of that serum, turned his blood into acid and she's waiting to figure out how long he'll take to die! He's been down there for six months! Go on," she dared, now screaming her lungs out, "ask her how she's KILLING HIM!"

Poor little Annie. She shrank backwards, staring down at Sheira with wide wet eyes. She shook her head slightly like she wasn't quite willing to believe a word that her friend was telling her. But at the same time, I knew what she was thinking. It was the same thing I'd been nearly two years ago when I walked into my headteacher's office and saw my mum crying, sobbing the mindnumbing words through waves of tears.

Why would she lie?

Slowly but surely the horrifying realisation washed over this tiny, terrified child. Why would Sheira lie to her? The answer was simple. She wouldn't.

Annie stepped shakily away from the rotting figure beside her and searched the black expressions for some form of denial. But there wasn't any. Molly remained stone-faced.

"You told me you wouldn't hurt him," she whimpered. "I betrayed my friends for you. I lied to them. I put them in danger because you told me Darryl was safe..."

I saw Annie take a desperate look at the door and her expression faltered. Straining my neck and definitely popping something, I craned my head to look as well. I didn't have the remotest clue how, but there were now two enormous chains sealing the doors shut tight and I had a very nasty feeling that only an army could bust through those locks.

Unless we fancied our chances at jumping from a window to the valley floor a hundred feet below, we were completely trapped.

I turned back to Molly. There was something unpleasant in her expression. That's not saying she a kind-faced individual ninety percent of the time, but right now she had this look that was reminiscent of a wild tiger. She was smiling just enough for her rotten teeth to peek out from under her grey lips and her eyes were narrowed into thin predatory slits. It was enough to spark a very bad feeling.

"My dear," she sighed with no regret in sight, "I had such high hopes for you as well."

No. No, no, no, no. No! Please God no!

"Sieze her!" Molly barked.

Her two lackeys lurched from their positions, grasping hands outstretched.

"Annie run!" I yelled. "Just go! GO!"

But where could she go?

We were all trapped with the only way out being a window with a very long drop and a sudden stop on the other side. Realising the danger she was in Annie took off towards it, but she wasn't fast enough, not against that evil-eyed zebra. She made it about halfway there before it sunk its metallic teeth into her leg and yanked her backwards. Her tiny body convulsed in pain as she screamed. Soot fought back viciously, desperately tearing at any skin she could get a grip on but the zebra was just too strong.

We were all completely freaking out now. We were screaming, begging Molly not to hurt her. She's just a child! She's done nothing to you! Have mercy! Hurt us instead!

But Molly didn't have mercy. Or kindness. Or empathy. She was a monster. A monster stitched together with no heart designed to kill and hurt and destroy by someone with a twisted and evil mind.

Annie was dragged by the zebra, crying, to Molly's bare mismatched feet. Molly cocked her head at the sight of this wailing child in front of her, like a cat who had just caught a mouse and was considering whether to play with it or not. She was more like an animal than she was a human.

"Please..." Sheira begged.

But Molly either didn't hear her or simply didn't care. She turned her back on Annie and motioned for James. "Get it over with," she ordered.

With the same coldness as his boss, James approached Annie. What was he going to do to her? I wondered for the briefest moment as the four of us screamed in terror. Then, as if answering my question, he reached up, took the arm of his glasses between his thumb and forefinger and started to pull them away.

I heard Shadow gasp. "DON'T LOOK!" he yelled.

You didn't need to tell me twice. I screwed my eyes as tightly shut as I could manage to the point that my head started to pound. But no matter how hard I tried I couldn't block the sound out.

Annie didn't scream for long, just a second or two, but when she stopped I would have taken her screams over what followed any day of the week. Her high pitched desperate screams devolved into gurgling like a broken pipe. She was gasping for air, choking on what I knew was her own blood.

Snaps and pops sounded like gunfire. Tearing ripped through the air. The soft trickle of a stream of blood. Something warm washed over my knees and I fought the urge to scream. To my left, I heard Sheira sobbing quietly.

It took over two minutes for her to fall silent. Her garbled breath letting out one final death rattle and then it was quiet.

I didn't want to look, even when Shadow told us it was safe to do so. I didn't want that image burned into my mind for all eternity. Grim curiosity's a bugger. I slowly opened my eyes.

I wanted to say that if you hadn't of known any better you might have thought she was asleep. But I couldn't lie. She was dead and you could tell she'd died screaming. Her arms and legs were stuck out at odd angles, you could see where broken shards of bone were pressing against the skin, and there were deep slashes all over her body. Blood trickled from her nose, mouth, ears and eyes, which were open and glassy, and pooled at our bent knees.

A pile of ash rested just beside the broken form of Annie.

"You killed her..." Mum sounded like she was a million miles away.

A wisp of golden smoke caught my eye. It rose from the dust and drifted upwards, twisting in the false winter air. No one paid any attention to it. Maybe only I could see it. I followed its dance until the wind caught it and pulled the wisp away, the last fragment of elemental energy carried with it into the open sky.

She was just ten years old.

Sheira was silently weeping against Shadow's shoulder and for once he wasn't saying anything.

The murderer sighed and shook her head. "Now look what you made me do. I liked her. She showed so much potential. Shame."

Mum's voice suddenly became as clear as a bell. "You killed her. You did that! Not us!"

Molly whirled to face her. "I did what had to be done," she snapped. "Yes the brat was useful, but you broke the illusion. You pulled back the curtain to let her know the truth, and it destroyed her. I would have protected her from that truth and kept her sane."

"You just murdered her!" I roared. "YOU'RE NOTHING BUT A MONSTER!"

She smirked. "We're all monsters here my dear boy. Your beloved allies left your family to die. Sounds pretty monstrous to me."

I couldn't come up with a response to that. Molly knew that was her answer.

"I am willing to make sacrifices," she continued. "I am willing to pay them in blood if need be and look where it got me. In a few short hours, my soldiers will flood this pathetic country with enough serum to convert every elemental who walks these lands. Think about," she drifted off, lost in her nightmarish daydream. "An army six million strong. We would bring the world to its knees. We could do anything we wanted. We could show the world what we are capable of and we could make them fear us. My father will rise to glory once again and reclaim the title that is rightfully his."

She stepped forwards so she stood in the pool of Annie's warm blood. "But you mustn't worry. I have a place for all of you in this new world of ours. Sheira–"

I felt her flinch as Molly's long finger trailed down her cheeks to push her hair out of her face.

"Leo has staked a claim for you. It's a promise I've made him. It seems to me that he didn't take kindly to what you did to him. But you know how the old saying goes," she bared her teeth, "an eye for an eye."

Shadow stayed defiantly still as Molly moved on to him. It was odd because as she looked at him there was a mixture of fear and sadness etched so faintly on her face. "I so could have wished that you would be standing here beside me at this moment. You could have had part of my empire. You could've had anything you wanted. You could have been a god."

"Never," he spat. "I will never stand beside you again."

"I see that now. You will never join me but I can convince him to do so."

"You'd have to kill me first."

"Oh believe me," the coldness returning, "I'll try."

She left him and strolled over to my mother. "Dearest Aleena. Believe it or not, I'm not going to kill you. I can promise you you'll survive this. You see, I've waited far too long for this moment, so I'm not about to squander it. I'll keep you close, call it whatever you will. Pet. Slave. Personal court jester. But you'll live. I want you to see the thing you love most slip from your grasp. You've tried so hard...sixteen years of diligent protection all to see him die."

"What are you saying?"

I barely had time to react as Moly seized a fistful of my hair and hauled me forwards. I yelled out in pain and Mum started screaming.

"NO! Please NO! Don't do this, don't hurt him! Take me instead! PLEASE!"

But Molly wasn't listening. She threw me heavily to the ground. My broken wrist jolted painfully, a tiny piece of vomit rising in my throat as I saw the bone slide under my skin. With a click, my manacles detached and dropped from my neck and arms.

I twisted as fast as I could but I was too slow for the knee that caught me in the ribs. I cried out in pain as a fist connected with my jaw, a punch that sent me sprawling to my knees. My jaw and cheek felt like they had a thousand needles stabbing into them at once.

I tried to raise my head but another strike hit me square between the shoulder blades. The cold stone floor raced to catch me as I fell. I felt like I'd done twelve rounds with Anthony Joshua. Somewhere off in the distance, I was sure I could hear screaming over the constant ringing in my ears.

Moly started speaking but it was like she was underwater. "When I first saw your little outburst I thought you were...intriguing. A little unusual for your age but that can just be attributed to your parentage. But when Annie told me how quickly you produced a controlled flame, how easily you took to your powers, I started playing a little more attention to you. Such natural abilities, such resilience, such control, it's simply too good to waste." She chuckled evilly, "Marx! The case if you would be so kind."

I weakly raised my head to see the robed figure walking quickly with the black box he'd been carrying. I tried to focus my vision without everything going yellow. It was leather, no bigger than a lunch box with a wooden handle in the style of a briefcase. He presented it, flinching when Molly moved to open the two catches. Clouds of cold air cascaded from the open box as she pulled out the contents.

At first, I thought it was a pencil but as it caught the light I felt my heart miss a beat. It was a syringe. The metal needle glinted like a knife tip. The glass sides gave me a perfect view of what was held inside it. The liquid was as black as tar and fighting to get out

Okay. Time to start panicking.

With whatever strength I had left I tried to stand, reach for my amulet, draw my sword, anything! But I couldn't.

"Seize him!" Molly barked.

Two pairs of hands grabbed my shoulders and pushed me down to my knees. I tried to drive my foot into James's knee but the angle was awkward and my effort was rewarded with a punch to the ear that sent me blind. Something warm trickled down the side of my face.

Molly stalked forwards like she was savouring every step, and let's be honest she probably was. The three screaming voices were now just sirens, background noise mixed in with murderous joyful laughter.

"How I've longed for this day," the monster cackled. "To have you on your knees before me, even after all your beloved have tried to protect you. How does it feel Aleena?"

She was just screaming. I couldn't even focus on her face anymore.

"Why do you think I'm not killing your mother? I want her to watch as you lose your mind. She, and your little friends, will watch as your soul withers and dies before them. After that Nicholas Jonathan Hayden will cease to exist, and in his place will be a soldier, my soldier, a perfect, obedient warrior. Your mother will watch as the son she loves so much disappears before her. Your little friends will recognize you on the battlefield before you burn them to ash. You will be lost, and that power you hold will be all mine."

She cackled maniacally, the screaming still ringing in my ears, and then she fell silent. "Well? Aren't you going to do something? Most of my victims have quite a few words to spare."

What that was she expecting from me? For me to scream? To cry? To beg for my life? No. That's not what I do.

Dad had faced the unimaginable head-on and he knew what was coming. I didn't and in a weird, weird way it kinda helped. Facing down the barrel of a gun is much more terrifying than being shot in the back. Maybe that's the head trauma talking but it sorta makes sense. At least to me it does.

Instead what hurt more was that I'd be wandering around like a zombie even after the last shred of my mind was stripped away. That was terrifying. Truly nightmare fuel. I can only hope that one of my friends will have the courage to put a bullet through my skull. Shadow might be up for it. Then again, maybe not.

She'd broken just about every bone in my body. She'd taken my strength so I couldn't even fight back. But you can bet your ass I'm not about to give her the satisfaction of taking my pride with it.

I'm stubborn as hell like that. I'm determined. I try to be selfless, although some may call it stupid for it. I can always make you laugh when you're having a bad day. I may not the brightest bulb in the box but I'll always be there for you. I keep my promises. I try to make the people I love proud. I try to be kind. I try to be brave. I try to be strong. Maybe I'm a little messed up, but that's alright.

I am Nick Hayden and nobody can take that away from me.

I looked up into the eyes of my executioner, looked her dead eye, and summoned what little strength I had left to spit back one final message. "I have...nothing...to say to you," I whispered. "Nothing at all."

Molly's blank face twisted into an enraged snarl. I couldn't help but smile. I'd pissed her off. In my last moments of sanity, I'd taken her smug victory away.

Excellent.

Now I can die happy.

"If you insist," She snarled. "Marx! James! Pull his head back."

Two hands dug into my scalp, seized handfuls of my hair and yanked my head back. I gritted my teeth but a cry of pain was ripped from my throat anyways. Everyone else was doing a fair bit of yelling for me though. I was drowning in their screams.

Molly lurched forwards, syringe clutched in her grip, her thumb primed on the plunger. I shot a glance at the struggling, writhing mass within it. As she loomed over me, cold and blank in her expression, I shut my eyes and thought of something else.

A warm fireplace. A busy city. A bright red car. Maxie and Lilah at the playground. Sheria laughing. Shadow's wicked half-smile. Mum teasing me and my bedhead. Dad wrapping me up in a tight hug and telling me how much he loved me.

Home.

"I'm sorry," I whispered as Molly shoved the needle into my neck and forced the plunger down.