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I didn't know what was coming over me, exactly.
That was a lie.
I knew what it was. It was my magic. And I had everything that Azolata and Artie had talked about. I had intent, direction and, most importantly a target.
Target was probably the wrong word.
But what I had was an endpoint. I wanted to terrorize the man who was holding a gun to Eli's head. I wanted, more than anything, to make his worst nightmares come true and humiliate him and destroy him.
That last desire, to destroy him, stood out above the rest. Nightmares and humiliation could wait for others. But to destroy him, that seemed like the most desirable thing. I wanted it more than I wanted anything. And it didn't help that at that very moment, I remembered all of the things that the Ortegas told me about the Ascendancy and the people who ran their ground operations.
The decimation.
The sacrifice of Eli’s parents.
Their demands to hand Artie over.
Their arrogance.
Their hatred.
For a second, my attention was drawn away from Eli and the guard as the crowd pressed closer and started talking amongst themselves. I looked around at them and saw that most of them were good, kind people that I had grown up with us. I couldn't let this power get the best of me and let them end up hurt. I took a deep breath and concentrated that power, tried to make it less of a bomb and more of a bullet. An accurately aimed bullet, meant for one person.
That anger and direction built once more and just as I was about to let it all go, I saw flashing red and blue lights.
The crowd parted for Marcus and he stopped when he saw the three of us, and more importantly, the guard that had the gun pressed to Eli's forehead.
It took him all of two seconds to see what was going on and to understand that the guard wasn't the real threat here. I don't know what he saw on my face, but he pulled his gun and aimed it at the guard.
"Put your weapon down. And step away from him."
The whispering of the crowd had gone silent. From my vantage point, I could see the guard and watched as he leaned in closer, pressing the gun even harder into Eli's forehead. He smirked. "You don't have any power here, rent-a-cop. If you get in your car and just drive away, you'll have plausible deniability, if anyone even reports this dog dead."
"I would be very careful. If you know anything about Eli then you know who his family is. You don't want them coming for you," Marcus said. When he said the word family, his eyes met mine, and he flinched away.
I could see his hands were shaking and I wondered what was making him so nervous. Could he feel it? Could he feel the way that I could feel the magic rising to my fingertips? Could he see what I was seeing?
It was probably more mundane.
Eli and Marcus had gone to school together and I know that throughout the years, they had a friendship, though not as close as many people believed. Still, I couldn't discount what Marcus was feeling at that moment.
Then Marcus looked over to me and I knew, at that very moment, that he was scared. Terrified even.
But not of the Ascendancy or the fact that one held a gun to Eli's head.
No, he was scared of me.
"You need to go. You need to get out of here. You need to leave," Marcus said. The guard might have been thinking that Marcus was talking to him, but Marcus was looking directly at me.
Then I saw Artie push his way through the crowd, followed by Dante. Seconds later I heard heels on the concrete.
I looked up and saw everyone part around Celia. She took one look at what was happening, with her brother pressed against the wall, a gun to his head, and Marcus holding a gun to that man's head, and looked at me.
She jerked her head to the side, where there was a clear path to the forest.
She didn't need to say it. She wanted me to go to.
Artie stepped forward. "Let him go."
The guard laughed, short and humorless. "Don't worry kid, I have enough bullets for your entire family."
I watched as Artie’s face smoothed over and I could read no expression there. Across the street, at the very back of the parking lot, car horns started blaring. Some of the crowd turned and a few of them hurried off.
As the cars continued to honk, other cars in the parking lot started to rock back and forth. The light bulbs above the lot began bursting, one by one, starting at the far end and heading closer to us.
"Put it away kid or I'm putting this bullet in your brother's brain."
They thought the magic was Artie. It made sense. He was to lead the next generation. He was, by far, the most capable person able to wield the kind of magic that they thought they knew. Artie stepped forward a little more. A few adults gasped and whispered amongst themselves and one even reached out to touch Artie. He turned and smiled at them, but pulled away.
"You don't know what you're saying. You don't know what you're doing. You think that you know everything that there is to know about this town, about this place, about the kind of power that you think you have, but you don't. Please, let me help you," Artie said.
Once more, the guard thought they were talking to him, but the words were meant for me. Artie was not trying to get closer to his brother. He was trying to get closer to me.
Celia stepped forward and now, they were on either side of me.
But to pull me away wouldn't be enough, I knew. It would never be enough until I knew that they were done, that they would never hurt anyone else again.
"Please, don't hurt my brother. There are so many innocent people here, and you don't want to hurt them. I know what it feels like, to have power over someone else like this. But it never ends well," Artie said.
"You don't know what you're talking about," the guard said.
Artie met my eyes had on and I could see him begging. I could hear his words but it was like there was a wall between us. He talked about the balance of things, how good people should rise, while the bad ones fell. But, if the history I read today was right, the good guys had lost one too many times. Celia stepped closer to me and I felt her hand on my cheek. I looked at her.
"Please, Lou. Take a step back. You don't want this."
The guard finally realized that they weren’t talking to him.
"You don’t understand. I want this, more than anything," I whispered.
And just like when we were in the stone circle, I let it all go. But this time I wasn't drowning in the magic. This time, I knew what I wanted it to go.
And I let it go.