NESS
I’m shaking hard in front of the mirror and I grip the sink with bloody hands.
Gray light bathes me, and I’m Peter McCall when he was thirteen. Brown eyes that feared me whenever we crossed paths, thin lips that quivered whenever I cornered him. He was so small that only half of his face reflects back at me now. He was the first celestial I bullied after my mother was killed, and he transferred schools after his parents caught him trying to take his own life. Gray light. Fourteen-year-old Harry Gardner. Black eye and missing teeth courtesy of my fists. He was the first celestial I attacked. I went home pissed because he hadn’t used his power on me, which would’ve gotten him locked up. Gray light. Fifteen-year-old Rhys Stone. Blue eyes, immaculate smile, bright future ahead of him. We never met personally, but there’s no forgetting the face of the celestial who was killed because of my convention speech, because of words the Senator wrote for me. Words I once believed.
Gray light after gray light, the many faces of people I’ve hurt go on and on. Some personally, others indirectly. Some alive, others dead. A few murdered by my own hand.
But there’s one that strikes hardest.
Gray light. Taller than me, hazel eyes, curlier hair, a face that I’ve never seen smile but hope I will. Emil Rey. Firefly. But I got him all wrong. He’s too clean, too perfect. He’s been ruined tonight—I ruined him.
I don’t want to, but I add the scars to my glamour and stare.
I will forever be haunted by the tears that filled his hazel eyes, the spit building over his lips, his cheeks flushing as he screamed for death, and his blood on my hands.
Gray light.
I’m me again. I wish I wasn’t.