Darker Blood

Chapter sixty-three

                  

Inori pov~

My eyebrows scrunched together as I concentrated, the very tips of my nails blue with frost. My mind fogged over and I gritted my teeth in a curse as the cold vanished yet again. Supernatural beings can manipulate their powers to escape all kinds of situations, so why can't I?

My temples pounded in a headache and I groaned, the slimy binds around my arms holding tight enough to cut off all feeling for a moment. I straightened, preparing to think about the ice once again, determined to make it out of here before they killed me.

Before I even properly started I could feel myself slipping, simply unable to control it whatsoever. A tiny spark shot from my finger and I winced as I clenched my fist, preparing for it to somehow hurt me. Instead of feeling pain from the shard, my hand felt transparent for a moment as the cold wisped through like a ghost and then it was gone, somehow absorbed back into my skin.

That's useful.

The binds held my wrists down tighter and I grunted as I glanced around the dark space for any sign of another person, palms shaking with frost again. I was determined to get out of this shithole, and furiously bit into my bottom lip as I let the power build as my energy drained. It'll be just like how Taehyung released that explosion of fire, right?

I copied what I'd witnessed in the doorway before I'd burst through to save my sister, pressing my hands as close together as I could, only the tips of my fingers touching. I ripped away, bracing for something loud, anything. Yet when I opened my eyes, my wrists were still bound painfully, fingers fading back into their usual colour.

Oh what the fuck!?

I bit hard enough into my lip to draw blood, and I did exactly that, the metallic substance spilling into my mouth and doing very little to aid my frustration.

Fuck Taehyung for making it look so easy.

In that moment, everything became too much; my throat closed and my body froze in an overload of thoughts and emotions that I'd never properly gotten through, and the mass of them stung like hell. I heaved for air with hideous sobs, gripping hard onto the armrests as if the restricting substance wasn't twisting my bones painfully.

"I never asked for any of this!" I screamed out into the air, and the deafening emptiness was what made me sob even harder, feeling completely alone. I was beyond help, a mere soul written off to sacrifice for the better of the world. I was never meant to have a full life, and I was a fool for believing otherwise.

I closed my fists so tight I was causing myself pain, letting out one last frustrated sound before my hands went limp following a blinding burst.

The grit and the dirt rubbed against my forehead and I opened my eyes, facing dark panels that could only be flooring. I jumped onto my feet, stumbling backwards from the sudden movement, legs screaming in protest for the first time I'd been able to so much as twitch in hours. The chair they'd strapped me to sat cold and almost forgotten, the binds settling on strangling the armrests instead of my flesh. I looked around wildly, expecting soldiers and even Xierro to force me back inside of it, or kill me, something. No one barged in and a surprised smirk dressed my face at the thought that no one had even noticed their prisoner was free.

I can't stay here if I want to stay a free prisoner, though.

I struggled back properly upright, muscles already tense but fluid with adrenaline. I stepped quietly towards the small door that was always so out of reach from my little chair, careful not to make a sound as I opened it. My fingers tingled with sensitivity and I looked down, unsure what to expect to be there, wriggling them as tiny strands of frost tried to wrap up my arm. The movement made no difference, the strands still winding over each other gradually creating a solid surface of ice.