Caged by Damnation by J. D. Stroube Read Free Book Online

what's real anymore. What you said before about me hurting you, I don't want that, but being around you hurts me ." He looked away. The darkness accentuated the fire in his eyes, announcing his lack of control.
    "Why?"
    "What?" Ash's eyes narrowed in confusion.
    "Why does it hurt you? We're family, and no matter what has or hasn't happened in the past, this is real ." I moved closer, lifted his hand, and placed it against my open palm. "I'm real. My entire life has been one big lie. Everything I thought I knew has been turned upside down and you...." My voice broke. "You are the only person who has ever managed to make me happy. Even in my darkest hour, you were there for me. I can't believe that you would just throw it all away because of what he did to us!"
    I shed the deceitful cloak I had worn all summer, my defense against the chaos of my life. So long as I wore that cloak, I could hide how I truly felt. I could be brave in the face of my loss, smile through the last days before my best friend left, hug the ghostly apparition of my only human friend, and face the family I’d lost. That cloak had taken the place of my box. I no longer closeted myself in a dark abyss of numbness, but wore a mask against the truth. I couldn't do it any longer.
    "How could you choose a life without me?" I sounded far away, lost, and a bit like the little girl who had shown up on Maye's lawn so long ago. I hadn't thought I could hurt more than I had then, but life had taught me that there were many types of pain. One kind of pain would be haunting, another like the cold sting of glass slicing through skin, peeling apart my only protection against the frigid winter.
    Ash said nothing, he simply stared. In the face of my raw pain, he did nothing, which was almost worse than if he had done something cruel or walked away. His eyes never left my face. He chose to bear witness to my agony, as if he were watching a movie with fictional characters and false emotions. He showed no sign that he recognized the truth of my emotions behind my silver eyes.
    "I...."
    A single syllable was all he gave me. I couldn't take the betrayal. My pain multiplied, transforming into anger. I was possessed by a need for release that continued to build. Ash pushed backwards with a shocked expression that I barely took note of, gasping for breath. The anger was a fire pushing against every part that was me. Everything I had been through – what I was losing – those that I knew I would soon say goodbye to ... I screamed, gasped, and bore the pain in a single tide.
    Ash moved into the corner near the door. Footsteps moved behind me on the staircase and I turned to see both Izzy and Willow hurrying down. When they saw my face, they moved away from me in horror.
    The emotional tide came back in a single rush, bathing over me in a horrifying display of emotion that I didn't know I possessed. My attempts to quench what I was feeling were futile, until I looked across the hall at the mirror. It covered the burn damage from Ash's loss of control. My eyes had gone black, matching the ebony veins branching out from them to cover the entirety of my face. My skin looked the way Asmodeus's had when he had been enraged. I recognized it for what it was – a genetic trait passed down from the blood of demons and angels – the eternal proof that evil lurked beneath the surface, bathing in my veins, biding its time until it could consume me.
    At once, the charred veins swept back towards my eyes and my face was once again ordinary. My screams turned to ones of fear and I crumpled on the stairs. What was I? A monster? Could a monster fight its nature or would it forever sacrifice its loved ones until death could claim it?
    Typically, a witch came into their full power on their sixteenth birthday, and though it seemed I had, over the summer my power had altered, growing and transforming my body chemistry. Maye called it an additional transformation because of my unique conception, but I