Page 88 of Dark Night of the Soul

I’d spent days learning not to be a weapon. Now I needed to learn how to be one. On purpose.

He wasn’t going to like it. But I was going to propose it, anyway.

So, I waited until mid-morning, when the sun was breaking through the trees. When he was outside doing his perimeter check, which he did every day.

I was going stir-crazy, which was funny considering where I’d been.

I dressed for combat right down to the boots.

When I knew he was making his last pass around the cabin, I stepped onto the porch. A faint breeze shifted the trees, making the late summer leaves swish. It was peaceful. And if this had been any other place, and I had been any other girl, this might have been something special.

But it wasn’t. I wasn’t. I was dangerous.

He paused at the foot of the porch looking up at me like he was surprised to see me there.

I doubted that. But it was fun to think about.

“I have an idea,” I said.

His mouth flatlined. “Another one?”

I ignored him. “Instead of controlling it… what if I use it?”

His face went utterly blank as he stared at me. “You want to let it take over?”

“No. I want to access it without letting it control me.”

His brows drew together. His gaze shifted over me, as if cataloging that I was dressed for battle.

“I’m tired of it controlling me,” I added. “They gave me the skills. Reflexes I shouldn’t have. I want to use it.”

“To make you lethal to me,” he said.

“But what if it could make me lethal to them?”

He glanced away for a brief moment. But I could see his mind working. “So, what are you proposing?” Wary. Uncertain.

“You train me. Teach me to access it without losing myself to it.”

He was already shaking his head. “If you lose control—”

“Then you stop me. Like you always do.”

“I don’t think so.”

He started up the steps, but when he was even with me, I caught his arm. His head snapped toward me, surprise in his gaze that I’d initiated that small contact. His arm muscles went rigid against my hand. A reflex. One that was so honed, he didn’t even realize he did it.

“You’re the only one who can,” I said. “And I want to start now.”

“Now?” He looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

Perhaps I had.

“No time like the present.” I grinned, then stepped down off the porch. “We can do it out here. Fewer things to break.”

I thought of the lamp we’d knocked over that first time I tried to stop myself.

“Just you,” he said.