Chapter 3 Awakening

Cressida's POV

I wake up screaming.

My body convulses on the floor, every muscle locked tight. The pain is everywhere and nowhere, like being torn apart and put back together at the same time. I taste copper—blood from where I bit my tongue.

Then, as suddenly as it started, the pain stops.

I lie gasping on the cold floor of my apartment. Moonlight streams through the window. How long was I out? Minutes? Hours?

Slowly, carefully, I push myself up to sitting. My hands look the same. My arms, my legs—everything looks normal. Was it a nightmare? Some kind of breakdown?

But then I see him.

Sable stands by my window, no longer wearing my father's face. He's himself now—tall and elegant, with silver-white hair and eyes that shift colors like oil on water. He's beautiful in a way that makes my skin crawl.

"Congratulations," he says. "You survived the binding. Most people pass out for at least six hours. You were only unconscious for forty-three minutes. Impressive."

"What did you do to me?" My voice sounds different. Stronger.

"I gave you exactly what I promised. Power." He gestures toward my bathroom. "Go look."

I don't want to obey him, but curiosity drags me to my feet. The moment I stand, I notice it—my body feels different. Lighter. Balanced. Like I've been carrying weights my whole life and someone just cut them off.

I walk to the bathroom and flip on the light.

The girl in the mirror isn't me.

I mean, it IS me. Same dishwater blonde hair, same plain face, same small frame. But everything else is different. I stand straight instead of hunched. My eyes are brighter, more alert. There's something in my expression that was never there before.

Confidence.

"What did you do?" I whisper to my reflection.

"I unlocked what was already inside you," Sable says from the doorway. "The potential you've always had but could never access. Now you can learn anything instantly. Your body will perform at peak human capacity. Your mind will process information at incredible speeds. And best of all..." He smiles. "You'll be able to sense guilt in others. The worse their sins, the brighter they'll shine to your new senses."

I turn to face him. "This is real. This is actually real."

"Very real. And you have approximately twenty-five years to use it before our contract claims your life." He checks an expensive watch that definitely wasn't there before. "I suggest you don't waste time."

Twenty-five years. The words hit me like a punch. I just traded half my life for power I don't even understand yet.

"Why?" I ask. "Why would you give me this?"

"Because I find humans fascinating." He walks closer. "Especially the ones who think they're doing good while slowly becoming monsters. You're going to be magnificent to watch, Cressida."

Before I can ask what that means, he vanishes. Not walks away—vanishes, like smoke.

I'm alone in my tiny apartment, staring at my changed reflection, trying to understand what just happened.

Then my phone rings.

I stumble to the couch where I dropped it. The caller ID shows Memorial Hospital. My heart stops. They only call in the middle of the night if something's wrong with Landry.

"Hello?" My hand shakes so hard I almost drop the phone.

"Miss Halloway?" It's Maria, the night nurse. "I'm calling because there's been... something unusual happened with your brother."

Ice floods my veins. "Is he okay? Is he—"

"He's alive," she says quickly. "But about an hour ago, his monitors went crazy. His brain activity spiked higher than we've ever seen. The doctors ran emergency scans thinking he was having a seizure, but..." She pauses. "Miss Halloway, his brain is active. Really active. More active than some fully conscious patients."

I can't breathe. "What does that mean?"

"We don't know yet. It only lasted about ten minutes, then went back to baseline. But the doctors want you to come in tomorrow so we can discuss it. This could be... well, we're trying not to get your hopes up, but this could be significant."

After she hangs up, I sit frozen on my couch.

Forty-three minutes. That's how long I was unconscious after making the deal with Sable.

Landry's brain activity spiked an hour ago.

The timing can't be a coincidence.

I look down at my hands—these new, powerful hands—and I finally understand what Sable meant when he said his power could "reshape my entire world."

Something I did, some connection formed when I made that deal, affected Landry. The devil's power touched him somehow.

Hope explodes in my chest like fireworks. Maybe I can save him. Maybe the power really can fix everything. Maybe—

My phone buzzes with a text from an unknown number.

"Enjoying your new gifts? Here's a test: Think about Marcus Felding. Really think about him. What do you see?"

It's not signed, but I know it's from Sable.

I shouldn't do what he says. I should delete the text and pretend none of this happened.

Instead, I close my eyes and think about Marcus. About his smug face, his cruel voice, the way he threw that coffee mug at my head today.

And suddenly, I see him.

Not with my eyes—with something else. Like a vision overlaying reality. I see Marcus in his expensive house, sitting at his home computer. And around him, glowing like neon signs, I see his sins.

Embezzlement. Fraud. Theft. Blackmail. Sexual harassment of three different women at work.

The images flood my mind with perfect clarity. Account numbers. Email passwords. Evidence of every crime he's ever committed, laid out like a map.

"Oh my god," I breathe.

Another text: "Now imagine what you could do with that information. Imagine the justice you could deliver. Imagine how good it would feel to make him pay for everything he's done to you."

My hands curl into fists.

I could ruin him. Completely destroy him. With this power, I could expose every corrupt person in this city. I could protect people like that girl in the alley. I could make the bad people afraid.

I could matter.

"There's more," the text reads. "Go to your kitchen. Open the drawer next to the sink."

I walk to the kitchen in a daze. The drawer next to the sink holds dish towels and rubber bands. I've opened it a thousand times.

But when I open it now, there's something new on top.

A knife.

Not one of my kitchen knives. This is different—black blade, black handle, balanced perfectly. I pick it up and it feels like an extension of my arm.

Another text: "Your first lesson: Watch a single video on knife fighting. Any video. See what happens."

My hands shake as I pull up YouTube on my phone. I search "knife fighting tutorial" and click the first result—a ten-minute instructional video.

As I watch, something incredible happens.

My body knows. Without practice, without training, I understand every move. How to grip the knife. How to strike. How to defend. It's like the information downloads directly into my muscles.

By the time the video ends, I could fight like I've trained for years.

"This is impossible," I whisper.

Final text: "Nothing is impossible anymore. You're not powerless Cressida Halloway. Not anymore. Now go out there and show the world what happens when the weak become strong. Starting tomorrow, you hunt."

I stare at the knife in my hand, then at my reflection in the window.

The girl looking back at me doesn't look scared anymore.

She looks dangerous.

And somewhere in the darkness outside, five gang members who hurt a teenage girl are sleeping peacefully, thinking they'll never face consequences for what they did.

They're wrong.

I set the knife on the counter and smile.

Tomorrow, everything changes.