Free The Centerpoint Trilogy by Kayla Bruner

hear the sound. It was loud enough to shatter glass. It shrieked.
    The woman crumpled into a heap. Her body sank in onto itself, curled up and Anna knew that she was dead. The blood on her back spread through the fabric of the plain, light blue shirt that she was wearing. It blossomed out into pieces that resembled the petals of a flower. These dark petals soon faded into a mass of red. Anna had never seen so much blood in her life. For good measure the man stabbed her again, once, twice, and three times. He stabbed her six more times in quick succession, muttering to the sky. “Gods take my sacrifice…” he muttered. “Gods grant me what I need for the pain to myself and mine that I have caused. Take her soul into your possession and wait for the great awakening.”
    The blonde woman rose to her feet, screaming. “Kahn!” she yelled, horror in her eyes. They were filling up with tears and that was when Anna finally screamed out. She barely got attention from either of them. They were both so caught up in what they were doing.
                  “Continue!” Kahn ordered her.
                  She obeyed out of pure fear. The chant from the pair of them filled up the air.
                  “We are representatives of a higher order, delivering to you what you’ve always desired. These children will bring the new world order.”
                  The man cut Anna. He used the same knife that he had used to slaughter the helpless woman to slice both of their arms in the same place that he had when they were children. Their blood hit the wooden floor beneath them, right on top of one of the symbols that had been scrawled onto the ground. Anna could feel an intense energy flow through her, similar to the feeling that she got when she was using her powers. It swarmed through her and all around her.  It was outside and inside and flowed steadily. It flowed hot. It was warm at first, like stepping into a tub of comfortable water.
    It grew hotter and hotter, boiling. It burned so badly that she had to close her eyes. Then the pain came. “No!” Ethan yelled and Anna began writhing in pain. Tears slipped down her cheeks as her body was engulfed by a fire. She opened her eyes wide to see that it was all around her, hot as ever. Her entire body was being consumed by a flame, yet she wasn’t burning on the outside - she was burning on the inside!
                  “Please stop!” Ethan screamed.
                  Then it was dark.

Chapter Ten
     
    All that Anna could feel was burning. The burning was outside of her body, but also within it. It swirled throughout her insides, eating at her lungs, her heart, every organ inside of her body. It was hot and everything it touched, it took. That was the thing about fire, she supposed. It did not leave anything free once it touched. She let out a scream, the pain more than she could bear. It burned her so deeply that it froze her senses, her ability to receive information.  She opened her eyes again and could not see. Pain was all she knew. She was pain and pain was her. She writhed and pulled at her bonds, trying to get free of the fire.
    She twisted and turned, positively begging for release. Intense chaos and panic was all she knew and she wanted to scream, scream at the top of her lungs, but found that no sound would come out. Or perhaps, sound was coming out and she was now numb to it. She screamed out as loud as she possibly could. “Please! Please!” she yelled out, now finding words in the darkness. “Please!”
    She then could hear Ethan on the outside of herself, but she could not see him. “Please let her go,” Ethan begged them, his voice getting higher and higher with each moment. Every word he spoke leapt up higher and higher.  “Please, let her go! She’s dying! Something’s happening to her, don’t you see!” His desperate begging made her mind slow down a little and think of a few questions.