His voice was calm and confident, and I focused every ounce of my attention on his instructions, until my power was finally behind my shields where it belonged.

Clint choked once, and then went silent. I’d killed a man. It certainly wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. But when I made a decision to end a life, I used cool, calculated logic. I didn’t lose control and disembowel people with my power.

The smell of death hit me. Clint’s blood was sticky on my skin. I leaned over and heaved.

When I’d regained control, Samael wrapped his arm around me and walked me out of the cell. He turned left instead of right, and I allowed him to steer me like a puppet as he opened a door which led to a set of concrete stairs.

He gestured for me to go ahead of him, and I climbed the long staircase until we were around the back of his tower. Then he swept me into his arms and jumped into the sky, hauling me up to his penthouse. He let me go as soon as we landed on the balcony, and I stared down at the glowing lights of the city below us.

He didn’t make me talk about it, merely took my hand, and led me inside, walking me through his rooms and into his bathroom, where he turned on the shower.

“Do you need help?”

I shook my head. I needed to be alone. He read my answer on my face and merely nodded, although his jaw tightened. Then he turned and laid a fluffy white robe on the chair close to the shower.

He walked out. I stripped my shirt off, refusing to look in the mirror. I could feel blood caked in my hair, on my cheeks, along my neck and throat. I stepped out of my shoes and peeled my jeans off, leaning down as something clinked onto the floor.

I picked the bracelet up and slipped it into the robe’s pocket. Then I stepped into the shower, letting the water pour over me. I washed my hair twice, conditioned it, then washed and conditioned it again, unable to resist the urge. I took Samael’s shower gel, breathing in the scent of cedar. I rubbed it everywhere, rinsed, lathered up again, and then sat on the floor of the shower under the stream of water and cried.

It wasn’t that I’d killed that man. It was that I’d killed him so brutally and taken such pleasure in it. Sure, he was a piece of shit, but I’d been completely out of control. What happened next time someone pissed me off and my power decided they had to die, slowly and painfully?

What if it was someone I cared about?

I couldn’t even recognize who I was anymore.