"But… I don’t understand? You—you said it would help!" Brynn's voice breaks. Her voice is shaking. She stands up and bangs her hands flat against the dark oak table, standing out in the white room that looks more like a mental asylum than an office. But that's all it really is—an asylum.

"YOU PROMISED! YOU PROMISED IT WOULD HELP!" she screams furiously, accusation and hurt reflecting in her dark brown, broken eyes. The man across from her looks at her, a neutral expression on his pale, sunken face. His hair is greying, matching his stormy eyes.

"Miss Haydenfields, if you would sit down again—" he starts calmly, but she interrupts him. "I WON'T! YOU LEFT THEM TO DIE! ALL OF THEM! THEY WERE MY FRIENDS!" she sobs.

"We are working on a cure, but the virus is spreading faster than we'd expected. Your magic slows it, no doubt, but in the long run…" Brynn sinks to her knees. "It speeds it up," she concludes quietly. "I'm sorry, Miss Haydenfields, but it appears to be the truth."

Realization dawns on her. "So I'm the one who killed them all?" He shakes his head. "Well, you can't say it like that. The virus got to them. They were going insane; they would have died either way. You just made it less painful."

A hot mixture of guilt and shame fills Brynn, flowing through her veins. "Hopefully, it kills the magic in me," she thinks bitterly. She thinks of Emmett, her best friend in this place. She sees him in front of her, but a twisted picture, one she wishes to forget. In his last moments, black hair matted and bloody against his head, twitching and screaming because of the unbearable pain he was in, losing himself, acting like a rabid animal.

"Run, or they'll kill us all! They'll never stop! Get out of here! Go, Brynn! Now!" His words replay in her head. She hadn't listened; she had stayed. And now? What had happened to her? What had she done? All of them, just a bunch of kids, being killed because the magic was too strong for them to handle.

She hears the man across from her saying something about blood transfusions, diluting the magic, building a new drug, a new foundation, saving humanity, but Brynn isn't listening.

"I'm done with you. All of you. I'm not killing anyone else." And with that, she gets up and leaves, slamming the heavy metal door behind her.