Shadow Visions: Shadow Warriors, Book 2 by Gabriella Hewitt Page B

netherworld.

Chapter Five
    Ixa stared at the wall where Manuel had disappeared carrying the demon’s broken body. Her hummingbird tattoo no longer throbbed with pain, but the nausea in her stomach wouldn’t subside. She had shot Manuel. A moan sounded low in her throat. Blood, traces of green ooze, and black slime spattered the tiles and walls, testimony to the fierce fight.
    Her gun hand trembled, shock and anger mixed together in a tumult of emotions. Ixa dropped the offending weapon. Around her, the room vibrated with a wind that threatened to blow the house apart.
    She fought to keep her emotions together. “Why are you doing this?” she screamed to the empty room. “What did I ever do to you?” Power surged to her fingertips. She squeezed her hands into fists. All her life the gods had played a game with her, one with rules she didn’t understand, and deadly consequences. Visions of death plagued her—of her family, strangers—and every time she was helpless to stop them from coming true. She had hoped and prayed for guidance, but all she ever got in return was silence. So she had shut the gods out just as they had shut her out.
    She looked at the wall where Manuel had disappeared with the demon. “I’m listening now. You sent me Manuel and then you took him away, just like everything else in my life. Am I not good enough for you?”
    Despair welled up in her system. What if she wasn’t? Manuel had called her a warrior, but she was no better than the demons. All she ever did was hurt the innocent. She had hurt Manuel. Shot him. She had played it by the book because doing so was supposed to keep people safe. Only it hadn’t. Her rubber soles crunched over the broken glass and her heart twisted as she recognized the photo of herself as a very young girl standing between her parents, one of her hands in each of theirs, her sister on her mother’s hip. It was the last picture they’d taken together just before her parents and sister died in the fire. Those she loved ended up dead because of her. And now her abuelo was in danger.
    Her heart squeezed in agony. He was all the family she had left. She couldn’t afford to lose him. If only she had listened to Manuel.
    “Abuelo?” she shouted as she went from room to room. There was no sign of him and her mood darkened with each step. Her abuelo’s bedroom appeared as neat as usual, the recliner he sat in with his electric blanket empty and the walking stick he rested next to it gone. She prayed he was out for a walk and that any minute he would materialize out of thin air.
    All she could think of was the evil grin on Galante’s face.
    Papers and knickknacks funneled up in the middle of the room. A gust of wind blew out a window. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “No. No.” She hugged herself, unable to stop the storm she had manifested.
    Alone, abandoned and afraid, Ixa felt like a six-year-old girl again. Memories she had buried erupted forth, a Technicolor storm that bombarded her from all sides. She recalled sitting up in bed in her pink nightgown, her strawberry birthmark stinging her arm. She’d had the nightmare again. Only this time it was real. Hearing the glass break, she had run to the living room where she saw Galante gun down her father. She should have grabbed her little sister and mother and gotten them out—instead, it all played out like in her vision. Galante threw gasoline on them, missing her, and lit a match. His evil grin stamped across his face when flames leaped to life. The fire spread quickly. She had to put it out. Tears streamed down her face. The screams of her mother and sister ripped through her. It was then she had felt her power rise within her, billowing around her body. At six, she knew nothing of fire extinguishers or blankets—she was a child and she did as a child would do. She blew on the flames, hoping they would snuff out like birthday candles. It was then her power came with a burst of wind that fanned the blaze.