a/n: last part lets go, also please answer the poll at the bottom of the chapter ty

Jade

“Please,” I raced down familiar hallways, painfully familiar. I used to walk these hallways, covered in the blood of innocent mages, pride on my face as my circle walked behind me. I turned left, remembering how they loved to use the common rooms for torture. I could feel his pain in my head, how much he was being hurt right now. The only thing that was keeping him alive was the fact that they were looking for me.

I was going to kill them. Every single one.

I shoved the door open, slipping into my supernatural form with an ease that scared me. Long thick hair tumbled down to brush my waist, my clothes vanished replaced with a long white dress cinched at my bodice and waist then exploded into fabric and trailed after me.

 Taehyung sat in the center of the room, tied to a chair, his back arched in pain and he struggled against his bounds. Moving faster than I knew was possible, I moved to stand in front of him, placing a hand on his shoulder and raising a hand to cut the exchange of power between him and the man who stood in the center of his circle.

“Rafael, stop!” I could hardly recognize my voice, but Rafael did. He took a step back, a smile curled on his lips.

I hadn’t used my supernatural form as an adult and I glanced shortly at the reflection of one of the many mirrors on the wall. My skin was translucent, too pale to look alive and seemed to almost glow white. A stark contrast to my thick dark hair that framed the perfect symmetry of my face. I had aged in my symmetrical form to correspond with my current age. I returned my gaze to Rafael, my senses sharpened, strength flowed through my limbs and power simmered just under my mage marks, begging to be put into use.

“Jade, my darling,” he purred. The white witches around him began to murmur. I didn’t recognize a single one of them, they were all new. I turned to Taehyung, pressing a hand to his neck hoping to relieve some of the pain.

“Are you okay?” I asked, my eyes flitting over his body for physical injuries. He flinches away from my touch and I pull away immediately, trying not to feel the sting from his actions. His head slowly tips back and his watery eyes focus on mine. I can see tear tracks down his cheeks and I reach for them on instinct. He jerks away. I curl my fingers into a fist, pulling away shakily.

He was scared. I could see it in his eyes.

I turned back to Rafael, who was seemed utterly interested in our exchange.

“I’m going to kill you,” I mutter.

“You love him,” he tips his head to the side, an annoying action that tugs on my memory. “My little dove, you’re in love with him. A man who hates even the sight of you.”

I clench my fists. “Who I love is none of your business,” I snarled, “you have no right to my life.”

Rafael started to laugh. “You’re in love with a man that will never love you back. Look at his eyes, he fears you. They all fear you, don’t they?” His smile drops, “I’ve been watching you for a while now, Jade. They’ve been torturing you, haven’t they?”

I raise my chin. “What the hell do you want?”

He reached his hand out, an upturned palm. “Come back, they’ll never be able to hurt you again.” Rafael smiled at me comfortingly, “I’ll protect you. I’ll love you far more than that elemental.”

Behind me, Taehyung spoke up. His voice was low, rough from screaming.

“If you join them, I will never forgive you,” he says. I turn to him, raising an eyebrow.

“You thought I’d join him?” I ask, not allowing hurt to penetrate my voice. “You think that a few words will somehow mend my broken heart and I’ll return to them with open arms? I have run from them for half of my life, Taehyung! I-” I cut myself off before I can say anything more. I had to deal with them first.

“Come back to me,” Rafael murmurs as if somehow, I’m going to be convinced.

I narrow my eyes. “Don’t make me do this, just walk away.” They were murders, but they took me in as a newborn when no one else would. They deserved my mercy.

“Not without you,” Rafael says.

They corrupted me with satanic belief, they told me that we were the gods that were purifying the world. I killed innocent men and woman for them and they let me believe that I was doing the right thing. They hunted me for eleven years, seven on the street, too afraid to make friends, meaningful connections, never in a place long enough to make either.

I let my mage marks rise. The white witches around Rafael gasp. They decorate every inch of my body, my arms, legs, torso, curling around my eyes and temples. Rafael's eyebrows shot up. I’d never displayed all of the mage marks and left people alive to remember what they looked like. He shut his eyes, grabbing his necklace and began to mutter to himself. Around him, his circle did the same, lighting up as they began enchantment. Satanic worship.

They feared me. Taehyung, my classmates, my friends, even Rafael and his gaggle of satanic worshiping freaks.

So be it.

I raised my hand and allow unbridled power to explode.

They incinerated on impact with nothing left when the white flames die. I pull myself back into my human form the moment that the power leaves my body, afraid of what else I might do. I turn to Taehyung, not meeting his eyes as I knelt and began to untie his bonds.

Something had changed, I could feel it in my bones.

My fingers were steady as I loosened the last knot.

It had been so many years since I’d used my supernatural form. The power was overwhelming, intoxicating.

“Are you okay?” I asked again, reaching up for the magic suppressor around his neck. Finding the pin on the back, I pull it off him and toss it aside.

“I’m fine,” Taehyung speaks up and I shut my eyes.

“I’m so sorry, I should have known that they were watching me, I don’t know why I was stupid,” I said turning back to where they had once stood. “I should have left before any of this, I shouldn’t have agreed to join your circle, I shouldn’t have lied to you all like that. I’m sorry, but I’m going to go talk to the headmaster about graduating earlier or maybe transferring-”

I feel palm, gentle on my cheeks as his slips his fingers comfortingly in my hair and turn me to look back up at him. This was the first time he’d touched me willingly in a month. The detached feeling that I was experiencing disappeared for a moment. I’d missed the feeling of content that his touch had given me. The feeling of mage returning to his witch.

Pulling away, I pushed myself to my feet. The disconnected feeling returned immediately. “Yoongi and Jungkook are on their way, can you stand?”

“It’s not your fault,” Taehyung says suddenly. I turn to him in surprise. He looks up at me through the ends of his damp hair, his dark eyes glinting with something that makes my knees weak. “I blamed you for everything, but none it was your fault. And I want to apologize.”

Thank you,” I nod heading towards the door. “I appreciate that. Jungkook is going to be here soon, I better go.” I forced myself to walk out the door, even as heard him call my name.

Racing through the hallways, I felt an overwhelming wave of emotions that had been suppressed. I’d saved him, but at what cost. He had been tortured, his voice had been rough from screaming in pain. He’d been forced to submit to the same people who had taken his family away from him. He’d suffered all that because they knew he was important to me. That I would come if I felt him in pain.

Revealing myself had practically placed a target on the back of Taehyung’s head. I couldn’t live with that. And if that meant that I had to be the villain. I would do it.

The next morning, I walked into my morning lecture with my head high. Something that I hadn’t done in a while. Ignoring the looks from my classmates, I walked up the stairs to where Taehyung sat. His eyes flashed up to mine in surprise. I blinked at him listlessly then moved to sit down in the seat directly behind him. He tensed, then relaxed, then tensed again.

I felt all eyes on me, whispers tha