Hu Shi lay on the hospital bed before me, his face twisted with terror.
His mouth was open, but no sound came out. He could only hold on to that horrified expression.
A delicate little hammer rested in the woman's slender hand. It looked a bit like the small mallet used to play some kind of instrument. The hammer came down on Hu Shi, striking one of his ribs.
I heard the crisp crack of breaking bone.
The sound was accompanied by the woman's equally crisp laughter.
Hu Shi couldn't scream. His features twisted, clearly contorted by immense pain, but he still couldn't cry out or even make the instinctive movements of his body.
The little hammer fell again, breaking another of Hu Shi's ribs. This time, she struck harder, driving the rib inward. It might have pierced one of Hu Shi's organs. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
But the torture didn't stop.
Neither did that feeling of exhilaration.
It wasn't the satisfaction of revenge, but pure exhilaration—the thrill of destroying something, of snuffing out a life. The violence, the rush of adrenaline, and a pleasure too strange to describe... Perhaps it could be called power: the power to kill, to toy with a life like one's own as if it were in the palm of one's hand.
The thought washed over me, and I felt lost and confused.
I had a vague sense that I shouldn't be thinking this way. If it was power I wanted, my abilities could give me far greater power. I could change the past and affect the present. I could kill anyone I wanted and make them disappear from this world entirely.
I had never thought of that as an exciting kind of power.
It was as if my mind had