It’s a bit like when you sing into your hairbrush. You’re pouting in front of the mirror or into your phone’s camera, pretending to be the latest singer, rocking out. The crowds adore you. And you are *owning it*.

But put yourself into that *actual* situation and ... would you? Own it, I mean? Would you step out into the spotlight, loud and proud, and strutting your stuff? Or would you freeze, like a deer in headlights?

I ask because that was what happened when I arrived at the gathering of The Lost Rebellion. For, unwittingly, I had been thrown into that spotlight. And I was doing anything *but* ‘owning’ it.

‘One last party before it all goes, *bang*!’

‘Come along! It will be fun!’ they said.

But fun for whom?

The music had stopped. And there I was, standing alone as the crowd had parted around me like the Red Sea, everyone watching me as though they were waiting for me to do... something.

Do what?

I remember my heart racing so hard that it felt as though it might climb up my throat and escape my body entirely. In a panic, I scanned the crowd to find someone I knew. Someone. *Anyone*.

My eyes fell on the right honorable Ms Senka Bloodworth - she who was otherwise known as, ‘Red Riding Hood’.

Yes. *Her.*

Her lip curled as she beckoned me over, snapping her fingers towards the DJ with her other hand, and shouting, “Did I tell you to stop? Music! Now!”

I was actually relieved to see her, strange as that may seem. At least I knew who she was - where I stood with her. That was not saying much, but hey, slim pickings and all that…

The whole room started bouncing again as the bass started pumping. And as the music reverberated off the walls, people returned to their dancing and revelling, their sweat-stained clubbing clothes clinging to their bodies, their pupils huge, and dilated, and as black as night.

It was almost as though that pregnant pause - that parting of the crowd - had never happened.

But it *did* happen.

And I had no idea *why*.

Senka lightly took my elbow with her ice-cold, elegant hand, and led me through the writhing crowd to the dim, blue-lit bar that lined the length of the room.

“Urrr...” I began, looking around me, as the reveling crowd resumed their intoxicated partying. “What just happened?”

“Drink?” she asked. “Let me get you a drink. What do you want? An Elemental Earthquake? You look like an Elemental Earthquake kind of girl. Or a Savage Amigo, maybe? They’re absolutely *dangerous*!”

I felt a pang of rage rush through me and within a millisecond it was *me* who was holding *her* forearm, a deep flash of blood red lighting up my irises and a snarl on my lips. “I said - what - just - happened? Why did everyone stop and look at me like that?”

Senka gave me a wry smile and nodded at my eyes, “Because of precisely that, precious girl. Because *you* are the Dem...ic...er.”

I winced and looked back towards the stage where the DJ pumped his music through the huge wall of speakers that lined the front wall. “What?”

She leaned closer, a smile dancing on her blood-red painted lips. “I said, because *you* are the Demonic Temper, my dear child.”

I gave her a blank stare. I was the *what*?

She simply grinned back. “Enjoy it. This is your night.”

I would soon come to learn what she meant by those few words. About my identity. About it being ‘my’ night.

But even at that moment, I don’t think I would have ever have imagined what was to follow. Because while I would rise to the greatest heights in the coming years, and almost eclipse the moon itself, oh how swiftly I would fall.

And let me tell you, the plummeting journey back down is a very painful one indeed.