Broken Souls (Book of Shadows)

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Five

HER

Sitting in my room, I stare at my hands, not able to see a single mark on them. Sau even rebuilt my severed fingers using dark magic. She numbed an area of my thigh, then cut off a small chunk of extra fat – a cut she matched on the other leg. She could have used the meat in the fridge, but I didn’t like the idea of being part pig or cow or alligator. And after what Varius did to me...two more cuts were nothing.

But despite how right my hands look, despite how well she fixed them, assuring me that they are completely healed now, there is something wrong.

Because I’ve been trying for the last hour to call a flame to my fingers, but there’s no heat, no fire. No flicker of light.

I can feel the magic burning away inside of me, coiled tight in my chest, but no matter how much I demand it, how much I beg it, it will not come.

So I’m starting to hyperventilate.

Starting to panic just as badly as I was when I thought I was losing our child.

“Come on,” I mutter, willing my fingers to burn. “Come on…come on!”

But there is nothing.

Just a collapsing chest as reality starts to press in on me.

“No,” I growl, the denial ragged and raw. “No.”

Tears burn my eyes, but they’re not the same ones I cried when strapped to the fucking chair I’m sitting in again, my clothes still stained red but my hands unbound. They’re not sad tears. Not ones of panic or fear or grief for the loss of what Varius and I had.

They are tears of furious anger. Of righteous fury. Of all the fucking synonyms for fucking pissed off.

Varius didn’t just torture me in this godsdamn chair. He didn’t just ignore my cries for far too long while I told him our child was dying. To get help. To believe me.

He fucking took my magic from me.

“No! Fucking come on!” I screech as I open myself up, let the fire rip free.

And it does.

Wildly.

Out of control.

The flames shoot up to my face, hungry and greedy. I shove back in the chair, caught off guard, my heart in my throat as the chair starts to fall. But I keep my focus on my flames, on trying to control them so I don’t set this whole damn house on fire.

They grow bigger.

They get hotter.

Starting to panic, I swirl my hands around in familiar patterns, shaping the flames into what I want them to be. But they are not listening. And the ground is whooshing up behind me. And the knowledge that once I touch it, once my arms drop from their raised position and close the distance to another object, they will jump free.

Then they will rage with no one able to stop them.

So, screaming, I close my hands into fists, snuffing out the magic that should come so easily to me. That is a part of me, another fucking limb, and yet one I can no longer control.

The chair slams into the ground.

My back shudders from the impact, and the tears I was crying in anger come flooding out even faster.

“No,” I growl. “I can fucking do this.”

So I open myself up again. Not to my flames, but magic itself. To one of the first spells I learned. A simple one any witch child can do with a five-minute lesson. But instead of getting the small flickers of red energy I wanted, the magic explodes in my hands.

I scream as the heat burns my palms and fingers. I try to snuff it out, but like my flames, it doesn’t listen. Terrified, I aim my hands away from me, and the magic shoots from them and slams into the bed frame. There is a large groan right before the thing cracks in two; if that had hit me, I would not have survived. As the two halves of the bed drop to the ground with a thud, I roll out of the chair and scream.

Ignoring the pain in my hands, needing to just let my anger out, I lift the chair up and throw it across the room. The impact of it hitting matches the blows being dealt to my heart.

He fucking took my magic from me.

He made me a fucking freak.

Like him.

Tears burn my eyes, and these ones are sad as well as angry because I don’t think he is a freak. Don’t think he is lesser due to his inability to use magic. Those words came from a place of pain, from a want to hurt him like he’s hurt me.

I fucking loved him.

And he broke us.

With a roar, I lunge across the room to a picture I have of me and Dayne. It hangs on the wall, and I rip it off its hook, then launch it at the radiator, where Maddox’s two arms still lay. The sound of the shattered glass pleases a broken shard inside of me, but the high doesn’t last, and I pick up another thing to throw. To experience that release. To let at least a little bit of my rage free.

The bedside table holding the lamp and another picture goes flying.

Then I throw out every drawer in my dresser.

Tip all their contents out on the floor.

Rip my dresses off their hangers.

Tear them apart in my hands, shredding one after the other until I’m standing in a chaotic mess that mimics what I’m feeling.

“Fuck!” I roar as I continue to destroy it all. Destroy it like I’ve been destroyed by the man I love. Make it look like me.

I knock holes in my walls.

Throw things at the ceiling fan until it’s hanging limp in all its fractures.

Smash the light in the middle of it.

I even toss the covers and pillows off my bed, wanting no sign of order, no semblance of peace.

My chest heaving, my rage still unsatisfied, I use broken shards of glass to dig great, big gashes into my mattress. Then I fill those holes with splinters.

With hatred and pain.

And love.

So much fucking love, it hurts.

He did this to me.

He fucking did this to me.

And then he left without a word. No apology. No text.

He did this, and he didn’t fucking care.

And yet, I still care. I still want him to come through my door and gather me up in his arms and tell me he’s sorry, that he’ll never hurt me again, that he’ll keep me safe even from the monster inside himself.

And I hate that I want that.

That I need that in this moment.

Dropping to my knees on the carpeted floor, I scream out my fucking soul.