Chapter 19 - Gabriella
I went back to the healing center with Hazel and the woman. We got her into a private room, where Hazel started stitching up her leg. I sat across from her, watching. I had decided to come to give an extra hand, but I didn’t know what to do. So, I stood by and felt like I was a fly on the wall.
I watched the way Hazel stitched, her fingers working slowly and carefully, but I could see the way her fingers shook every once in a while. I tilted my head. “Do you need a hand?”
“No,” Hazel said, not breaking her gaze from her work. “I’m fine.”
I nodded, looking outside the room. Everyone was busy with work, and it was utterly quiet in there. I wondered what she did while she was there. She clearly was learning things when she came. I wondered what her days looked like.
I pulled myself up and started looking in the cabinet. I felt like I was staring at her after a while. The private rooms were set up like an operating room. There was nothing out besides a vase with daisies in it.
“What are you doing?” Hazel asked, finally looking away from the girl. She looked at me with irritation, and I paused.
“I’m just looking around,” I stated, feeling that Hazel was obviously still angry about before. “I’ve only ever been inside here a few times. It’s a nice place. The witches do a good job.”
Hazel fell quiet, and I leaned against the counter. I watched the way her hands worked, with her lips sealed. I chewed on my cheek, wishing she would say something. Anything.
“Hazel, talk to me. I can tell something is bothering you.”
“I’m trying to focus,” she snapped. She paused her hands and sighed. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be snappy. I just need to focus.”
I sat back down, and I could see the shift in Hazel’s eyes. Her mind was somewhere else, and I knew where. I could still see the way she was yelling at Brandon. “Are you thinking about how we got here?”
Her hands froze, and her eyes seemed to flicker. Her face went pale for a moment before she swallowed. “Aren’t you? Don’t you think about it?”
I had many nightmares about how we got here.
The blood that was spilled, the screams of neighbors and friends.
I woke up in panic for weeks, crying because I just didn’t understand.
It always felt so real every time I went back there.
I could still see the hybrid and feel the pure terror, thinking how we weren’t going to survive.
But we had been saved. We came here, and slowly things started to return to normal. I still had nightmares, still had moments, but I felt normal.
Maybe she didn’t. Maybe Hazel hadn’t moved past everything.
She looked away from me. “Why didn’t you tell me you thought you had magic?”
I paused my hands, wondering if she was ever going to ask me about that. I knew all this anger wasn’t just with Brandon. “I uh… was denying it for a while.”
She turned to me now, her lips pulled back tightly in a scowl. “And that being why you were asking me questions before? Why didn’t you just ask me? Or tell me?”
I placed my hands into my lap. “Because you said it wasn’t possible. I figured it was something else. A spell on the book or a feeling. I didn’t think I was able to use magic, Hazel.”
Hazel turned away, and I could tell she was unhappy, but I didn’t understand why she was so angry about it. “Why does it bother you so much? Are you pissed you weren’t the first person to know?”
Hazel got up and started cleaning everything she had been using.
I remained quiet, not expecting her to answer.
But she threw her stuff in the trash angrily and turned with her hands in tight fists.
“Did you really just ask me why it bothers me? Did you seriously have to ask me why? How is it you don’t get it? ”
I opened my mouth, but no words came out. I shouldn’t have asked that; it was a bad question. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“We are witches, Gabriella. Our mother had our powers forcibly taken away, and you’re asking me why it bothers me?”
I slowly got up. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just…”
Hazel sighed. “You got what I have been dreaming about. I have wished for another chance to use my magic.” Hazel rubbed her hands on a rag furiously.
“I mean, I started this thinking they would know a way to get me my magic back. But they said there isn’t a way.
That it was literally impossible to do! I had to stomach the fact I would never, ever feel that again. It was like losing it all over again.”
My shoulders sank. “But I got mine. That doesn’t mean you can’t get yours. It’s clearly not impossible.”
Hazel chewed on her lower lip. “Chelsey thinks you never had all of your magic stripped to begin with. You never used your magic before the stripping, so she thinks you had some that Ruth never reached.” Hazel tossed her rag aside. “I am not under that.”
I frowned. “You don’t know what, Hazel.”
“No, I did,” she said, leaning back against the counter.
“I feel nothing. I feel no tingle, no connection. I have tried everything to get connected to magic like I was before, and there is nothing.” Hazel crossed her arms. “I miss it. I miss that tingling sensation, that feeling that wraps over your body. I’ll never feel that. And I’m jealous you get too.”
My eyebrows went up at this. “You’re jealous?”
She nodded. “You got what I wanted. You got what I have been wanting back for most of my life, Gabriella.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Her eye narrowed. “This isn’t funny.”
I nodded in agreement. “No, it’s not funny, but I’m laughing because I’ve been jealous of you.”
Hazel scoffed. “I know you’re probably trying to make me feel better, but this laughing doesn’t make me feel better. It really makes me want to hit you.”
I tried to pull myself together. “I’m not lying. You’ve gotten along so well with the others here. You’ve seemed to find a place that you feel you belong. You’ve been happier. I’m clearly not basing that off of tonight.”
Hazel chuckled softly, showing a smile that I hadn’t seen all day.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But, I didn’t tell anyone.” I rubbed my hands together. “I really didn’t think it was possible. I hope you believe that.”
She slowly nodded. “I do. As angry as I am, I’m happy you got it.”
Just then, the woman stirred, her arm slowly pulled up to her face where she blinked. “Where am I?” Her voice came out broken and shallow.
“You’re in a healing center,” Hazel said as she walked closer to the woman. “Don’t move too much. You had a pretty deep gash on your leg, and your head had a huge bump on it, so I’m pretty sure you have a concussion.”
The woman looked between us, her eyes wide. I could see the fear in her eyes, and I wondered what had happened. What happened out there? What attacked her? Had she run?
“What’s your name?” Hazel asked, taking a seat next to her now. She took the woman’s hand, squeezing it.
“Lucia,” the woman whispered. She looked between us, trying to find her words. “It all happened so fast.” Tears filled her eyes, and she quickly wiped them away. “How did I get here? I don’t remember getting here. I was running.”
“We found you in the woods,” I explained. “We heard a scream and followed it. By the time we got to you, you were out of it. Do you remember what happened? Why you were screaming?”
She started to cry now, and Hazel reached for some tissues for her. She rested her hand on her shoulder, offering her a soft smile. “You’re safe here. Whatever happened isn’t going to get you here.”
My stomach dipped thinking about Brandon’s warning. If we didn’t figure out what happened, they could send her away. I couldn’t imagine this broken woman doing anything to hurt us.
“It was just another day,” she said softly, her voice cracking.
“I was going outside for a walk with my friend. We were a small traveling pack that was heading toward the mountains. We’ve been traveling together for months and have never had any problems. My friend and I were just a few trees away from the base. We were laughing.”
Her eyes were glossy. “And it all happened so fast. We were laughing when the screaming started. It was like a horror movie, one after another, they started to scream. We turned back and only went a few feet before we saw them. There were these creatures. They looked horrendous! I’d never seen them before. ”
Her eyes were wide as she spoke, and she looked at both of us. “They will come here. They will leave destruction. You have to warn everyone.”
“They are vampire shifters, or hybrids. They won’t come here. We have a secure town. Any that come are quickly hunted. We know about them.”
She slowly nodded, her gaze dropping. “We ran, or we tried to. We didn’t get far.
My friend and I got ahead. We were going to shift and keep going, but we didn’t have a second to do so.
We were running when it caught up to us.
It took her out.” She reached for a tissue that Hazel offered.
“It killed her. I listened to her scream, and there was nothing I could do. So, I ran.”
She looked at me, her hands shaking. “I can still hear them all screaming. And I left them. I left them to die alone.”
“You survived,” Hazel said, reaching for her hand. “You survived. You did what you had to do. If you had tried to help, you would have only died with them.”
I offered her a smile, feeling tears of my own. We had been in her shoes, and I remember how empty I felt when we survived. “We understand. We came here ourselves not too long ago. It’s a hard pill to swallow.”
There was a soft knock on her door, and I turned to see it was Westley. He must have finished his surveillance around the woods. He offered me a tight smile, his eyes looking over toward Lucia. He showed no emotion, so I had no idea what he was thinking.
“I’ll be back in a second.” I pulled myself up and slipped into the hallway. Westley looked at Hazel and then at Lucia for a moment before looking back at me. “I see she’s awake.”
I nodded. “She just woke up. She was telling us about what happened out there. She said that her pack was attacked and she ran for it.”
Westley frowned, giving a nod. “That tracks with what I found.”
My eyebrows went up. Had he found the base? I imagined he possibly had. “What did you find?”
“A fire and some tents. I’m guessing a base… and bodies. There was blood everywhere. It smelled off. There were tracks leading to where I found her.”
“So her story is true then.” I was practically bouncing on my heels at this news. I shouldn’t, because it was horrible, but that meant Lucia was just an innocent woman.
He nodded. “Sounds like it.”
I looked back into the room, watching as Hazel helped her sit up. Lucia winced, saying something to Hazel. My heart ached, remembering being in her steps. I felt so afraid, thinking we would never be safe. We could be caught soon, and those monsters would finish us off.
“You can’t let Brandon force her out, or lock her up.” I looked at him. “It’s cruel. She’s clearly traumatized. Locking her up isn’t going to solve anything; it’s going to make it worse for her.”
Westley frowned. “I wish I could promise that, but I can’t, Gabriella. With how tense everyone is right now, I can’t promise anything.”
I frowned, pointing at her. “Look at her! Does she look like a threat to you?”
His eyes softened. “Do you think the puppy that was a vampire hunter looked like a threat to Nora?”
I felt my body go cold. I looked away, not wanting to think about that. I wanted things to be simple and black-and-white. But it wasn’t like that. I watched as Lucia shook as Hazel spoke. She offered her a blanket, and Lucia started to cry again.
“This isn’t the same as that,” I whispered to him. “She’s innocent. She’s just like Hazel and me. She’s going to have nightmares. She’s going to feel so empty and broken. She’s going to have survivor’s guilt. You can’t have her locked up. She will never trust anyone again.”
“I’ll try. Okay? I promise I’ll try to get her protected. But they will need to question her. Brandon needs to know the details of what happened. We need to know as a pack what happened out there. If they are coming back, if they are growing in numbers.”
I nodded and sighed heavily. I knew that. Brandon was trying to keep us all protected. Westley reached up, cupping my face. “Take a deep breath. It’s going to be okay. I will protect you. All of you.”
I felt my heart flutter as he held me, finding myself wanting a kiss. When did I suddenly start leaning on him again? When did I open myself up for hurt? And when did he start becoming someone I trusted so much?