3. Lisette
Chapter 3
Lisette
M agic crawled up my spine.
Someone broke my words. Someone was trespassing. I jumped out of bed and ran outside. Should I have been armed? Probably. But in most situations, I would only need a bit of magic, and I wasn’t worried about it. As I ran off my porch, I saw Julian in the pumpkin patch, smashing parts of the wooden fence on the far side of the pumpkin patch. I ran to him. Maybe that was foolish.
“Stop! Stop it! What are you doing?” I screamed.
He turned to me. Anger in his eyes as he twirled the bat in his hand. “Told you not to leave me. Told you there would be consequences. I’m not going to leave you this easily.”
“We’re divorced. You need to leave me alone.“
“I’ll just make your life hell. I’ll punish you for leaving me because you’re my wife.”
He twisted away from me and smashed another pumpkin. I lunged for him and tugged at his shirt. He twisted around. This time, the bat aimed towards me and, in the flick of a second, I pushed a magical shield between us. It would be invisible to most people, but a small sheen of glitter in the air made it obvious to the most observant of people. The bat bounced on my shield and he stared at the bat as it recoiled back. This wasn’t what he wanted. His anger seemed to increase as if he calculated something was wrong. As if he realized something strange has happened.
“What was that?” he hissed.
Julian tried to hit me again, but I stood firm. He stepped closer to me and I sucked in a deep breath. My heart pounded in my chest. The shield shimmered down. He wasn’t violent. I mean, he punched a hole in the wall once, but he wasn’t violent. No, I shouldn't have to worry about him. He was just trying to damage the property.
Maybe that was my mistake.
Julian reached out to me, and I flinched. He grinned wickedly before he grabbed my hair and slammed me down to the ground. “What are you? Some fucking witch?”
“Calm, calm down. That must be your imagination.” The venom in his voice proved to me completely why I never told him my secret. Tonya was lucky. Her human husband loved her witchy powers. I never expected to be in an abusive relationship. I thought I was too good and too stubborn to find myself in a situation like that. No one asked me if things were okay other than the neighbors. Most of my family didn’t take me to the side and mention how he treated me like garbage. It was only with the help of Tonya, as things got worse and worse, that I saw the light. Afterward, everyone said how they knew he was no good. They said nothing when I was with him. Julian didn’t hit me then. It’s why I didn’t really fully expect it now. He just purposely said horrible things to me sometimes. He tried to get me away from my friends and family on my own. That’s what you say. Even being a witch, his words scarred me and I wasn’t sure I would ever be right again. I looked up, tears spilling in my eyes. I was wrong about him.
I was so fucking wrong.
He squatted down on his haunches. Pure hatred on his face. “Told you if you couldn’t be my wife, you would live to regret that. I’m not going to let you live idly pissing your days away at this fucking farm while I’m alone. I’ll fucking destroy you.”
“I won’t call the cops if you leave, please,” I pleaded.
In our scuffle, we had shifted closer to the rock wall by the road and away from the wooden fence. His smile broadened as he slammed my head into the rock wall. Pain spiked through me, stars welled behind my eyes. I stumbled up and fell. I crawled into the pumpkin patch, trying to crawl away from him before he’d hurt me anymore. With every step towards the middle of the pumpkin patch, the vines parted away from me. The ground soaked up the red liquid dripping from my head. I hear him coming up behind me, murdering profanities at me, but everything becomes blurry at the edges of my vision. He kicked me once, and I fell to the ground.
“Rot in hell, bitch,” he hissed. He stomped on the back of my rib cage, a sickening crack filled the air. Magic could only heal so much because I wasn’t a healer. And there were many rules on magic on self healing. His footsteps slowly vanished, and I rolled over. My breath came in short gasps. Every inhalation was a struggle as pain rippled through my chest. I couldn’t even tell what was hurting at this point more, my head or my chest cavity. As I laid watching the stars twinkle above me, a pumpkin vine crawled up the scarecrow. I tried to breathe in. With every suck, a pulse of magic burst from me.
That wasn’t good.
It didn’t happen often. There were tales that witches in their last breath of life, magic tries to go back to the ground for magic comes from nature. We take wild magic and utilize it within ourselves to change everything around us. Every pulse told me what I knew was coming.
I was dying.
There was no more hope for me. Another pulse of magic knocked over the leather clad scarecrow. Even if I hadn’t left my cell phone inside the house like a fool. Even if my mind connected with someone else, the damage was done too much. I lived in the country. I was dead. Pumpkin vines slid underneath my shirt and wrapped around my torso. The subtle shift of wild magic was a comfort. Hopefully, my bones and flesh could fertilize supply land, because I wasn’t sure how long it would take anyone to find me.
In my last gulp of air, everything turned black.