17. Lea
17
LEA
I snuggled deeper into my mattress, pulling my potions book closer to my face.
My eyes glanced over the new potion recipes I had written.
This really is like second nature to me, after all, I smiled.
I’d thought I would have trouble picking up potion writing again, but it somehow felt as if I had never even stopped for a day, much less years.
“Now, if I'm right, I think this potion would… Yes, that would be very interesting to try out!” Happiness glowed out from the deepest part of my very being.
This was the modicum of peace I found in my new life. This was the only place where I didn't have to pretend I was someone else. Here I just had to be Lea. The girl who wanted to create potions more than anything else in the world.
My mind wandered back to the festival where I’d bumped into Emory Blake.
A mixture of confusing emotions poured into my chest.
I found myself both elated and terrified. I wanted to run down to the Sulking Selkie and demand more information from him, but it was too risky. I still had no idea who he was.
I don't even know if he plans to sell me out later…
Anxiety reared its ugly head, and suddenly I couldn't sit still anymore.
Maybe I'll just go for a walk.
I jumped out of bed and stretched my hands up to the ceiling.
Everything else in my mind fell away as soon as I thought I might have heard a knock on the front door.
I looked over my shoulder, standing quietly waiting to hear another knock.
Maybe I misheard it? It’s the middle of the night, after all ? —
Sure enough, there was another knock at the door. It didn't sound panicked or worrisome in any way. In fact, it sounded rather weak.
Either way, I grabbed my exploding potions and tucked them into my sleeve before going down to the front door. I stood before it, staring at the thick yellow wood, as if I could see who was on the other side.
“Who’s there?”
I waited for only a moment, but it felt like so much longer. Finally, I got my response.
“It’s Jax…” he whispered through the door, almost as if he expected the neighbors to hear him.
“What in Lunaira’s good graces is he doing here?” I muttered to myself as I rushed to unlock the door, only to find him leaning against the frame…in tatters.
His clothes were torn to shreds and he was bathed in crimson.
My eyes widened the moment I realized what was going on. “Hell, Jax! What happened to you?”
He tried to stand up straight but ended up stumbling forward.
By instinct, I reached out and caught. “Come inside before somebody sees you!”
I managed to get him inside and slammed the door shut behind us. I tried to get him over to the couch, but he collapsed to the floor against it instead. “Who did this to you?”
“I can't say. I just need help.” He seemed to be struggling to breathe, pressing his hand into his chest to stop the bleeding.
I could see that the wound there was too deep. It would take a miracle potion to heal this kind of injury.
“Why would someone try to kill you? And why didn't you go home? Surely you’d have a better stock of potions than me?” The questions tumbled from me as I pulled my robes off to wrap them into a bundle and press to his chest.
“This happened at my home.” He panted and hissed as I pressed the material harder against his deep wound. “I came here because you’re the only person I can trust to heal me.”
Trust… He trusts me?
A wave of guilt washed over me, but I halted it in its tracks immediately. How can I be so foolish? He has no remorse for what he did to me?
This had been the plan all along. To ruin his life. I knew that.
“I'm going to go into the kitchen to get my pouch. I need you to keep pressure on this for me,” I ordered and waited until he nodded weakly, but he placed his hand over mine, keeping me in place.
I looked down, watching how his shaking fingers desperately clung to mine. He held me so fiercely that my heart fluttered for a moment.
“Thank you, Emma…”
Hearing him say my alias jolted me back into reality.
I jumped to my feet, and ran to the kitchen, slipping on the blood that had already pooled in my entryway. I grabbed my potion pouch sitting on my kitchen counter and rushed back.
Then a thought crossed my mind, and I stopped by the kitchen threshold.
My eyes followed the crimson footprint over to Jax, whose life was slipping away from him.
His breathing was slowing down.
The color was fading from his face.
He was dying.
This is it. I can end his miserable life right now by doing nothing. All I have to do is wait a little while longer, and I’ll have my revenge…
This is what I’ve wanted for so long.
Why was I hesitating then?
My throat felt tight, and my palms clammy.
My heart raced in my chest, urging me to save him.
Why? I want him dead! Dead! All I need to do is nothing!
The oceans of rage I had drowned in for almost two decades suddenly seemed like a drop in a vast ocean. Other feelings still lingered…ones I hadn’t thought I was still capable of having.
That aside, was that the kind of person I wanted to be?
Could I just stand by and watch him die?
Would I feel like I’ve gotten justice knowing I could have done something to save him but didn’t?
My feet began to move before my mind made the decision.
The next thing I knew, I knelt beside him and started going through my potion pouch for something that would help.
You deserve to suffer, Jax Ransom. For what you’ve done, absolute agony and despair should follow you for a thousand lifetimes!
Even as thoughts of revenge fluttered through my mind, I was getting to work on the illusory miracle potion that was supposed to practically bring someone back from the brink of death—which I had to mix on intuition alone.
After taking a few ingredients from the pouch and quickly blending them, I let my essence flow into the mixture to activate it. With my other hand, I popped the cork off the vial of the already finished healing potion I had on hand, and threw the new ingredients into it.
I lifted it to see how the color of the liquid changed from blue to deep magenta. This was what I had to come up with on the fly. I hoped it worked.
I’ll prove it to you—you didn't break me, Jax.
“Open your mouth.”
He was already too weak to respond, so I pinched his chin and forced him to drink every last drop.
“ I can't believe word traveled so fast! I thought surely it would take a few months, at the very least, to get noticed—but whatever you created was so diabolical it’s featuring nonstop on every freaking news channel as if nothing else is going on in the world right now!” Rowan cackled with excitement as she held out her drink. “I'm going to be honest, with how rocky our start was, I wasn't sure this was going to work. Boy, did you prove me wrong!”
I forced a smile and clutched the drink she’d poured me in both hands.
My eyes fell to the bottom of the glass, watching how the bubbles rose slowly and died out when they reached the surface.
“Hey, what's wrong with you? This is exactly what you wanted. We're taking down the bad guys one huge embarrassment at a time.” Rowan sat forward and frowned, placing her drink on the table in front of her.
“There’s something I haven't told you yet.” I couldn't even bring myself to look into Rowan's eyes. I knew she was going to be disappointed in me. “It appears Diesel went a little crazy after finding out what we did to his potions. He went to Jax's home and beat him within an inch of his life. Jax came to me looking for help…”
Rowan leaned closer, lending me her ear. She urged in a calm demeanor, “Go on.”
“I had the option of killing him. He was unconscious right in front of me. It wouldn’t have been hard… But I couldn't do it.” I looked up at her with an apology in my eyes. It was all I could offer. “Even after everything he did to me, I still chose to let him live.”
A tear escaped from my eye and I quickly wiped it away. I hated this feeling of weakness coiling inside of me.
Rowan threw her head back and sighed. “That's such a relief to hear.”
“What?” There was no way I’d just heard her say she was relieved! “ Is it a good thing?”
She looked back down at me, revealing a dazzling smile. “Of course it is, you dummy,” she laughed. “It proves that, even after everything you’ve been through, you’re not an evil person. You proved that you’re much stronger than that.”
Rowan waited for her words to sink in for a few moments before she continued, “And whether you intended for it or not, you made a decision for the greater good. All of Anterra thanks you!”
I huffed a surprised laugh. “You're going to have to walk me through that one.” My mind was still reeling from her reaction.
“Think of it this way. If you killed him, then he would have died a martyr. No one would ever know what he truly did. And what's worse, those people he put in prison would remain there. If he stays alive long enough for us to at least expose him, then those people stand a fighting chance of being released. You may not fully understand why it was the right decision, but you followed your heart, and it certainly didn’t steer you wrong.”
I never thought of it like that before.
Another tear escaped my eye, but it was for a different reason this time.
“You have a point, I suppose,” I smiled, brushing my palm against my cheeks to dry it.
“It seems like we have even more to celebrate now than we thought,” she said brightly, picking up her drink again, and holding it to the sky. “So, here’s to you for being an indomitable badass, a true inspiration to all us other wannabe badasses!”
We emptied our glasses and laughed together.