Chapter Twenty-Two
Avelina
“Hey! Warlock!”
Avelina opened her eyes, scowling at the adjacent wall.
Callum never came to bed. She lay in the middle of the mattress after tossing and turning all night.
Between crying her heart out and coming up with perfect arguments to destroy him, she barely got a wink of sleep.
Her eyes burned, stomach growled, and back ached all at the same time.
The perfect, turbulent storm to make her thrice as irritable as any other morning waking up in that gloomy swamp.
Glaring at the tall, human man in the doorway, she stewed in her rage.
A tan skinned man without a single hair on his body except for the patch on his chin.
There were magic runes tattooed into his skin, except his face was designed with a skull.
Compared to Rat who peaked up from over the lanky, skull-faced man’s shoulder, he was far too intense.
She quirked a brow, not responding.
“Get up, we’re heading out.” Skull-face pushed away from the door. Rat skittered inside the doorway with a sheepish grin.
“Rat, who was that?” she grumbled.
“Take a guess,” Rat snorted as he crept up beside the bed.
“Don’t tell me his name is Bones.” Avelina rolled her eyes.
“Wow, you are good. Boss doesn’t pay you enough.” Rat bobbed his head enthusiastically as the grumpy warlock clambered out of bed.
“Boss,” she sneered with heavy venom. Once up on her feet, she stumbled over to the dresser for whatever clean clothes she could find. “Does not pay me.”
“Well, he will after this job!” Rat toddled over to where she was.
He touched everything in the room as she pulled on a skirt over the leggings she wore to sleep.
Then, because she was a hollowed-out husk, carved out potato with a spoon, or whatever other delightful metaphor her brain came up with as an excuse, she pulled the sleep shirt off her body.
Rat had the decency to turn away but was still fiddling with stuff as she pulled on a clean shirt.
She was out of outfits and would need to do laundry.
Except she wasn’t…Avelina was leaving today. The first moment she got? Out she went. Avelina was booking it for the hills and never looking back. Callum didn’t get to rip her heart out of her chest, stomp on it, and keep her.
Avelina wasn’t getting paid for this job and she wasn’t getting any of her other things back.
Funnily, she didn’t care. There was no planning.
If she planned, there would be time to talk her out of it.
No, she could only improvise and go. That way, she had no way to find a way to redeem him in her head.
In the midst of tying her boots to her ankles, Grahm popped his head in. “Ya almost ready?”
“Yeah!” Rat chirped.
“Not you, numbskull,” Grahm grumbled.
“Wow, you all hate each other as much as he does,” she blurted out. Both men blinked at each other than glanced at her, bewildered. Avelina glared at her own toes. Inside thoughts, Avelina! Slowly standing, she turned to face them. “What are you two doing? Why isn’t Callum here to get me, himself?”
“Boss went ahead,” Rat murmured. He shuffled out fast, darting around Grahm. Avelina followed his movements, but Grahm shifted specifically to be in her way.
“We’re meeting him at the tavern.” Grahm studied her with a long, hard stare. She looked him dead in the eyes. No one is going to make me cower again. He stood straighter, sizing her up. Her hands immediately went to her hips, and she raised a brow in response.
“Are we going to look at each other all day or are we going to the tavern?” she blurted out.
“I don’t get it,” Grahm sighed, shaking his head.
Oh great, more games. Avelina sucked on her teeth.
There was a moment when she could shove her way out into the cabin.
If Callum wasn’t there to protect her, she couldn’t be caught being soft or complacent with his crew.
Most of them didn’t even know her name. She’d spent less time with them, either by Callum’s design or chance, who knew, but she didn’t want to find out.
“Get what?” she asked, cocking her hip.
“Why he cares.” Grahm squinted at her. Flames licked up her inside.
Why he cares? She could taste her anger, a bitter vinegar filled her mouth as she closed the distance between them.
Grahm flinched backward, falling back on his ass.
The whispers started again. They licked the back of her ears as she loomed over him. Magic thrummed under her skin.
She blinked, glancing up to find a room full of Callum’s crew.
About thirty or more faces, some crammed in the room, some peering in from outside, all dirty and scuffed.
They watched her with a variety of expressions, some intrigued, some disgusted, some angry.
She took a few seconds to scan them before swallowing the madness brewing in her mouth.
If she broke out into a fight here, there was no winning.
The bottle neck alone to the front door was a fool’s errand.
She didn’t imagine she could get to the trap door either.
Every fantasized escape route ended with a dagger in her back.
With a sharp, deep breath through her nose, she smiled down at Grahm. Each word came through gritted teeth. “Don’t. Make. Me. Laugh.”
“Yeah, Grahm,” Bones sneered with a disgusted curl of his upper lip. “She’s creepy when she smiles.”
“Fuck off,” Grahm barked and climbed to his feet.
He kept glancing back at her with disdain.
He’s going to be a problem. She didn’t spend any time with any of them, but Grahm seemed to hate her on principle.
It didn’t make sense. Guess it doesn’t have to…
These were Callum’s outlaws. He may hate their guts, but they belong to him.
She was the new shiny toy. She slept in his bed. Realistically, she expected it.
She just did not expect it without Callum somewhere nearby.
Avelina stepped out into the room and took the offered, tinfoil-wrapped something from Rat.
The crew filed out, listening to barked orders from Grahm.
While they all unwrapped their food, she let hers go cold in her hand.
She kept to the back and her mouth shut.
Everyone filed out and she followed them out into Gloomsdale.
As much as she hated to think it, her best plan of attack was still to slip out at Parandor.
Especially as every move, she felt eyeballs stuck to her.
Someone from somewhere watched everything she did.
It made sense to act compliant. She stuffed her hands in her pockets, leaving the breakfast behind, and kept up with the crowd.
With Tala’s message stone in one pocket, the seeing stone in the other, she twisted the smooth rocks around in her fingers to keep herself grounded.
The whispers started up again, growing more rowdy with each passing moment.
Feed us.
She swallowed over her dry tongue.
Let us eat them.
Her skin itched. She craved the release of digging her fingernails into the back of her neck. The skin would peel back so easily, she was sure if she just dragged her nails across it.
Boil them in the lake, turn them into soup.
The docks came into view. Her heart’s steadily increasing beat jumped in tempo and she felt on the brink of something catastrophic.
Was it her emotions? Was it her magic? She hadn’t summoned it on purpose.
Her fight or flight was active, and she had to grip the stones in her pockets so hard it ached to keep from ripping off her own skin.
The mud was thick around her boots, making each step a laborious affair.
Eat them! Eat them all. Make their bones your tooth picks. Feed us their tender flesh. Render them into morsels for us to feast. Feed. Feed! FEED!
Avelina shook her head violently. Her hands flew out of her pockets to cup her ears.
She needed them to stop but the voices were a violent chorus.
Their volume grew till she was bent over at the waist, whining into her skirts.
A hand touched the center of her back and she sprang up.
Rat stepped away, hands up. She clutched her hands at the front of her chest. The world was frozen before her.
Most of the crew loitered, stopped, mid-step, watching her with worry from over their shoulders.
A few others were on the docks, prepping boats to go across.
It was like a game of hide and seek. She searched for Catalysta in the image, wondering where she would come from.
When she spotted her patron, it turned her blood to ice.
Across the lake, in the doorway of the dock keeper’s cottage, stood The Dead Mother.
Catalysta smiled from behind her shroud of death lace.
A mouth full of horrors, excited, she lifted a single hand to the lake.
It was the first time Avelina noticed the steam lifting off the water’s surface.
The usual dark, murky lake was tinged with red. Something lingered beneath the surface. It wasn’t heat. It was magic, giving off subtle plumes off the surface. It was a trap.
“You are becoming a wonderful study,” Catalysta breathed into Avelina’s ear.
The warlock shivered as she felt arms, boney and cold wrap around her torso.
Her patron’s fingers pressed into her abdomen.
Avelina stopped breathing, her heart following soon after.
Sharp fingers stabbed into her sides and the pain of being sliced open cleansed her of the voices in her ears.
All she knew was the splitting agony along her ribs as her patron carved her open.