Controlled

Four: Attempted murder attempt number two

Hours later, on the bunker floor, I had a nightmare—one of the worst ever, comparable only to the nights that had followed the death of my parents. It was something dreadful, disturbing, and it was about Will.

I woke up in cold sweats, shaking, and Andy instantly sat up beside me; he had trouble sleeping, and, when he could, he slept light. “What was it about this time?” he asked.

My eyes went to where I thought his might be, though I could only make out the outline of Andy’s face in the dark, and I swallowed. Since we’d known one another, most of my bad dreams had been about losing him… all in different, dark ways, but this time…

Desperately, I pushed away at it, until the entire dream became just emotions and made little sense. Soon, all I could gather from it was that it hadn’t been about Will attacking or hurting me or anyone I cared for—rather, it was about losing him.

“I don’t remember,” I lied, putting my head back down on my jacket.

He was quiet for a second, and I figured that was because we’d been making a bit of noise, and he didn’t want to wake anyone. Finally, Andy whispered, “You’re shivering.”

He pulled some of his blanket onto me, and I scoffed, shoving it back. “I’m fine.”

“Cass, you’re shaking.”

He was right, but I wasn’t cold. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. My mind went to Sam’s warning… of the physical manifestations that could come from rejecting this, and my eyes shut. “I’m tired. I’m going back to sleep,” I said.

Andy didn’t respond, and I allowed for the sound of his slow breaths to guide me back under.

The nightmares became regular, and Andy continued to have questions—all of which I refused to answer. I just wanted things to go back to how they had been before, and addressing what was going on obviously wasn’t going to help in doing that.

A week passed this way, and a slow routine set in. I fell back into my chores and my duties, the things that kept me alive, and I asked Sandy for a rubber band that I would pull upwards tightly whenever I thought of Will, allowing for it to crash down and burn my skin; my mom did that whenever she decided that it was time to stop chewing her nails.

After a little, I started to feel like myself again, and it was sort of easy to pretend that what had happened before actually was just a dream. Even Andy, seeing I was calming down, relaxed.

Things were good—not great; things were never really great at the bunker—but good. And then that witch showed up.

We should’ve skipped town after the diplomat; it’d been too close of a call. But we figured… they would think we’d left, or moved, or gone somewhere else, and so it’d be best for us to stay put. We liked it here, anyway; we knew the area. We’d been here a while. We didn’t want to go, and we had no idea where else to go to. So we stayed.

Andy and I had walked to town and were readying to pickpocket. We tended to stay together when we did it, acting like we were friends, which was easy because we were, as it helped with distractions. Plus, people tended not to see two of us coming. Pickpockets tended to work alone.

We were walking down Greene Street when we came across a woman with a big Rolex, shiny and gold, and she was wagging it around as she spoke on the phone. The thing was captivating. Five grand. Easy.

Andy and I looked at each other.

Between the two of us, we had already gotten three bracelets, one watch, and two wallets, but a Rolex was too good to ignore. The pawn store would eat it up.

“I’ll bump this time,” I said.

Andy nodded as she approached us on the sidewalk, and I quickly tripped over my own feet, landing on her and swiping the watch in the process. Andy was right behind me, there for me to hand it to him as I brought my own arms out to steady her, saying, “Oh, I’m so sorry!”

She glanced up, eyes steely, and I noticed how expensive her fur coat looked. “You should watch…” The woman drifted off as her gaze landed on Andy behind me, and her mouth opened slightly. “You.”

Huh? I looked back, too, confused, and I mouthed, You know her?

Andy shook his head, just as puzzled as I was, which ended as soon as she started shouting things in Latin. We realized it at the same time and quickly started sprinting.

Witch.

“Crap, crap, crap!” we shouted together, darting behind the corner of a brick building.

We leaned our backs there for a few moments as we tried to calm our heaving breaths—all until a sudden blast of heat hit from behind. I briefly ducked my head out from my corner, cussing, and then tugging on Andy’s forearm. “We have to go!”

“Is she shooting fire?” he yelled as we started running once again.

“Yup!” I hissed back, the singed hairs on the back of my neck making me certain.

“What are we going to do?”

“Keep running!” I started dropping a few of the wallets I’d snatched and hissed for Andy to do the same. “We’ll move faster!” I explained.

He quickly followed my direction, and, as he did so, I risked a glance back, seeing the witch with her hand raised.

“Quick!” I yelled, shoving Andy behind a parked car, just as she shot another fireball at us.

 We were at a more populated street then, and people were screaming around us. It gave me an idea.

“We could lose her in the crowd! Come on!”

Dashing out from behind the car, we immediately went for the hoard of people. From what I could tell, the witch was following, but her head was whipping back and forth, seeming already a little confused.

“I doubt she’d hurt a bunch of innocent people,” Andy murmured.

I quickly recalled the several near-death encounters I’d shared with witches and Andy over the past few years. They’d always been callous, willing to do anything so long as Andy died as well. “I’m not so sure about that,” I said.

The two of us traveled with everyone else, most getting away from the sounds of shrieks and cries and alarms, moving naturally forward until I spotted an alley and dragged Andy behind a dumpster. From there, we could see the witch grumbling in the crowd, though moving past our spot cluelessly.

 When we were sure that she was gone, we still sat there for a bit longer. We would say things repeatedly, such as, “That was close,” or, “Are you hurt?” During this time, we caught our breaths, and I personally took inventory of my injuries.

          My other arm—the unbroken one—had a fairly bad burn running up it, which would undoubtedly scar. The brace on my left arm was frayed and seemed on the verge of collapse, though the skin underneath was fine, protected by the fabric. As well, I could feel a pain on the back of my neck, and I figured there was a burn there, too, but I couldn’t see it right then.

          “We should go,” I finally spoke, “before she circles back.”

Andy didn’t respond, and I glanced at him; he was in worse shape than me. The side of his neck was bleeding from a third degree burn, and his shirt had a big hole near his back that revealed an even uglier looking wound.

“Are you okay to move?” I asked.

He glanced at me, face tired, weary. “I think so.” At that, I went to stand, but he reached a shaky hand out to stop me. “Wait.”

Nervously, I sat once more. “What is it?”

“I’m just sorry.” He shut his eyes and then slammed his head against the dumpster with enough force to make me wince and worry. “I can’t believe I keep putting you through this.”

“It’s not your fault,” I replied.

His eyes shot open and met my own angrily. “It is.”

This was a recurring argument between the two of us, and I didn’t feel like having it right then. “Now isn’t the time,” I told Andy, standing once again. “We still aren’t in the clear.”

He sighed from his seated position, taking an extra moment to join me. “Yeah, okay.”

“Let’s get out of here,” I said.

I peeked my head out of the alleyway and took a careful step out once I noted that the coast was clear—of the witch, at least. Police cars were scattered all over, and sirens assaulted my ears. I figured they were after the witch.

The two of us took the long route back to the forest. It was annoying but made it harder to follow us.

“We’ll have to move,” I noted as we made it to the edge.

“Where?” he wondered tiredly, stepping in and starting the long walk back.

“I don’t know. I don’t care. We just have to go.”

We didn’t talk much after that—not at all, really, until we arrived at the bunker. After climbing down the ladder, we packed our things, which didn’t take long, and then readied ourselves for travel.

“What’s going on?” Sandy asked a minute or two after we had changed into our spare set of clothes, coming out from the safe room. Sometimes she liked she go in there. Said it was quiet.

“We’re leaving,” I told her, without glancing in her direction.

 “Why?” she replied. “Is everything okay?”

“Sandy—” Andy started.

“Don’t make it harder,” I muttered under my breath. He was attached to some of the people here, against my advice. Andy was softer than me—not that it was a bad thing, just… he made things more difficult without needing to quite often.

“Let’s just go,” I said.

“Where?” Sandy pressed, and, to her credit, seemed actually concerned.

“We’re not sure,” Andy replied. He turned to me and lightly asked, “Could I say good-bye?”

It was too hard to say no to him when his eyes were all sad like that. “Fine,” I muttered, picking up my bag. “I’ll see you outside.” Their quiet murmurs followed me as I climbed up and out.

Now that the adrenaline had faded, the pain was really starting to set in. Nervously, I raised my hand to the back of my neck and lightly pressed down, immediate tears coming to my eyes. I furiously blinked them down and dropped my arm. I couldn’t cry or else I’d never stop.

I had no idea what to do. I had no idea where to go. Everything felt hopeless. They always seemed to find us, and it was just a matter of time before they killed Andy. I couldn’t let that happen, but I didn’t know how to prevent it anymore.

We had no money, no family, no education… I couldn’t even pickpocket with one hand burned and the other broken.

 “Cassie?”

 The voice made me freeze. For a moment, I thought I had imagined it, and then I looked behind, seeing her stand right there. Vampiric and perfect, unchanged.

“Grace?” I asked, utterly dumbfounded.