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1173 Words
They’re looking for you to guide them. Aidan gently patted my shoulder, bringing me back to the present.
He hadn’t been kidding. All four of the marked women were looking directly at me. “Let’s go in the order we found everyone in.” Which meant I was up first. It only seemed right since I was asking them to spill their blood too.
I took a deep breath and bit into my finger. I held it over the blank page and turned it over, allowing several drops to fall on the page. Then in order, the girls did the same thing.
The witches crowded in, wanting to see what would happen.
Our blood converged and began swirling. It circled over and over again, reminding me of a loading screen on a laptop. We all watched it intently, ready for the great reveal. The circle pulsed and shot off like a firework on the page.
I was ready for the words to reveal themselves, but instead, the blood soaked into the page and disappeared.
We all watched for a few more moments, waiting for something, anything, but nothing happened.
“What the hell?” Samuel whispered as if afraid to break the spell.
Beatrice inhaled sharply. “I … I don’t understand.”
Great, was this some kind of joke? Right when I’d been about to stand and stretch my legs, dizziness hit me. The room spun so fast that my stomach churned. Aidan, what’s going on?
What are you talking about? Concern laced each word.
The room, it’s spinning. I closed my eyes, but it didn’t help. I fell back against the couch, thankful I hadn’t stood.
“Emma,” Sunny gasped from the floor next to me.
Babe, the room isn’t … His words trailed off as darkness engulfed me.
The surrounding air was cool, and a deep chill settled in my bones. I tried opening my eyes, but they were so damn heavy. Aidan?
There was no response, and the silence was deafening.
I moved my hand, but it touched nothing. I couldn’t feel anything underneath or around me. It was as if I were floating.
Was I dead? That was the only thing that made any sense.
Despite the adrenaline pulsing through me, I struggled to pry my eyes open. It took God knew how long, but eventually, the lids pulled apart.
However, it didn’t change a damn thing. Solid darkness surrounded me as if my eyes were still shut.
There wasn’t a breeze, yet the air around me moved. It wasn’t stagnant or stale. If that wasn’t creepy enough, it was filled with pure silence and scentless. I felt no sense of time.
I slowly sat and blinked hard several times, trying to make sense of what was going on. Aidan? I pleaded.
Silence was my only response.
There was no way in hell I would just give up and sit here and rot. I slowly stood and took a few small steps to get my bearings. Not even my tennis shoes made a noise.
“Hello?” I called out like an i***t, but I didn’t have anything to lose. “Is anyone there?”
Not even an echo responded to me.
Fear crawled up my spine, and I rubbed my hands along my arms. None of this made sense.
I tried to remember the seconds before I got here, but I was drawing a blank. It was as if my past, present, and future had collided, but there was nothing to prove that.
Needing to make noise, I stomped my feet, but it didn’t produce a single sound.
“Is anyone here?” At this point, I’d be ecstatic to see Jacob.
Aidan … The Hallowed Guild … the diary. Our blood hadn’t revealed the blank pages. It all began coming back to me, almost at a snail’s pace.
“I don’t understand.” I grabbed my hair. “We had all five of us. Are you four down here too?” Were we all trapped together? “Gabby? Ivory? Honor? Sunny?” I listed them off, hoping one of them would answer. Well, maybe I shouldn’t be hoping for that.
Silence was yet again my response. Hell, I wondered if I was actually talking. “Is anyone here?”
Thunder vibrated around me—through my body, through the air, through my blood. A huge white flash zig-zagged through the room, barely missing me.
At least, I got a response this time.
A guttural cry filled the air, “You are not worthy.”
Okay, maybe I’d preferred the silence. My heart hammered, and I spun around, looking for a sign of someone … anyone. But blackness engulfed me once again.
Aidan
“E
mma!” I rushed around the couch and cupped her gorgeous face. Her fingers were tangled in her blonde hair, and her eyes were closed. I desperately wished I could see her beautiful gray eyes again. Her lips trembled, making her cleft chin more pronounced.
Beth flew across the room and stopped right next to me. “What’s wrong with her?”
“I …” Emma? I kept trying to connect with her and coming up blank. “I don’t know.”
“Did you do something?” Gabby’s accusatory tone rang clear in the room.
I looked over my shoulder for a second. “Gabby, stand down.”
“But she didn’t get like that until after …” Gabby trailed off. “What if we’re next?”
I didn’t have time to deal with this. “Just calm your ass down. You’re only making the situation worse.”
Beth sighed with relief. “She’s still breathing, and I can feel her pulse.”
Coral walked over and placed her hands on the headrest next to Emma’s head. “Can you connect with her?”
“No, it’s like there’s a block, but our connection is on track. It’s weird.” It got crazier second by second. “I can feel her, just not connect with her.”
“What does that mean?” Sunny sounded breathless. “How can we help her?”
“Somebody has to know something.” I met Beatrice’s light purple eyes. “Can’t you do something?”
“I can try.” She bit her bottom lip and placed a hand on Emma’s arm. She jerked her hand back as if she’d been stung. “Ouch. There’s so much power coming off her.”
“Then how can I touch her?” I gestured to Beth. “She touched her too.”
“It’s because you two aren’t witches.” Beatrice’s eyes widened as she glanced at her daughter. “Can you feel anything coming from her?”
“She’s scared. That’s all I have.” Amethyst rubbed her hands together. “But there isn’t anything we can do … I don’t think.”
Emma
“What do you want?” I yelled … or at least, I thought I did.
Nothing responded.
- Writer
