Chapter 14
1719 Words
For a minute, we stood in silence. I didn't believe that I’d heard correctly.
“Me?”
“Lena, stop repeating every damn thing I say.”
I bristled. “I wouldn’t if they made any sense.”
“Keep your voice down,” he warned, blue eyes piercing with a dangerous message. But I didn’t waver. Couldn’t. Not when he shoved me into the spotlight all of a sudden.
“What do I have to do with anything other than my role in destroying Et Kar?” Cleo continued to stare at me for a long while before he spoke, “I know she’s your mother.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking-“
“Do not,” he gritted out slowly, “play dumb with me, Lena.”
I kept my expression neutral, but inwardly I began to panic. Had Lucifer ratted me out? But immediately that thought came, I pushed it aside.
No. It wouldn’t make any sense. Why would he do such a thing? He obviously wouldn’t want anyone to know, and I had a sinking feeling that he hadn’t told anyone but me. Believing my thoughts to be true, I maintained my cool. “Fine. But my mother could be any of the Night Witches you and your Witch Hunters put to sleep.”
“And if she isn’t?”
“How the hell do you expect me to know that?”
“You’re really that clueless,” he speculated with narrowed eyes, clearly getting impatient. “Can’t you have at least one clue about what’s happening?”
Anger as swift as lightning threatened to consume me at that very moment. “Why wouldn’t I be as clueless as a freaking cow? Nobody is telling me anything! Alright, let’s imagine that the Night Witch is indeed my mother. It wouldn’t change a damn thing! She still abandoned me. If I realized that she was still alive, it still wouldn’t matter to me. So if you think manipulating me into admitting that she’s my mother, when she isn’t, would stop you idiots from putting her to sleep, then you’re dead wrong. I’d let you do whatever the hell you want. I wouldn’t care. I don’t care.”
The half-truths were easy to let out, more so than I expected. However, in all honesty, I meant most of what I said. Almost every single word. And for some reason, I knew that Cleo believed them too, despite the suspicious look in his eyes.
“I don’t think you understand, Lena,” he said carefully, eyeing my expressions with an agility that made me almost crack. “If you were her daughter, it would make our lives much easier. So, I will ask you this, how do I know you’re telling me the truth?”
I forced my shoulders to give off a nonchalant shrug. “You’ll just have to take my word for it.”
Cleo didn’t blink. “Swear it.”
I opened my mouth to reply but for some foolish reason, I hesitated.
He took another demeaning step closer to me. “Can you swear that every word you just said to me, is the truth?”
I took in a deep breath. Say something, you i***t!
“Lena, give me your hand.”
The request made me stiffen, the breath I was about to let out hitched in my throat.
“Why?”
“Give it to me.”
His approaching form loomed under the bulb, silhouetting his features and making each line on his face more prominent. I took a cautious step away from the Witch Hunter, beginning to see my almost-friend in a new, terrifying light.
“There is no need for that.”
“Lena...” he dragged my name, mimicking my every step as he deliberately equalized the distance between us.
“Give me your hand. You claim the truth so there should be nothing to be afraid of.” There followed a knowing glint in his eyes. “Is there?”
I cleared my throat. “Well, I-“
A loud crash and a deafening roar broke out from behind the door so abruptly that it made me jump. My heart palpitated at the sound and something within me just screamed that the pained echo was coming from Lucifer.
Now I really scared.
“Cleo?” I backed until I felt the door graze my skin. “What’s happening?”
“I’m sorry, Lena.”
His words didn’t frighten me as much as the fangs that began to protrude from his mouth.
My eyes widened. He had fangs?! Heart clambering up my throat now, I swiftly span and reached out to jerk the door open, not caring what I would face behind it. That was my only escape.
But before my fingers could grab the doorknob, a sudden force lifted me off the ground and effortlessly collided my back with a hard, wooden surface.
A surprised moan pushed past my lips as a shooting pain raced along my spine. I tried to sit up and escape again, but thick arms held my shoulders in place. I pried open my eyelids amidst the agony and stared in shock, panicked as hell, as Cleo braced himself on top of me. His face had transformed just the slightest, the additional fangs to the already creepy eyes made him look nothing like the barman I’d befriended.
“Cleo, stop! You’re making a mistake!” I yelled, trying to fight him off.
I didn’t get a reply.
My whole body was shaking. His queer eyes beckoned me each time I peered into them, and once I fell prey to its pull, I felt myself falling. “Stop!” I screamed again and again on top of my lungs, not caring if all my bravado had vanished.
But then again, something was wrong with me. Terribly wrong. I just couldn’t feel my arms and no sound was coming from my mouth anymore.
And what was that strange humming noise? From where, I had no idea. But it was certainly foreign and absurdly beautiful.
A tiny sigh escaped my throat and I began to relax. It was so soothing. So magnificent. It made me wonder why I was screaming a few seconds ago. I just couldn’t remember. Everything was turning into a blur. A weird bright yellow blur. Kind of like Cleo’s eyes.
Maera.
The whispered name, although faint, jolted something from within me. But whatever it was, I couldn’t reach it. It was just too far. Too far. It felt like I was floating in a strange abyss, staring into nothing. Just floating.
Maera.
There it was again. The same weird yet familiar name. I tried to hang onto it once more, but there was nothing I could use to reach out with. It didn’t hurt anymore though. No pain. No feeling.
Nothing.
☆~☆~☆
Maera!
I jolted awake, gasping for breath. I still couldn’t feel my limbs, but my vision was clearing fast enough for me to notice that I was in a foreign environment. Whatever drug had invaded my system was fading, as I could feel the blood seeping into my arms, but it wasn’t fast enough to activate my reflexes.
Something hard and heavy bumped against whatever I was perched on, toppling it to the ground along with my now recovering frame.
My head hit hard against the floor, but I felt nothing. Still no pain. However, after my closed-off senses began to return and I was beginning to feel again, a dull ache awoke to replace the void that overcame me before and just after I blacked out. Carefully, I rose to my knees and rubbed my palm against my eyes, silently willing the drowsiness to leave my system.
My forehead was rough and moist when my fingers grazed against it, as were my knees. Was that dirt?
“Get up,” came the low command, uttered from a not-so-authoritative voice. The first time it was soft, barely comprehensible. The second, however, was firmer and obliged me to obey.
I rose to my feet, staggering a little as I tried to regain my bearings. After restoring my
composure, I glanced around the darkness, realizing faintly with one scout that we were in the woods.
The sun had already set and the area loomed with darkness. The chills I always got from the forest threatened to engulf me as the shadows seemed as if they drew nearer each second.
“Lena...” A throaty groan called out. I turned to my left at the same time the croaked voice called out to me and gasped when I witnessed Lucifer’s body sprawled out on the ground.
“He’s not dead,” Mik announced dryly, clutching a bloodied, strange-looking knife in his hand, his form slumped against a tree trunk. I would’ve approached him to find out the reason behind his sulky nature, but I just had to check on Lucifer first.
Cautiously, I kneeling beside his frame and my heart gave a heavy lurch when I saw the state in which he was in. He looked absolutely exhausted and torn, like he’d just barely come out a fight alive.
“What the hell happened?” I whispered, utterly confused, and trying to decipher the feeling of foreboding growing inside me. “Where’s Cleo?”
Micaiah chuckled, sounding more hollow than usual. I turned my head to where he stood and asked again, more fiercely, “Where’s Cleo? What the hell did you do?”
He didn’t meet my eyes, but answered me anyway, raising the stained knife to make it glisten against the moonlight. “Something I don’t regret.”
- Writer
