Bound - The Primori Academy

The Dagger on the Pillow

Morning arrived without feeling like morning.

When Catalina finally opened her eyes, pale sunlight spilled through the gap in her curtains, painting soft stripes across the bedroom floor. For a long moment she remained perfectly still, staring at the ceiling while the remnants of the dream clung stubbornly to her thoughts. It lingered the way smoke clung to clothing after a fire, impossible to shake no matter how deeply she breathed.

Help me.

The words still echoed somewhere deep inside her, quiet now but no less unsettling.

She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes until stars danced behind her eyelids, willing her heartbeat to slow. It refused. Beneath the sleeve of her T-shirt, the place where the creature's claws had torn through her arm the night before felt strangely warm. Not feverish, not painful, but alive in a way she couldn't explain. When she rested her fingertips against the smooth skin, a faint hum seemed to answer from somewhere beneath the surface, so subtle she might have dismissed it as imagination if she hadn't already seen the impossible with her own eyes.

Across the room, the sketchbook still lay open on her desk exactly where she'd left it. Seven familiar faces stared silently toward the ceiling, waiting. Last night she'd almost convinced herself they were nothing more than years of idle doodles. This morning she knew better. Whatever connected her to those faces had begun long before the creature stepped from the shadows behind the restaurant.

She couldn't pretend otherwise anymore.

The hallway smelled faintly of coffee and toast as she made her way downstairs. Mary was already awake. Catalina heard the scrape of a chair across the kitchen floor, the soft clink of ceramic against the counter, and the quiet rhythm of someone keeping their hands busy while their mind wandered somewhere else.

"You're up early," Mary said without turning around.

"Couldn't sleep."

Mary nodded, pouring coffee into two mugs before setting the pot aside. There was something tired about her movements that Catalina hadn't noticed before, a heaviness she couldn't quite place. Her grandmother had always seemed unshakable, the kind of person who carried the weight of every problem without ever letting it bend her. This morning she looked...older.

"Bad dreams?" Mary asked.

Catalina gave a humorless smile.

"You could say that."

They settled at the kitchen table together, morning sunlight pouring through the window above the sink. Outside, the distant mountains sat beneath a veil of blue haze, peaceful enough to make the previous night's horrors feel impossible. Mary placed a mug in front of Catalina before wrapping both hands around her own. Catalina noticed, for the first time, the faint tremor in her grandmother's fingers.

"Grandma..."

Her grandmother looked up.

"I need to tell you something."

Mary didn't answer. She simply waited.

Catalina drew a slow breath, unsure where to begin.

"Something happened after I left the restaurant."

She expected confusion.

Instead, Mary became perfectly still.

"There was..." Catalina searched for words that didn't sound insane. "A creature. I don't know what else to call it. It came out from behind the dumpster in the parking lot. It wasn't human. It attacked me."

She rolled up her sleeve.

"It cut me."

Mary's eyes dropped to Catalina's arm.

"The wounds were here."

Catalina traced the place with trembling fingers.

"I watched it happen. There was blood everywhere."

She looked back at Mary.

"But then..." Her voice faltered. "The cuts disappeared."

Silence settled over the kitchen.

"I don't know how to explain it," Catalina continued quietly. "Light came out of my hands. Every color you can imagine. It drove the creature away."

Still Mary said nothing.

"There was someone else there."

That finally drew a reaction.

Mary's fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around her coffee mug.

"A man."

Catalina swallowed.

"He had dark red hair...and gold eyes."

The color drained from Mary's face.

"I've seen him before," Catalina whispered. "Not in real life. In my sketchbook."

Mary frowned.

"The one I've been drawing in since I was little."

"I've been drawing the same seven faces for years." Catalina shook her head slowly, struggling to make sense of her own words. "Last night I realized one of them was him. I drew his face years before I ever met him."

For several long seconds, Mary simply stared at her.

Her expression didn't change.

If anything, that frightened Catalina more than disbelief would have.

"Grandma?"

Her grandmother's hand drifted slowly to her chest. Not dramatically. Almost absently. Her fingers curled against the fabric of her sweater while her breathing became shallow. The mug slipped from her grasp. It shattered against the kitchen floor.

Mary swayed once before her knees buckled beneath her.

"GRANDMA!"

Catalina barely caught her shoulders before they both hit the floor. Coffee spread across the linoleum in widening pools while shards of ceramic skidded beneath the table. Catalina knelt beside her, panic surging through every nerve as she searched desperately for some sign that this wasn't happening.

Mary's eyes remained closed.

Her breathing was shallow.

Her skin had taken on a frightening gray cast.

"Please..."

Catalina reached instinctively for the warmth she'd felt the night before.

For the impossible light.

She closed her eyes, willing it to return.

Nothing happened.

The warmth beneath her skin remained silent.

Whatever power had answered her in the parking lot refused to answer now.

"No..."

Her voice broke.

"Please."

She didn't know who she was begging anymore.

With trembling fingers she reached for her phone and dialed 911. The operator's calm voice guided her through questions she answered almost automatically, giving the address, describing Mary's collapse, struggling to believe the words coming out of her own mouth.

The paramedics arrived within minutes.

Everything afterward blurred together. Questions. Monitors. A stretcher. Someone gently leading Catalina toward the ambulance. She climbed inside without remembering making the decision. Throughout the ride she never let go of Mary's hand.

It felt strangely fragile in hers. Not because of age. Because for the first time in her life Catalina realized there might come a day when Mary wasn't there to hold hers back.

The hospital passed in fragments of fluorescent lights, hurried footsteps, and carefully chosen reassurances. Doctors spoke in cautious voices while nurses offered sympathetic smiles that answered none of her questions.

Stable.

Unconscious.

We're running more tests.

We'll know more soon.

The words blurred together until they stopped meaning anything at all.

Hours slipped past unnoticed.

By the time Catalina finally left the hospital, the afternoon sun hung high overhead, brilliant and indifferent.

The house greeted her with an almost unbearable stillness.

Coffee remained splashed across the kitchen floor exactly where it had fallen. The broken mug lay scattered in pale pink fragments beneath the table. Mary's chair sat pushed back as though she might walk in at any moment and finish the conversation they'd never had.

Catalina cleaned because she couldn't think of anything else to do.

She mopped the floor.

Gathered the broken pieces.

Washed the untouched mugs.

The ordinary motions kept her hands occupied while her mind circled the same impossible conclusion.

Mary had recognized what she'd described.

She had known.

When the kitchen finally looked the way it always had, Catalina climbed the stairs to her bedroom. Exhaustion weighed heavily against her shoulders, but sleep felt impossible now.

She stopped beside her nightstand.

Something caught her eye.

Resting beside the stack of books was a small leather-wrapped dagger she hadn't thought about in years.

Rosalind. A friend of her grandmothers, who asked Rosalind to be her personal trainer. To make you strong, Mary had said, but yesterday, she didn't feel strong at all.

The memory surfaced immediately.

On her fifteenth birthday, Rosalind had placed the dagger into her hands with an expression so serious it had unsettled everyone at the table.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" Catalina had laughed.

Rosalind hadn't smiled.

"Keep it close."

Catalina remembered glancing toward Mary.

Her grandmother had taken the dagger, studying it quietly before returning it without explanation.

"It's only a keepsake," she'd said. "Put it somewhere safe."

So Catalina had.

Until now.

She reached for the dagger.

The moment her fingers closed around the leather-wrapped hilt, warmth spread through her palm. Not the warmth of sunlight. Not the lingering heat of metal. Something deeper. Older. Alive. She drew in a sharp breath.

Then the blade began to glow.