Captured Witch

I. A narrow escape

“Robert, get up! You’re going to be late for practice!” . Robert jumps up. “f**k” he screams, “What time is it?”. 

“Too early for all this yelling” I mumbled from under a pillow. “Just skip the practice, stay in bed with me”.

“You have to go. My mom will kill me, and maybe you if she sees you up here. You shouldn’t have stayed the night. And you have practice too.”

“Hey, not fair someone fell asleep on top of me and refused to move.”

He rolled his eyes and quickly got dressed while throwing equipment in a bag and throwing clothes at me. I wrapped his sheet around me and walked over to his bag. “You going to wear these at practice?” I asked holding up my bright pink underwear.

He threw some smelly socks to his bag, hitting me in the face in the process. “Gross!” I yelled .

“Keep your voice down!” he whispered forcefully.

I threw my pants and a sweatshirt on and went over to the window. “See you in a few minutes,” I whispered with a smile on my face.

I opened the window and swiftly climbed out onto the piece of roof outside it. I heard his father’s voice from below and his mother’s voice from his room. With nowhere to go I tried to slowly move to the side of the house. My foot caught on the gutter and I instantly fell down to the bushes below.  I heard a small chuckle that turned into a wild laugh. The next thing I know, someone was grabbing my left hand and picking me up. “You know I could just put a ladder up. It might save you some broken limbs.” 

His father smiles and gives me a once over. “It doesn’t seem that you are injured. Bushes must’ve broken your fall.” 

“They must have,” I chuckled, “Guess I’m lucky they were there. Oh, and I may have knocked one of your gutters loose.”

His father, who still had my hand, despite my efforts to pull it back, laughed. “I suppose I’ll have to fix it then.” He flipped over my hand to reveal the slightly exposed mark on my arm. As he pushed up my sleeve, the full mark was revealed. “Interesting tattoo,” he remarked, “not a usual symbol for someone your age.”

“I saw it on the internet, I really should get going. You know, cheerleading practice and all.” I stared at him as he stared at my mark. 

“Of course, wouldn’t want you to miss that would we?” He dropped my hand. “Have a great day… Adalaide.” 

I smiled and thanked him. I hurried off, noting the suspicious dark car parked across the street. My house was only a few blocks down. I opened the house to nothing. My stomach grumbled in hunger and probably anger. “Sorry bud, no money equals no food to eat. You’ll just have to wait until I get paid tomorrow.” I ran upstairs to put on my practice clothes and comb my hair up. I ran some concealer over my tattoo as I remembered what Robert’s father said. I shook my head. “It is an interesting mark. There is no way for a mortal to know what it means.”

I hear three quick honks followed by a fourth slightly longer one. I rolled my eyes and ran down the stairs and out the door. “Come on! You’re going to make us late!” 

As I entered the car Amber hands me an iced coffee and a muffin. “You didn’t have to,” I say shoving bits of muffin in my mouth.

“Please girl, I know you don’t have food in that house. Anyway, I hear the queen bee is in quite the mood today. Robert was seen with some other chick last night.”

I moan and throw my head against the seat. “Remind me why we’re still friends with that b***h”

“Come on Ad,  you know why. I feel bad for her, and she's the captain so we practically have to like her.”

We sat in silence for a minute before Amber spoke up again. “Okay, I have another theory about you.”

I rolled my eyes and laughed a bit. Amber had been coming up with these theories since she found out my non-existent parents were never home. She’s come up with everything from alien abduction to plain they work a lot. “Let’s hear it.”

“Your parents are international spy agents and they left on a mission, but things went badly so they had to stay longer. You ran out of money and they can’t send you any, so you have no food in the house. Did I get it right this time?”

“Not even close.” I laughed.

“Ah come on! You’ll tell me if I at least get close right? Promise?”

“Promise.” I said.

“Good! Okay, well then I’ll need more time to think.”

I laughed a bit and sipped on my coffee. As we pulled up to the school, I saw the same dark car that was parked out of Robert’s house this morning. Something felt off, like something bad is going to happen. I began to step out of the car, as did the driver of the dark vehicle. “Amber something isn’t right,” I say to her as she steps out of the car. The driver of the other vehicle started walking across the large parking lot. “Get back in the car Amber.”

“Come on Ad, we have to go to practice. Stop messing around.”

“Amber! Just get in the car! We need to go somewhere, anywhere but here.” I ran to the driver side and pushed her to the passenger side. I started the car and sped out of the parking lot. I watched as the other driver ran to his car from the rearview mirror.

“What is going on! What is happening!” She screamed.

“I can’t tell you; it will put you in too much danger.” I hit the gas pedal and sped off. 

Amber sat in the seat frozen in fear and confusion. I sped up reaching close to 110 mph. I looked in the rearview mirror only to see several dark cars following us. I pressed the gas a bit more, but they were still gaining on us.

“Look you have got to tell me something. Anything! I’m losing my mind over here trying to figure out what’s going on!” Amber screeched at me. 

“Alright, let’s just say that those cars that are rapidly catching up to us aren’t policemen, they’re after me.” 

Amber whipped around to look out of the back windshield. She screamed in fear while yelling several obscenities. “What is going on! Who are those people? Why are they following us?” She yelled.

I sighed. “I just know that I wanted to avoid this. I really liked this place, and my life here.”

“Avoid what? What do you mean? Are you leaving?”

I muttered a few words and Amber slumped down in the seat. 

“Okay, now that I have some peace and quiet, I can focus on what is important.” 

I grab my phone and hit one on speed dial. “Hello?” a breathless voice says to me. 

“I’m in trouble, I need help. They found me.”

“Again? Aren’t you even trying to be careful? Can’t you just vanish out of there?”

“I can’t. I have a mortal with me. She’s asleep.”

“Help is on the way. After dropping off the mortal, return to the school.”

“Got it.” I hit end call and sped away to her home. The cars behind me fell back. At least help was quick this time. As I pulled into Amber’s driveway she began to stir. “Don’t worry. You won’t remember any of this happening, you came to pick me up and I wasn’t home” I carried her over to the driver’s seat and touched her forehead, “You then felt sick and didn’t make it to practice.”

With that I closed my eyes, muttered some hushed words and upon opening them I was greeted by a very angry and distressed head-mother. I smiled and shrugged my shoulders. “It wasn’t my fault this time?” I tried. 

“Adalaide.” she said disapprovingly. “Couldn’t you just try to be a bit more careful?”

“Oh, come on Sarah, you know I don’t mean to get into these situations.”

She smiled and wrapped her arm around me. “Come on, you must be tired.” She led me to my room and told me she would wake me when it was time for supper. With that I sank into the down bed and drifted asleep.