Speak (Witches & Warlocks Book 1)

by R. M. Webb

  “I mean, all I know is that my whole life I’ve joked around that I’ve got a tiger inside me, trying to make me do things that make me uncomfortable…”

  “But you’ve never actually seen the tiger?”

  “No…” But even as I answer I feel this little nudge of doubt. Like there’s something squirming in my head, trying to get out. That popping sensation couples with a flickering of images and then boom. I remember. Just one moment of the night that I came home from Flannigan’s after meeting Luke, the night they told me I’d had too much to drink and passed out. There I am, sitting on my bed with a tiger pacing between me and the door. The door that Becca’s slowly opening…

  “Wait. I think … ya. I think I’ve seen the tiger but I also think I’ve been made to forget.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No, I’m not sure. I’m very suddenly not sure about anything anymore.”

  The pop and crunch of gravel shifting under tires sounds outside the living room window. “Is that you? Are you here? Someone’s here.” Suddenly, I’m terrified.

  “No, that’s not me. But I’m close.”

  A car door slams shut, followed by a second, and then after a brief pause, a third. “What do I do?”

  “Stay on the phone, no matter what happens. You have the strength to undo the spell that binds you. If you are what I think you are, then you’re the most powerful thing in that apartment right now. Focus on feeling your power. On finding the tiger and waking it up.”

  A key jiggles in the lock on the front door. “Shit, Noah, it’s Becca. And I think Carter and Luke are with her.”

  “Luke?” Noah sounds panicked. “Fuck! Zoe? Did you say Luke?”

  I can’t answer because I’m busy staring at the deep purple cloud rolling out from underneath my door. As dark as it is, it has a light of its own, this sick dead light that pulses and twists. I drop the phone onto my bed and stare at the door as it creaks open.

  Chapter 16

  It’s like my name is echoing around me. Noah is calling for me, his voice tinny and almost incomprehensible from where the phone is smothered in the blankets on my bed. Becca is saying my name as she opens the door, concern filling her voice like some badly made Gucci knock off sold on the street corner. Even Carter says my name in that small, kind of weasely, thin lipped voice of his. I don’t think he’s ever said my name before tonight. And then there’s Luke. The guy that’s supposed to be my boyfriend. The guy that might be at least kind of on my side. The guy that has Noah freaking the fuck out.

  “Zoe?” His gravely, beast man voice makes me all kinds of upset. I tend to not like feeling betrayed and somehow his betrayal feels worse than Becca’s. Although not by much.

  “You ok, sweets?” Becca leads the trio in through my door and it’s like every bad movie I’ve ever seen. They’re all wrapped in the fog that seems to represent their magic, and it’s backlit by this crazy otherworldly light. It’s funny how blatant they’re being. Maybe they figure they’ll just spell away my memory or something equally as devious and underhanded after all this is said and done.

  I’m so far out of my depth it’s ridiculous. I stand up from my bed, eyes wild and hands shaking. Somewhere, Noah’s out there, breaking land speed records trying to make it in time to be my knight in shining armor, but the fact of the matter is that he’s not here now. And I am.

  And I have a tiger inside that means I’m stronger than anyone in the room. I’ve gotta wake the tiger and I have no idea what that means, but I’m going to try. I may be quiet, but I’m not going to be a damsel in distress.

  With a deep breath, I close my eyes and concentrate on the tiger. I imagine her with her great blue eyes, her elegant stripes, and long, loping steps. I imagine the flick of her whiskers and the pointed teeth that look so damn mean when she snarls. At the same time, I think of that strange obstacle that keeps my words at bay. Noah’s analogy really made sense to me. Water pushing against a dam, surging forward only to be pushed back. I imagine my magic just like the water, pushing and surging and gaining in speed and energy. If water surged quickly enough against a dam, the rock and concrete would crack and chip, bits and pieces breaking off until huge holes were formed. Water would pour through, forcing its way back onto its proper path. My magic is the water and the silencing spell is the dam and I urge it all forward.

  I will speak.

  “Zoe!” Becca’s scared and angry and normally just hearing her sound like that would make my stomach flip flop around as I worried about upsetting her. Hell, maybe they put some kind of docility spell on me, too, making sure I’m hardwired to please Becca at all times. That’d make so much sense and I’d feel so much better about myself if that were true.

  I wait for the surge of anxiety and am rewarded with just the tiniest fraction of concern. Becca’s pissed and for once, I don’t really give a shit. And let me tell you what, that feels better than anything I’ve felt in a really long time.

  I open my eyes and … God … I see. Like I’ve had blinders on my whole life, or sunglasses that dim everything down into a boring gray monotone. Now, it’s vibrant, surging with energy and it’s all starting to make some kind of sense. Like, you know when the word you’re looking for is on the tip of your tongue and you know if you just sit quietly and don’t look at it too hard, you’ll remember? That’s the feeling I get looking around my room.

  Becca steps forward and I throw up my hands. “Don’t come near me.”

  “Zo, you don’t know what you’re doing …” Carter and Luke slide into the room and fan out, one on each of Becca’s sides.

  “Oh, I think that’s the thing. For the first time in my whole life, I have an inkling of what’s actually going on.”

  “Zoe,” Luke says and the look on his face is begging me to hear what he’s saying. They keep saying my name, and it keeps echoing in my head, entwining with Noah’s tinny voice still yelling at me through the cell phone. “You can’t believe all of what Noah told you.”

  “Well, then that means I can’t believe anyone, then doesn’t it? None of you have been all that truthful with me.” There’s venom in my voice and I’m speaking without thinking.

  “You need to get the whole story, babe.” Becca takes another step forward. It’s like they’re trying to placate me with the constant use of my name and terms of endearment.

  “I needed the whole story years ago.”

  “That’s the thing.” Becca looks sad. “You really, really don’t want the whole story.”

  There’s the squeal of tires on pavement and the roar of an engine, the thump of a car door slamming shut and footsteps slapping the pavement before our front door bursts open and Noah flies into our living room. Not literally. I suppose with all the shit that doesn’t make sense all of the sudden, I should be clearer. He’s running. Noah runs into my living room with his hands encircled by golden flame. My cavalry has arrived.

  And things go completely to shit.

  Noah doesn’t wait. There’s no talk. No questions. No perfectly executed moment where the villain meets the good guy and explains his reasoning for everything that’s happened. Noah comes in, guns blazing or rather, magic blazing. He mutters a few words and the flames on his hands launch at the trio standing in my doorway. While they duck out of the way, Noah mutters a few more words and something all light filled and gooey strikes me in the chest, knocking the wind out of me and … I don’t know … the thoughts out of me as well?

  It’s like a sigh into the wind and the truth falling from above. The light works its way across my chest and down my arms, wrapping down my torso and covering my legs and up my face and into my open mouth. My back arches and my arms fling out to the side. It feels like light is shooting from my eyes, my mouth, hell from every part of my body.

  Awake.

  The word is simple and it’s in my head and it may or may not be mine but it starts pulsing and echoing and repeating and I pick up the mantra and add my voice to it.

  Awake.
>
  It thunders through my head and my heart, opening my throat and I may be screaming but I can’t tell ‘cause there’s also a roaring. Wind in my ears and blood in my veins.

  Awake.

  There’s a word I should use, one I should know, one that I’m supposed to speak aloud. It’s on the tip of my tongue and the front of my thoughts and it’s the most important thing about me.

  I lower my face and open my eyes. My friends, or at least the people I thought were my friends, are in the middle of a battle. Magic is flying, purple clouds rolling around the room, bits of bright light zinging around after it. Noah is standing behind some kind of bright shield and Becca is chanting in some strange voice. Carter is down, curled up in the fetal position, his veins showing up all blue against his now gray skin, his dark eyes bulging as he chokes and sputters.

  Luke? Luke’s nowhere to be seen.

  And then there’s me. Standing still as a statue amongst it all, untouched by whatever magic is being flung around the room. I’m like a void in the chaos. Quiet amongst the commotion. I think I can fix that.

  The word that’d been so elusive just a moment ago is now completely clear in my head. I’ll speak it and change everything. Or I’ll stay quiet and everything can go back the way it was. I could let Becca win. Stand here and watch as she destroys Noah. She’ll spell me into forgetful servitude once again and I’ll finish out my days in need of my so called seeing-eye dog.

  I consider it. I’m not going to lie. There’s a part of me that would be just fine with putting my head back into the sand and never thinking about magic and covens and remnants ever again. But that part is small. The rest of me is on fire.

  Noah flings his sparkling magic and it sizzles through the air and strikes Becca on the shoulder. She screeches and crumples and I feel no sympathy. It’s in that moment that I make my decision.

  “Evigilabit.”

  I say the word through clenched teeth, as if it were a curse. As if it were poison and I was spitting it on the ground.

  There’s roaring again and it’s like wind in my veins. I feel alive and rushed and calm and that doesn’t at all make sense but what about tonight actually does make sense? There’s the familiar nudge, the nudge of my tiger, urging me to do something that will make me uncomfortable. It’s faint. Not nearly as strong as it used to be. Not nearly as potent. But she’s waking. I step forward and put a hand on Becca’s shoulder and kind of push with my mind until I feel her own mind give way.

  “Zoe!” Noah drops his magic shield and it just kind of dissipates as he surges through it, leaving nothing more than an after image that slowly fades away. “Don’t do it, Zoe. Get out of her head.”

  “She betrayed me.”

  “Yes. She did. But if you do what you’re about to do, then you will have betrayed yourself.”

  How can he know what I’m about to do when I don’t even know what I’m about to do? I pause and realize that my thoughts are in her head, shuffling through, pushing things around, a thief rifling through belongings, tossing them aside until she finds the one thing she wants. Becca is panting and sweating, her face screwed up tight. She’s in pain. I’m causing her pain. I tighten my thoughts, send a bolt of sharpness her way and she gasps. Her face goes white and her eyes flutter up into her head.

  I have the power to kill her. And I think that’s exactly what I’m about to do. I’m going to clench my magical fists and I’m going to slam them about inside her head until she’s nothing more than a dead husk that used to be the person I thought was my best friend.

  Lies.

  Deceit.

  Betrayal.

  My love for her teeters on the edge of hate.

  Noah tries to touch me and I swear to God, I actually snarl at him and he stops. “She’s lied to me my whole life!”

  “That doesn’t mean she deserves to die.”

  “She’s hidden me from the truth. Not just the truth of the world, but the truth about me! I’ve been locked up inside myself forever and it’s been torture. I’ve wanted out but every time I tried it didn’t work because if I said something I said it wrong or weird. Do you know what it is to live constantly aware of all the things you’re not? To second guess everything you say and even all the things you don’t say?” I drop my voice and speak through clenched teeth. “Do you know what it feels like to live totally in someone else’s shadow? To live on their whims? To care only about what makes them happy and nothing for what makes you happy?”

  “No, Zoe, I don’t.”

  “It’s hell! All my life I’ve only wanted to be normal and accepted and it turns out normal was a pipedream but maybe, just maybe, I could have been able to, I don’t know, talk to people! Not feel like a total pariah for my whole life! Except she” I spit the word and send another magical thrust at Becca, eliciting another gasp of pain, “hid me from myself. My life is empty because of her.”

  All the times before tonight that my magic tried to make itself known, it felt like Noah’s. Warm and golden like sunshine and happiness. Right now, it’s swirling around inside me and it’s green and bruised. It doesn’t roll like Becca’s or shine like Noah’s, it’s spikes and it’s red and it’s venom and fire. It doesn’t give off light, it devours light, just like I’m about to devour her.

  I rear back, gathering a great ball of energy that will suffocate and destroy and decimate and a smile smears itself across my face. I’m dark and it’s good. I’m mad and I have been for a long time and finally, finally, I get to let it out.

  Becca gasps and twists to look up at me. “Zoe, please…” Her voice is as small as I’ve felt for my entire life and I can’t wait to extinguish it.

  Noah’s eyes go wide and he points at me and screams: “Evigilabit!” A lance of golden light shoots from his fingertips and strikes me in the forehead. There’s a pop, another bubble of magic unlocking inside me, and the tiger roars awake. It feels like she jumps from my head, a thought come to life, and she lands on the floor in front of me.

  She turns her massive blue eyes on me and swings her great head back and forth. No. she’s telling me no.

  I’m confused. What does she mean ‘no?’ I’ve been mistreated my whole life and I’m about to get vengeance and she wants me to stop? She nuzzles her great head against my leg and calmness radiates up from her touch and I pull my thoughts out of Becca’s head if only just a bit. The relief on her face is nearly palpable. She sighs, and it speaks of pleasure, of the recession of agony.

  I look down at my tiger and I feel this great swirling ball of energy inside me, so many colors and different kinds of movement. There’s gold and red and purple and green and a blue so serene I swoon. Crazy thoughts flit through my mind:

  I am all things.

  I am all kinds.

  I am the beginning and the end.

  I think my eyes are rolling up in my head, but I can’t be sure. The world is spinning and I can’t make sense of what I see. I’m falling.

  Just before my head hits the floor, I see Noah racing to catch me, and just behind him is Luke, his eyes blazing a deep, blood red. They reach for me at the same time and there’s an explosion in my heart and then my head hits the floor with a resounding thud. First there’s stars. Then there’s darkness. Then there’s nothing.

  Chapter 17

  My dreams are like nightmares and truths all wrapped up into one. I am dark and I am light and I am right and I am wrong. I see both sides of the coin, or rather, all sides of the coin because there are as many different ways of seeing things as there are people in the world and besides, what you see is all a matter of perspective anyway.

  I swim in and out of consciousness for what feels like days. My soul is in flux. I am a coin tossed in the air, flipping and spinning, light glinting off both sides. At this point, nothing about me is decided and I’m nothing but possibility. But when I fall to the ground I will be what I am. Heads or tails. Right or wrong. There’s no going back now.

  That’s why, each time I surface, ea
ch time I feel my eyes fluttering open, each time I feel light warming my face and the touch of something cool on my forehead, I submerge myself back into the depths of my sub-conscious. I’d rather sleep away the rest of my days than open my eyes and face whatever it is I’m going to be when I wake.

  But that can only last so long. After a while, my body needs nourishment and my bladder needs emptied and my eyes refuse to stay closed. I blink awake and find myself in my own bed, in my own bedroom, in my totally ordinary apartment. I guess somehow, after everything that happened, I expected to wake up and find myself in some crazy magical village, where people wear white robes and braid their hair and speak in hushed tones.

  But I guess that’s just what happens in the movies.

  I’ve got guests. Three of them. Becca, Luke, and Noah. They’re surrounding my bed, leaning in, their faces totally obscuring my view of the rest of my room. Someone’s holding my hand, someone else is stroking my hair, and someone else places a reassuring hand on my arm. They smile in unison as I focus.

  “Hey,” Becca says in a long, drawn out, breathy whisper. “There you are.”

  It’s Luke who’s holding my hand. He gives it a little squeeze. “We were starting to worry about you.”

  Noah tucks one last strand of hair behind my ear and smiles. What the hell is this? Do they think I’ve forgotten? Did they try to cast another forget spell on me and don’t know that it didn’t work? ‘Cause I haven’t forgotten and if there was a spell, it totally misfired because I remember everything and none of these three people hovering over me are exactly my favorite person right now.

  I scramble into a sitting position. “You three were trying to kill each other just last night, and now you’re all hanging out together all buddy buddy like?” I flick away Becca’s worried hand. “Nope. Not falling for it.” My head throbs and the world spins as I sit upright, but I ignore it. No way am I showing any weakness around these three.