Ravages

by Kit Bladegrave

  Chapter 2

  Sabella

  Rain pattered the window hard as the storm raged on through the night. Each drop of water slamming and exploding into the glass.

  I watched, fascinated, pressing my hand to that glass. It was cold, so cold, just like how I felt all the time now.

  Cold and darkness.

  It crept into my mind over and over again until it was all I could see. Lightning lit up the sky and the massive thunderheads rolling in from the east, or west, I couldn’t keep it straight anymore.

  Hadn’t for a while now actually. Everything was so fuzzy, like I could reach out and feel that fuzz along the edge of my thoughts, and then there was nothing there at all. Just endless voices and visions and dreams, nightmares that never ended.

  A door opened behind me and I refused to turn away from the glass.

  “Sabella, time for your morning meds,” Nurse Beth said as she entered my room.

  “No pills today,” I whispered, intently staring at the water dripping down the glass.

  “We’ve talked about this,” she insisted gently. “You have to listen to your doctor or he’s not going to let you have the room with the window.”

  I growled in annoyance. “He won’t take it away from me.”

  “He won’t if you do as instructed. The pills make you better, remember?” She rattled the paper cup and approached, holding it out to me with a plastic cup of water. “Don’t make it difficult.”

  “I told you, that wasn’t my fault.”

  She sighed heavily, and held out the cup again for me to take. “Sabella, you know you can’t always blame your actions on the voices in your head. You were making such good progress, remember? What changed?”

  I rested my forehead to the window, turning my back on her. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  They never did. They never listened to me, not anymore.

  In the beginning, things were different. I was different. I saw things, but I knew the difference between reality and the dreams.

  For as long as I could remember, this home on the hill had been my sanctuary. Where I was safe. Where I knew I could always find my way back to who I was… or at least who they told me I was.

  Sabella Doe, no last name. Never a last name.

  No parents, no siblings. No one, but myself and the voices, the visions to keep me company.

  “Sabella, please take your meds. I don’t want to put you in solitary today.”

  I shuddered at the idea of being locked in that room, no window, no way to see the storm moving in.

  I whipped around and took the cup, throwing back the pills as fast as I could and chugging the water.

  I opened my mouth to prove they were gone and she nodded, satisfied.

  Too bad they didn’t work, not anymore. Nothing did.

  She was still talking, but I wanted to watch the storm. Thunder shook the stone foundations and rumbled closer and closer, like a train thrown off its tracks and rushing towards us instead.

  The harder I stared, the more the shapes of the clouds changed until they weren’t clouds at all.

  I blinked, trying to clear my head, but it was too late. Far too late to stop what was coming.

  I drifted, blowing like a raindrop in that storm outside, caught in the crazy whirlwind of shadows and screams. I winced, but when I opened my eyes, I wasn’t in my room.

  Voices whispered behind me, strange growls and mutterings in words I didn’t understand.

  The hair on my arms prickled and I smashed my hands to my ears, wishing it would stop. More screams, and then two voices I did understand.

  “No! Let her go! Get your hands off her. I’ll rip you to pieces!” the man growled furiously as he yanked at the bars holding him back. “Kate!”

  The woman, she struggled and cursed, but the things that held her… nightmarish things… made only of shadows with flaming red eyes and sharp nails digging into her arms.

  She winced and flailed, but they didn’t let her go.

  The man, his face shifted behind the bars and I staggered back, afraid of what he turned into.

  But I couldn’t run, couldn’t get out.

  I shut my eyes, humming loudly to myself as I tried to drown out the woman’s screams and the man’s bellowing that did not sound human.

  I hunkered down and felt the world shift around me.

  When I opened my eyes again, a wolf stood before me, huge, with knowing hazel eyes that peered straight through me. Its fur was dark, reds and browns, its chest white, stark against the rest of it. And on its right shoulder, a strange bare patch of skin that looked jagged and torn.

  I wasn’t sure why I did it, but I reached out a hand to touch it, wanting to feel how soft that fur was beneath my fingertips… then the wolf took off as if startled.

  I chased after it, ignoring the tree branches swatting me in the face.

  This was real, it had to be!

  I ran faster and faster, but never gained any ground. The wolf was there, I could just see the flicker of its tail as it darted in and out of the trees…

  I screamed as suddenly the ground was gone and I was falling, falling into nothingness!

  I thrashed as I fell, trying to catch hold of something, anything, but then my body was stuck, suspended in mid-air. Beneath me, I heard the screams of the dead, so many, so many reaching hands trying to get to me. I clutched at nothing, screaming as a wave of darkness rose far in the distance.

  I wanted out of this place! I need to leave before it reached me! I turned myself around and around, but then I’ was falling again, except I didn’t land in the dead.

  Something soft was beneath me and Nurse Beth was saying my name, over and over again. Dr. Tim was there, too, but I couldn’t see them, couldn’t see anything except the darkness.

  “We need to leave!” I yelled at them, trying to get free, but there were straps holding me down. “No! You don’t understand! It’s coming for us, we can’t stay here! We can’t!”

  “Sabella, you need to calm down,” Dr. Tim said sternly. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

  “But it’s coming, it’s going to kill us all! And the woman, he’s hurting her,” I cried, tears streaking down my cheeks. “Please… please just make it stop!”

  I slammed my head back into the pillow, wanting to forget what I had seen, what I could still hear echoing inside my head. Whatever had that woman, it was going to hurt her… maybe kill her, and all I could do was watch.

  I mumbled her name under my breath over and over and over until my body gave into exhaustion and I collapsed onto the mattress.

  Dr. Tim was giving orders to the nurses, but I didn’t listen. I felt the bed sink and his hand pressed a cool cloth to my forehead.

  “Sabella, you have to remember, none of what you see is real,” he told me gently.

  He cared about me, I knew he did. Told me quite a few times I was like a daughter to him, one he never had a chance to have.

  I liked Dr. Tim, but he didn’t believe me. I shook my head, whispering her name until he sighed and said he was going to leave me to rest.

  “Kate,” I breathed into the stillness of my room as the storm raged on outside. “Have to find her… have to stop the darkness… before it’s too late.”

  Chapter 3

  Sabella

  I dozed, in and out all day long and into the night. Beth came and let me out of my restraints twice to use the bathroom and try to eat, but I wasn’t hungry. Not now. I whispered the name a few more times and she watched me worriedly as she left me in my room again, but this time, I was allowed to walk around.

  The storm was gone, but there was another one brewing, I felt it. Deep inside my mind, I saw it coming closer and closer.

  If only they would listen to my warnings, we might all survive. Might being the operative word.

  I giggled to myself as I circled my room, running my fingers along the walls, and trying to think about anything other than the woman. The wolf. I liked him. I knew it wa
s a him, that look in his eyes said he was strong, a leader.

  And that he searched for something.

  The wolf, I hadn’t seen him before. I wanted to see him again, but never before had I been able to control where my mind went. What I see or when. It just does what it wants and leaves me to trail behind, kicking and screaming. I hopped up onto my bed, sat with my legs crossed, and scrunched my eyes shut as tight as I could.

  I thought of the wolf, his fur and those eyes. I pictured him before me again, running through the trees of some forest I’d never seen before, one that probably wasn’t even real.

  I held my breath until my lungs burned and I was ready to give up when I felt myself thrown and hit the ground hard with a grunt.

  Leaves crunched under my hands and twigs were stuck in my hair, but when I lifted my eyes, I saw him.

  He stood before me, those eyes watching me closely as I scrambled to my feet.

  It worked!

  I hopped up and down, clapping my hands to see him again. I waited for him to take off, but he remained exactly where he was.

  He sat down on his haunches and huffed at me as if trying to say hello.

  “Hello right back,” I whispered in awe.

  Slowly, I reached out a hand to this beast who practically stood as tall as me when he sat. I bit the inside of my cheek, willing him to stay put, and sighed in wonder when my hand reached his shoulder.

  I scratched around the bare spot there, amazed at the soft feel of his fur. I could’ve lain against it and stayed there forever, but suddenly he was on his feet, ears laid back against his head as he growled.

  He stared at something behind me and as I turned, he placed himself in front of me, protecting me.

  But the ache in my gut told me there was no protecting me, not from this.

  The only thing I saw when I turned around was the tidal wave, crashing through the trees and headed straight for us.

  There was no escape, not this time.

  I screamed as it swallowed us both up and didn’t stop screaming well into the next day, not caring what Dr. Tim or Beth told me about what I saw not being real.

  It was real and it was coming for us both.

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Kit’s other series, Ever Witch.

  Mortal Raised Excerpt

  Being a foster kid would be worse than finding out you’re a witch, right? Being mortal-raised is worse than being human, right?

  Everest thought she had it rough when she had to drop out of high school to raise her brother Mason while her mother was AWOL. Except that Everest’s mother spells AWOL as alcohol.

  No problem for the resourceful Everest—get a job at a museum, raise Mason, and pretend to the world that her mother is still around.

  Until she almost gets killed. No problem, right? Until the cops get involved.

  Then things snowball. Threats of foster care, a mysterious uncle, and then finally, a school for witches.

  Wait, what?

  Chapter 1

  Everest

  My alarm went off at six, and my arm flailed out from under the covers, searching for it, to shut the thing off before I chucked it against the wall.

  The incessant beeping was enough to make me grind my teeth in annoyance before I finally smacked the top of the old clock and it gave one final beep in protest before going silent.

  I wanted to stay tucked beneath the blankets and keep pretending the world didn’t exist, but that would be too easy.

  And my life lately was not easy.

  I sat up, stretching my arms over my head, and rubbed my face. I climbed out of my bed, well, out of my mother’s bed. Mom had been missing for about three months—not that it was unusual. Frankly, I preferred it when she wasn’t around. It meant I got my own bed. But three months was pretty excessive. Usually, she was only gone a few weeks at a time, gone on some binge or other.

  We had it out a while back. I didn’t care what she did to her life anymore as long as she didn’t bring it back home to me and my kid brother. The fight had gotten so bad the cops showed up, but we were both well trained at knowing when to play nice for the public. She didn’t want to wind up in jail, and I didn’t want a social worker coming to take me or my brother away. That story would only end badly.

  My feet hit the ground, and I felt the late hours I had worked the night before pressing down on my shoulders. It was necessary, though. I had picked up an extra shift last night at the museum, which was fine at the time, but my body groaned and protested with each move as I forced myself to a standing position, and I started to regret it.

  Nothing like working twelve hours, coming home to help your little brother with his homework, getting in bed close to one, and then waking up before the sun to get ready to do it all over again.

  I dragged my feet to the hall bathroom of our tiny two-bedroom apartment. The place looked tidier than it ever had now that Mom had been gone long enough for me to have an opportunity to straighten up. It had gone from an episode of Hoarders to somewhat livable conditions. I could see the floor in every room now, and the bathroom was sparkling clean, something it hadn’t been in forever.

  I was still finding evidence of her alcoholism in cabinets, behind the toilets, in the toilet tanks, inside a few of the wall vents, and most creatively yet, a stash of mini bottles taped to the underside of the kitchen drawers. Each time, I drained them and dumped them. There had to be hundreds of dollars’ worth of booze I’d dumped down the drain so far. I never let Mason see, my brother, but he wasn’t a stupid kid. He knew Mom was a drunk.

  Two days ago, I’d nearly lost it completely realizing the stash of money I had been saving up, tucked back away in my underwear drawer had lost about half of its worth.

  I could tolerate her drinking, but stealing the money I earned? How much worse could she get?

  One of these days, the place would be booze-free and cleaned from top to bottom, just maybe when I wasn’t so dog-tired from working too much. If she ever came back, she’d be pissed, but she’d just have to deal with it.

  Once I reached the bathroom, I let the door close behind me and flicked on a light.

  “Ew,” I said to my image in the mirror. “One of these days, we’ll wake up looking decent, right?”

  I smirked bitterly at my reflection, dreaming of that day and knowing it was far-fetched.

  I looked like a hot mess. There was no skipping the shower today. My long dark hair hung limp and dirty in my face and made me look like something straight out of a horror movie. That, coupled with my unusual, cat-like, yellowish-green eyes added to the illusion of something demonic being pulled out of bed.

  I poked at the bags beneath them while the water heated up as much as it could in this crummy apartment. I swore one of these days I’d wake up to find wrinkles and grey hairs sprouting from my head.

  A quick shower followed by a good blow dry, and my hair looked somewhat passable. I threw on some cheap, dollar-store makeup, only because one jerk at the museum, a supervisor, told me I needed to start looking more presentable at work. I had a feeling it was more for his benefit than the guests. He’d leered at me the entire time he said it before huffing and stalking off like he owned the place.

  How presentable does a glorified janitor really need to be?

  I cursed under my breath as I attempted the eyeliner; it sure would have been nice to have a mom around who could have taught me how to do crap like this.

  I was seventeen, and I had never really learned how to correctly put on eyeliner. I poked my eye and cursed, clutching at it as it teared up. I should’ve taken the job at the mechanic down the road, but they wouldn’t hire someone who wasn’t eighteen. Denim, t-shirts, and covered in oil would suit me a lot better than working in a museum where everything was sparkling marble floors and polished glass cases.

  I passed on the lipstick and just swabbed on a bit of lip gloss, then spied my uniform hanging on the door of the bathroom—freshly ironed. I smiled because I sure didn’t do that. T
hrowing it on, I looked at myself in the mirror. Tight black pants and a short sleeve, black button-up. A set of keys hung around my waist, and my ID badge sat on my left shirt pocket. The makeup actually looked half-decent, and I had a good laugh for a few minutes.

  I never put much stock into looks and for good reason. Mom was a beauty and thought she’d be taken care of her whole life because of it. And look where she wound up.

  Finished in the bathroom, I left and hurried into the sad excuse for a kitchen to make something healthy for Mason. One of us had to eat well, and it wasn’t going to be me. He needed it more than I did. Most days, I survived on a granola bar and the free coffee in the breakroom at work. Horrible diet for someone my age, but I saved the money for groceries for Mason.

  I skimmed through the fridge. Eggs and some fruit were about all we had until I got paid again and could get to the store. I had to pay Mason back for what he did for me. He apparently got up at some point during the night to wash and iron my uniform for me, so I figured I could at least provide the kid with a good breakfast before school.

  Tears came to my eyes at how quickly he had to grow up. I wiped them away as fast as they came, not willing to let him see me cry.

  I opened the freezer just to check, and saw we still had a few mini pancakes left. They were his favorite, so I laid them out on a plate and popped them in the microwave. I started a pot of coffee, I was done growing anyway so who cared if I stunted my growth anymore. Caffeine was the only way I was going to get through this day.

  As the machine gurgled and the microwave beeped a few minutes later, I heard the bathroom door close and knew Mason was awake. He was a good kid, way too good for Mom. When the door opened again, I forced a smile to my sleepy, worried face. Mason picked up on everything too quickly, but that didn’t mean I was going to make it easy for him to know how stressed out I was at Mom being gone for so long without even a phone call.