I wouldn’t let them take her body just yet. I broke free of Simon. He dropped me because the touch of me was burning still. I crawled, shaking off the electric jolt but still all wired up, my skin still sizzling to touch, Simon cursing as I scrambled away. I bent down and I held Beth, all shattered bones and blood so thick it was like corn syrup in her hair.
Lady Veronica was vicious and hollered to Simon to get Jones. I looked up from Beth through tears could see Simon and two other guards tackle Jones to the floor and tie him up. Lady Veronica had caught on that he wasn’t one of them. Jones looked at me with his teeth bared and his cheek on the floor. He mouthed the words: It’s ok.
As I held Beth, my fiery hot hands slowly transferred their glow to her, and in less than a few moments, Beth’s broken body disintegrated like golden dust that slipped through my hands like the sands of time in an hourglass. I hung my head and cried hard into my chest.
The guards donned gloves like oven mitts now, but the more they pulled me, the more I resisted. I didn’t care about the rules anymore. Beth had just been a child. Jones tried to stop them—I heard his angry pleas as two guards hauled him away—but that just spurred the rest of the guards more. I could hear sound of the spraying on the dying flame wall with extinguishers through my wails. Then the one who had beaten Beth the most viciously, Simon, struck me in the head with his club.
The world faded into stars.
Chapter Seven
When I woke, I was tied to a bed with thick rubber straps that had no give in their buckling. The room was pitch black. I had been left here, but for how long, I had no idea. I was beside myself being tied down again. I wrestled and squirmed.
I couldn’t move.
I lay back, panting, my head pounding, and remembered what had happened and why I was here.
Beth.
That poor girl. She had not deserved to die in that way. I cried and cried all through the night. Tears and snot coated my face. I was so mad at the guards for beating her to death, but at the same time, I felt so guilty.
My friend Beth, my sweet dear Beth…an angel in these cloaks. A piece of me left with her that day.
I didn’t care about the rules anymore, about the tricks I learned to stay above this. I wanted to be numb. I longed not to care.
Emotions are not simple. They have short-term memories, so every new sorrow does not borrow from its past. Nor will it be remembered tomorrow. Each new pain always feels so fresh and raw, like nothing has ever broken your heart to this capacity before. Maybe that’s the only way you can heal each time. You can’t give up. This is life; this is how you live. In the depths of the down, you struggle to remember through sensory alone, to have something to compare to this newborn pain to, to give some comfort that yes, you have been hurt before like this, that there would be some familiarity in that, but no, you are alone here with this new excruciating heartache. Sensory experience left invisible scars but no memories.
You need to live and learn from this and by God you better do it now. Get up, go on.
I prayed in those lonely hours like I had never paid homage in my life. I prayed for Beth’s soul, for my family, for my life. Was this how it would end for me? Being left here in the dark to starve or dehydrate? I felt the bonds were like vices, pinching my skin raw with every movement I made. I cursed the day I’d come to Shadow Hills. I had signed my name; I had given my person over to the care of these people who wanted guinea pigs and dolls, people that had no humanity. Their business here was torture. They thrived on death. What they did with our corpses after was another sin in itself, I’m sure.
At least I had spared Beth’s body any more trauma.
I was in an endless horror of nightmares that was real. Sleep never came within these walls; there was no such blessed relief.
I thought of Jasper mostly, vividly and full of colour. I thought of his smile that said a thousand truths. I thought of his eyes, hazel and warm from an inner fire that burned the flame that lit my life. I thought of Hunter, with his snowy soft coat, and Betty, flipping from one form to another. My family; all of their bright faces. How I had undermined everything. They were preparing for war with hell, and I took off and became a new prisoner inside a different hell.
Then the awful face of Lady Veronica entered my mind.
I remembered her face when I had grabbed her throat. How had I been able to use magic on her? More importantly, how had I been able to use Jasper’s element, Fire? My head hurt, and I was incapable of making sense out of anything.
I was mad at myself too. I keep giving myself over to a new enemy without a second thought. When would I ever learn not to trust anyone or anything?
Chapter Eight
The lights came on all of a sudden with a neon flash that burned my eyes. The door squeaked open, and a blast of light came in. I was blinded and could only hear hurried footsteps shuffling around me as the air changed with the scents of sweat and copper and a slight, sweet odour of booze.
I felt myself being sat up with a low whirring sound; then the bed shuddered to a stop once I was upright. As my eyes adjusted, a faceless nurse put a stick in my mouth that tasted like a thousand dirty mouths, grooves carved in it from the multiple teeth that had tried to snap it in half. A crown was placed on my head. A doctor I didn’t recognize turned on a machine. I heard the gears whirring and power surging through wires that were just waiting for the opportunity to come into my head. I swore through my gritted teeth and struggled against my bondage.
This was actually happening.
I was in the Chair.
Another visitor came in through the door. This one I did recognize: Lady Veronica.
She folded her hands in front of her waist, a pleased smile twitching at her mouth. I scowled at her.
“Ah, Nicole.” She slowly walked around the Chair and came around to face me again. “I told you when you got here to follow the rules and do as we say for your own safety.”
I felt sick as I realized she was right; she had said those exact words to me, but I had not taken them in the connotation she implied.
“You have proved to be a supreme danger to yourself and to others,” she said. A long-fingered hand drifted up to her neck as she adjusted her collar. I could see the brand of my fingers from when I’d had her scrawny throat in my grasp. I felt a small sense of accomplishment that I had maimed her. She looked uncomfortable and now took a turn for vengeance. “I’m truly sorry things have to end this way.” She feigned disappointment as she stood in front of me, taking my pathetic situation in. Then she clapped her hands and resolved herself. She practically skipped away. “But such is life.” She nodded to the doctor. “You can begin Nicole’s treatment now.” She walked over to Simon, who was standing guarding the door, beefy arms folded, his mouth snickering.
I struggled to no avail. There was nothing I could do here. I looked around for Jones, but he was nowhere in sight. I shook in absolute fear and tried to slow my heart, or I would surely lose my mind before it was taken—which maybe wasn’t such a bad thing. I looked around for someone or something that could save me from this horrendous predicament, but I was alone.
The nurses busied themselves with locating wires and hooking them into the machine and trailing it to the chair where I was tied. The doctor jotted down notes on a clipboard, not daring to meet my eyes. Lady Veronica whispered with Simon. This was it. It was another day at the office for these people, but these were my last moments with my own mind. How awfully lonely I felt. I spit the stick out of my mouth. I took deep breaths and closed my eyes through tears that sprung out with a sting, and I said an ancient prayer. The words came to me from someplace I had forgotten. Words of protection and faith. A prayer for peace, strength, and survival. The nurses gasped.
I opened my eyes and noticed my skin was glowing like it had the night Jasper and I had made up after I was revived from my coma, and as it had earlier when Beth was murdered in front of me. I looked at my wrists bound in those unbreakable bonds that h
ad been choking off my magic but that couldn’t seem to stop Fire. They seemed so meaningless all of a sudden, I didn’t want them there anymore, so I decided to cast them aside. The metal became malleable and slowly slinked away, too thin to stay on my body. They fell to the floor in a puddle of mush. My head flew back as power came at me full throttle now. It felt electrifying and hot. I had to wonder if someone had turned on the machine that fed the Chair, but it also felt delicious—almost like a shiver up my spine times one hundred.
The nurses were staring at me in startling horror, glancing between my glowing body and the machine.
I felt a warmth inside of me that I had not known here within the walls of Shadow Hills, except for when I’d been able to get my hands around that woman’s neck. I recognized it and welcomed it. I felt a smile creep over my lips, which cracked with the forgotten gesture.
It was magic. More importantly, it was a part of Jasper, and it gave me hope. I understood it somewhat now. He must have shared it with me. I had no idea how, nor did I care at the moment—as long as I had something to give me a fighting chance! I remembered Jasper’s hesitation to use Fire briefly, and I remembered the sensation of not being able to control the rage. I let it come over me anyways. I knew it was my only chance at survival and that I had to set it free.
I looked to the machine and the cables and wires. I could feel the sparks and static, the power and voltage thriving within it, and I felt a need arise then to destroy it and suck the power from it.
This machine, used on countless victims, had no mercy—no emotion. I would show it the same courtesy.
I felt the rage about Beth; this place of horror and the hopelessness of being locked up again; the tortures of the Needle Twins; the battery and abuse of Simon; the evil, unconquerable Lady Veronica. It was all burning inside me, and I had to let it out.
I sat forward abruptly, my skin burning against the straps that held me in place. My shortened ginger hair became a cascade of flame that burned brightly. I felt a scorching power release itself from my hands and heart. It felt so rewarding—so perfect—after months of nothing but defeat and abuse.
I let it all out.
Chapter Nine
The machine exploded and propelled itself backward into one of the Needle Twins, the shorter one, I think her name was Lydia, who was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sparks and debris spit out from the machine as it deconstructed from the inside, Lydia perishing with it. Her taller sister, Francheska, cried out as she watched her sister burn up with the electronics. I think she realized all too quickly there was nothing she could do to stop the carnage. She turned to me, her teeth baring, as she came running at me.
I held up a hand and she went flying back into the exploding machine. I held her there and pinned her into the fire. She folded all into herself with the heat.
Lady Veronica was screaming at the doctor and the other nurses. They all left, scrambling and tripping over each other to get out. They were smart, ignoring their matron’s commands. I let them leave.
They weren’t who I wanted.
I began to rise from my bonds, the leather straps falling to the floor like crisp toast. The thunder in my ears closed out all other sounds. Lady Veronica seemed small of a sudden. She shrank at my power.
I was going to give her everything I had left.
A doctor ran to my side and plunged a needle into my vein, pressing up through my arm. I shrieked as the power of Fire and glow of my skin diminished with the distraction of a dilapidating drug as it entered my system. I fell to the floor, rolling around as my consciousness quickly faded. I reached out for anything to help me defend myself, but a strong-heeled shoe stepped on my wrist. I looked up and could see the ferocious Lady Veronica standing above me, a smile attaching itself to her cruel mouth. My eyes rolled back in my head, and I succumbed to sleep.
Chapter Ten
I was faintly aware of the medical army cleaning up the debris of the machine, coming and going from the room, removing the bits and parts of the burned-up nurses.
The room stank like burned-up evil and filth.
I was heavily drugged, living in a fog of haze with no ladders. I couldn’t believe I had been able to exert a power so strong when I’d thought I had nothing left in me.
I had used Fire.
I had used it for destruction, but the Needle Twins were an evil to be eliminated. I was completely worn out. I couldn’t have moved even if I hadn’t been bound down.
They left me again, only coming to drug me up more when the effects were wearing off. When I had some strength back, I became brutal and formidable. No guard came near me without full gear. I was moved to a shallow cold-water bath to keep my temperature from causing fire violence again. I would tire out pretty quickly.
My magic began to come from madness. I was falling into that familiar dark. I was giving in to what I’d promised myself I wouldn’t ever become again. I was also going insane. I didn’t care anymore. After all, what hope was there now for me—for any of the patients at Shadow Hills?
Lady Veronica had won.
When I realized there was no hope, I couldn’t help but wonder why they were keeping me alive. I had no idea. I knew that Lady Veronica would never let me leave this place. I would never see the daylight again, or feel grass on my bare feet or wind in my hair. I would never find my Earth element again.
I would never heal and become a better woman—a true witch, a loving wife—as I once had been. That time seemed so long ago.
Now I couldn’t even use Fire.
My body ached from the exertion of the fight. It took a lot out of me to use that Fire. I thought about Jasper. This must have been how he felt every time he used his element.
Jasper.
I closed my eyes, and I was back there, beside him on a blanket down by the river in our favourite spot. Hunter and Betty ran carefree through the fields, chasing bumblebees. Jasper ran his fingers through my long hair and smiled his signature smile.
I knew then that it was a dream.
“What are ya doing, Bubs?” Jasper whispered with the tone only the people who know you completely use. It made you humble and straightened you out. “I know you needed the Fire, but you have to be careful. It could completely consume you.”
“I can’t fight anymore, Jasper. I am so tired…” I broke down, crying softly into his strong shoulder built from years of physical work in his carpentry. He patted my back and spoke into my tears.
“You can because you have to. Where did my strong girl go?” I looked up at him, and he kissed my eyes.
“I want this to be true. I want to just be here with you right now.”
“You are, Nic. You have never left us. You’ve got this. Get the hell out of there, whatever it takes.” Jasper looked off with concern written on his beautiful face as storm clouds darkened the skies. His brow furrowed in disdain.
“Just a little while longer.” I snuggled into him, wanting to hide from the world.
He pulled away from me and grabbed my arms. “Nic, you have to go now!”
I jumped as I recovered consciousness and was too suddenly back in my straps in the bathtub at the institute of Shadow Hills. I shivered. I heard footsteps clamouring and keys jingling in the hall. Then my door banged open.
They stole me in the night, just before the break of day, when I felt my magic and strength were at their weakest. They removed me from the cold bath and placed me on a bed and tied me down with new rubber-banded braces, thick and unyielding. The bed was hard and cold. My limbs thrashed; my screams went unheard. They wheeled me to a new room. The Chair and its tortures would at least never pose a threat to anyone here again. But what other tortures would they come up with? I could feel Lady Veronica somewhere in the fortress, seething that I had destroyed her pets, the Needle Twins. Wondering what to do with me. All I knew was that it wouldn’t be good.
I was losing this battle. They would do what they wanted and I didn’t think I had the power to stop the
m now.
I thought of Beth.
Is this how it was when they took your life? This absolute assurance that it would be over now?
This new room was fitted with all kinds of gadgets and gizmos. I looked around in fear. If they couldn’t use the Chair, what would they do to me?
I was left alone again with nothing but my thoughts.
Chapter Eleven
One evening, the traffic in my room became steady. A train of nurses and doctors coming in and out, all with downcast eyes, seeming to indicate that if they didn’t see me, I wasn’t really here. Or maybe they were afraid after what I did to the Needle Twins.
I yelled out questions to the doctor and his clan of nurses now standing by my bed. No one would answer me. But then again, they never did in this place. The not knowing, the answerless air—that was the horror that filled me.
A nurse came in with a wad of cloth and shoved it into my mouth before she scurried away. Still no one else looked at me! Did none of these people see this?
When I clued in to their dialogue, I realized these were students of the medical profession.
“If we open her skull and get into her brain, we can surgically remove or deactivate the trigger points that cause migraines and also affect her moods. The patient is extremely volatile and cannot live a normal life,” the doctor explained with talkative hands. I had never seen him before.
“Doctor, these trigger points you speak of—won’t they affect her motor skills, coordination, or perceptions? Perhaps her very way of thinking?” a bright young girl piped up. So young, so new, and still trying to impress. Did none of them realize this was against my will? No one would drop a glance my way still.
“Sadly, yes; I’m afraid this is the last we will know of what is Nicole Weston.” The doctor feigned sympathy. “But as she is a danger to herself and society, we have a moral obligation to act. Not to mention she has signed herself over to the care of Shadow Hills and also agreed on paper she would forego any authority on herself.” He showed my consent letter to the group and they all nodded.
The Lightning Witch (Elements Book 2) Page 4
