The room’s air grew thick and tainted, dark magic running through my skin and searching inside my mind. My lips quivered and my hands shook where they were still balled up at my sides. “Ryder, don’t…please.” It took every ounce of pride inside of me to say it. I could feel something searching my memories.
Too little.
Too late.
I was no longer in the room with the Fae.
I was in a worse place than the Fae club now, one I hadn’t been to since that ill-fated day. Tears swam in my eyes, but I refused to allow them to fall. I knew what was coming, knew it like the back of my hand. Voices I’d thought to never hear again laughed in front of me echoing around the walls.
“Darling, she’s too young. She needs time,” my mother’s gentle voice sang with laughter as her ocean blue eyes lit up with her smile.
“Nonsense, she’s old enough to dance with me Syrina,” my father’s deep baritone came seconds before his features smoothed out enough that I could see him motioning for the child who looked on with uncertainty. My father’s dark brown hair framed his face perfectly, as his eyes smiled with their perfect navy blue depths.
“Daddy, play our song!” The soft voice sent chills down my spine. That child was weak, pathetic.
I hated her.
I wanted to bury her.
And I had.
Long ago.
Journey’s Faithfully came on, his hand never touching the stereo. Magic, he’d been the Head Master for the Spokane Coven. He’d been my hero and my teacher. I turn my head to the left and watch as the child decides if she should go, unsure of her place.
“Come darling,” he said with so much love in his voice that a single tear drops from mine and the child’s eyes in sync.
My mother laughed and slowly walked over to the five year old I had been, her hand coming up to catch the tear and wipe it away with a smile. I was such a crybaby as a child, unsure of my place in the world, unsure of so many things that I shouldn’t have been.
The child moved closer, a small smile on her face. My father smiled warmly, welcoming her into his arms before allowing her to step upon his feet and dance with him. I watched them from where I sat on the thick blue carpet of my family home’s floor, my stomach flipping over with horror, regret and fear of what was to come.
I hated Ryder more for this, more than I did for his Fae fucking me on the highway.
My mother laughed, as she sat on the wooden chair she had always despised even though my father loved it. Her radiant smile is like a knife through my heart, I want to scream, to warn them but I know nothing I do now would change what is coming. I’ve relived this nightmare until I know every detail intimately.
The song ends and the child stays, she’s mesmerized by him—my father. He’s her everything. Always kissing scrapes and scaring the fears away. He’d always been there, always. Until they took him from me.
I look towards the door, I know what is coming. It always does.
The door shook from the impact of a heavy fist pounding on it, they both go stiff. The wards in the house pulse and flared with angry red lettering, warning them of evil intent. They knew. Every time I see this, they knew what was coming, what was happening and every time they are still helpless with what is in store for them. I want to scream, I need to. I don’t. I settle for shaking my head, it too is useless.
“Synthia, come with Mommy. I need you to be big for me, can you do that?” Her voice was low, and trembled.
Every. Fucking. Time.
I want it to end. I search wildly with my eyes for a way out. I hate this part. I don’t want to see it. “Stop this!” I cry to no avail.
“I can Mommy, I promise.”
I want to slap the child, make her blind. Make her not see it and then maybe, just maybe I’d have lived a normal life. One not haunted by this dream.
My mother opened the hidden door behind the fire grate. She stopped long enough to kiss the child on her cheek. She wanted to say something, but the door was splintering and crashing into the house as it was kicked in. “Go,” she whispered pushing the child through and closing it.
Five men swarmed the room, death in their eyes. Their strides. Fucking Fae. All of them, Dark and Light. Working together. Fucking Fae. One swung what looked like an oversized bat to my five year old mind, threatening my father. Now I knew it was called a cudgel, or a club.
“Where is the Gift?” The tallest one screamed, his voice shrill as it came out in layers.
“Gone,” my father said standing up tall, undeterred by that wooden club, or the deadly creatures he was facing. Pride swelled inside of me, inside of the child me. He was so brave.
“I can smell the Gift, show us or the pretty blonde gets to entertain us until you do,” the dark haired one growled his voice multilayered. His eyes were black and grey, marking him Fae, even at five, I could tell that they were evil.
I turn looking at where my child-self had been hidden, she should’ve turned away. She should have done something, fight, scream, give them something to use besides her parents. She but she just stood there behind the grate, watching with horrified terror. I glare at her, as if it would make her do something, this happened so long ago. Nothing changes, ever.
My mother screamed as they descended upon her, one held the ropes and attacked my father. I was their weakness, they knew it. They couldn’t fight, to use magic would have disrupted the house and to keep me safe they’d had it balanced far enough away from the leyline they needed to use for casting. In the end cost them their lives.
More screaming followed as my father was tied to the wooden chair and left helpless to do anything but watch as they tore into my mother. He tried fighting them to get to my mother. This was when it turned ugly. The sound of wood breaking bone is hard to forget, sickening, the crunch audible and unforgettable.
Blood was everywhere.
The sound he made when he tried to call for my mother took my breath away. I want this memory to stop. I don’t want to watch this. I sink the rest of the way to the floor. It’s too much.
Eight
The child didn’t know what was going on, only that the bad creatures were hurting her parents. Not that four of the Fae were raping her mother, stealing her mind and killing her soul. She couldn’t know that the grunts and grinding were torture to make her father talk. That her mother’s cries were from pain and pleasure alike.
Her father’s outrage covered some of the screams, but not all. Shock kept her eyes locked on the horror that was befalling them. The club smashing into her father over and over again, her mother screaming and moaning until it was nothing more than moans leaving her lips.
When the last one climbed off my mother I could finally see her beautiful face. She was beyond pain, her mind fractured. She begged for more, wanted more of what they had done to her. Bile rises in my throat, the child I was is just now figuring out what has happened.
My mother caressed herself, and lifted her white skirt for more. She begged them to finish her, to continue the assault. She was weak. My father yelled at her, trying to reach inside her mind, he was horrified by what she was doing. And yet he told her he did not blame her, and that he would always love her, he understood.
Another sick thud sounded from the club. This one smashed against his face, while I stood behind the grate and covered my mouth with my hands. Stupid child. Weak child. One fucking word from her and this could have been averted. One whisper from her lips and they could have died, just one…
Another sickening blow and with it the only sound left inside of the room is the Fae snickering, as they laughed and my mother’s inaudible gibberish as she begs them for their touch. I turn from where I am sitting on my knees, watching as the child I had been tilted her small blonde head and wiped away the useless tears that streaked down her face.
If I’d been stronger.
If I’d not been so weak.
I’d still have my parents.
I noticed a new Fae has arrived�
�not sure what kind he was and he appeared to be arguing with the other ones who had savaged my family, the taller Dark Fae that seemed like the group’s leader smiled unaffected by the newcomer’s outrage.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen here. We were only supposed to question them and retrieve the Gift! What have you done?” The new Fae argues angrily.
“Consider them questioned. The weak fool should have never agreed to retrieve the Gift. He brought this upon all of us by changing his mind! Maybe now everything will right its course and we will go to war as should have happened long ago.” He slid closer to my mother, “The next person who comes through the door, you will shoot them whore,” He smiled with his cold lifeless smile, and whispered his heartless words against my mother’s ear.
“I will,” my mother whispered softly. Her eyes flickered on the bloody lump that had been my father. He wasn’t dead, but my child-self didn’t know that, she was waiting.
I’m not sure how long I had waited in that hiding place or how much time had passed before I climbed out. It had felt like an eternity to me back then.
I watched as the Fae tore the house apart, they were looking for something, searching. Time passed, I had kept still not daring to move, or uncover my mouth where my hand was holding the scream at bay. I listened, the door closed and still I didn’t come out.
My mother was holding the gun, the one they gave her. The silver caught in the sun’s rays as it streamed through the windows. When I finally did climb out, she just watched me. I wasn’t sure if it was because I didn’t walk through the door that she hadn’t shot me right away.
She was alive, and yet her mind had been cleared of everything. She was a blank slate. No memories of us remained inside her mind. No recognition showed inside her eyes. Nothing. “Momma,” I whispered.
She turned and held out the gun and took aim at me. I didn’t back down, didn’t falter. “Momma, please!” My voice had shook. Stupid child can’t see that she is gone, couldn’t tell that her mother had been turned FIZ.
“Syn…” my father’s voice was shallow, the blood he was choking on floods from his lips.
“Daddy?” I moved towards him, but the gun followed me.
I stopped, glaring down the business end of the gun. My eyes had swum with tears. I could feel the life draining from my father, his breathing grew shallow with each attempt he made to get more words out.
“Never…forget Syn…secret…our secret…never forget,” his eyes rolled back in his head, the child struggled to understand his words, struggled to understand why he was staring at the ceiling. He’d died right in front of me that day. She didn’t understand death, she will.
What Secret? I never understood this part, or what he had told me.
She turned to go back to her mother, the gun still aimed at her. She was going to pull that trigger soon. Her finger was locked on the trigger, her void eyes seeing nothing. “Mommy please, I’ll be good!” The child wailed.
The gun went off.
I watched as the child’s hand flicked the air, and deflected the bullet.
It went back the way it had come from.
Blood splattered and covered my face. I stood there and watched her, without making a sound. The only sound inside the room was the sound of my heart beating with magic. I killed my mother. Instead of sending the gun out of her hands I killed her.
I look at the child I was, her shoulders drop as she falls to the floor trying to figure out how to fix her mother. In my mind I had thought I could, I’d been five. I found new words that day. Death, destruction, despair and most of all, I learned what it felt like to hate.
I watch as she struggles to pick everything up, slipping and sliding on the blood around the corpse. She hears a noise, the door. She throws up the protective shield, the one she should have thrown up to save them had she been stronger, faster. Smarter.
Marie screamed her voice was shrill as she took in the horrors of the room. I winced, as my child self-turned, covered in my mother’s blood. I didn’t let her into the protection of the spell and she wasn’t stronger than the child I had been.
Alden came in behind her, his own gasp grated on my nerves.
“Synthia, are you hurt?” Marie asked her voice low and clear.
“My mother is broken. Father is sleeping,” the five year old said, as if it was true but she knew better. She knew by then that they were dead. She can feel the loss of them inside of herself, where once there had been love, was now an empty void of death in its place.
“Did she do this?” Alden’s whisper made my skin crawl. This is the work of evil, even the child knew that much. In the end she will blame herself, because father had been a warrior, and he’d died to protect her.
“They were looking for something, was it me?” The child asked with eyes too old for a five year old.
“Alden, enough. She’s in shock,” Marie whispered as if the child wouldn’t hear.
I pulled back, shoving the memories of what happens next away…my hands ripping into my memories as if I could shred them. I won’t relive the next part—taking their souls. At five I was stronger than any other Witch. History would record the next details of what transpired. I’d be a lab rat for Alden for years after the deaths of my parents because of it.
“Enough, we risk damaging her mind if you continue,” Ryder says softly his voice penetrating the illusion.
The room turns white again, my body shaking with violent spasms. I ground my teeth together, wanting to kill them for seeing what happened.
“Interesting, they were looking for something,” the Fae behind me said.
Dristan cleared his throat. “I don’t recognize any of them, they look—”
“Enough,” Ryder interrupted sharply and glared at him.
I blinked, bringing the room back into focus as I fought for air and stood before I found my balance. My chest heaved from the pain of reliving the worst day in my life. My eyes flickered to Ryder’s golden gaze. He looked almost puzzled and disturbed by what he had seen. I turned to push past his men, but I was boxed in as if they knew I would leave. I hated what I found in their eyes. Pity.
“Move,” I snarled, wanting to get the fuck out of here, to go home and curl into a ball until the feeling of hate and hopelessness passes. It normally takes days.
“She was a victim,” Zahruk said softly.
“I am. Not. A. Victim!” I growled low and clearly pronounced each word.
“No? Then what are you?” He asked, angered by my words.
“I’m a survivor.”
Zahruk bowed his dark blonde head. I’d never allowed myself to be a victim from that day forth. I’d fought hard and was best in the class I graduated with from the Guild academy. Marie had been there every step helping me, cheering me on. Alden had blamed me, but with good reason.
I’d pulled their souls and refused to allow them to leave me. Fear was a bitch. It could make you do things you never thought yourself capable of. I’d pulled their souls before I had known what I was doing. It had been grief which had made me act hastily, mixed with young age and too much power. I’d ended up branded with two stars upon my shoulders as a reminder of my first failure in life.
“She’s damaged,” another inside the room said as if I wasn’t standing right there.
You have no idea, damaged makes me look normal.
“She is, but can she do the job we need her to?” Dristan asked.
I hated that they had ripped these memories from my mind. And yet this time when they had replayed it, my father’s words had not been so silent when it had happened my mind wouldn’t grasp what he’d said.
“Fuck you, fuck your job Ryder. I’m out of here,” I growled and turned with every intention of walking out.
“Call the Guild, get Alden on the phone,” Ryder said smoothly.
I exhaled and closed my eyes slowly, fighting for composure. “I’m damaged, others can use glamour,” I offered him a solution to his problem.
�
��I don’t want others, I need the best and you came highly recommended by Marie.”
I blinked and turned looking at him over my shoulder. “Marie is dead,” I snapped angrily.
“She is, but she was a friend of my fathers,” Ryder supplied.
“Find someone else,” I barked, wanting out of the room, I felt as if the walls were closing in around me.
“Call the Guild,” he snapped at the Fae closest to the desk that sat against the back barren wall of the room.
“You just fucked with my head! What do you expect me to do? Kiss your fucking boots, Fairy? Wrong. Fucking. Girl!”
“Quite the opposite, I think you are the right girl for the job,” he interjected.
I wanted to tell him where to stick it, but he knew from Alden, that if I didn’t take this job it would be my last one. I could run, live by myself but I’d probably be signing Adam and Larissa’s death warrants too. That was something I wouldn’t do. And he knew it, which made him dangerous.
“I have a contract written up. You will sign it.”
I glared at him without confirming, or denying I would be signing anything.
“You sign it, I will not yield to you Ryder,” I snapped.
His lips tightened, “Oh but I think you will yield. You will do more than just yield to me,” he snapped his fingers and the door to the room opened. “You will lie down and yield even it if includes you begging me to allow it.”
“Syn,” Adam’s voice pushed me over the edge, my anger boiling over the rim. Startled, I looked at him sharply. How long had he been here and how much had he seen?
“You asshole,” I snarled at Ryder uncaring who heard, or who pulled a knife, I was ready to attack.
“Syn, be careful. Alden is signing his own contract right now. It’s why I was sent over here.” Adam advised at my side.
“I bet he is,” Alden could count his fucking days. They were numbered by forcing me into this damn corner. It seemed like he had been abusing his power since Marie had been killed. It was widely rumored that he’d been taking jobs from the highest bidder and that was against the laws of the Guild. It had been created to protect the human race, not line our pockets.
Fighting Destiny Page 8
