What did they mean? I knew who I was, didn't I? I was Rosalia Mallory, a girl left on the doorstep of our town's foster agency to find a new home. From there I went through three homes before at the age of 16 instead of having to live in the group h...
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Hunter's POV:
She lies there for hours. Just lying on the bottom of that large marble bathtub with her eyes closed, on hand limply grasped in mine where I refuse to let go. Several times her hand starts to slip since the bubbles don't seem to disappear, nor does the water seem to cool even after time passing. For those long few hours, all I can hear is the low chanting from the witches in the room and Chalice's ragged breathing as she tries to contain the panic I can feel bubbling under her calm facade. Behind me, I can barely feel or hear Ash other than his low, measured breathing as he tries to remain calm. Tries to keep the fear I can feel hidden underneath the calm he shows. "Mara? Eris?" I ask softly, seeing both of them turn to look at me, Mara's mouth still forming the quiet spell into the air. "Why hasn't she moved?" I swallow down the emotion knotted in my throat at the sight of my Rosa lain still as a statue.
Eris's golden eyes are shadowed with doubt, a ripple of sadness showing in the normally bright and happy colour. "I - I don't know," She sounds heartbroken and that makes me feel inherently afraid. "She...she should be moving by now or at least doing something other than just....just..." She hiccups, her voice catching with the tears she's brushing away from under her eyes and that are still trapped in her lashes. "I..." She starts to speak but her mouth snaps shut when Rosa's still form suddenly moves. Shaking slightly it looks like she's shivering but I can't fathom how that's possible since the temperature of the water is close to boiling. Where I'm still holding her hand I can feel it's turned icy in my grasp, making it feel like I'm trying to grasp a piece of ice that makes me tempted to let go until I remember Eris's warning not to let go of her hand once she's been submerged and the spell's been started. No matter what. It feels slippy but I grasp her hand as tight as I dared without breaking one of the many delicate bones in her hand. "Eris?" I ask, caution thick in my tone. "What's happening to her?"
But my friend doesn't have time to reply, her face fixed in a mask of abject shock and horror. Following her eyes, I see that Rosa appears to be coughing something thick and sticky into the water. Dark colour seems to spread out of her and I try to pull her up when Eris motions to do so but she doesn't move. Instead if anything, her body seemed to get heavier and heavier the more I tried to pull her out of the water that now is a murky blackish colour that almost obscures her body from view bar a stripe of olive skin and the movement of her hair in the water. I'm about to ask her again when Rosa's mouth opens underwater, bubbles drifting up to the surface. That was enough to have me pull her harder, wincing like everyone else in the small room when her shoulder dislocated where I'd pulled her. But she still doesn't move, her body lying as if stuck to the bottom of the tub. I pull harder and harder, almost losing her hand in the murky brownish water now shadowing her. But still, she doesn't move. Panic grips me, even when her hand tries to grasp mine harder, her luminous eyes lighting up the darkness of the water like twin searchlights in the gloom.
"Help," Her voice comes out distorted, muffled against the mass of water surrounding her. Her hand sips in mine until it's only by luck that I manage to retain my grip. Still, she looks at me with hollow, vacant eyes that peer up at me in a blinding flash of amber and black. "HELP!" She calls again, her voice only a little clearer than the last time she'd tried. The panic inside me rushes through me and is only added to when I see the blood coming out of her mouth. Thick, glassy, rivers seem to keep pouring out of her mouth the longer she remains under the surface, her eyes wild with the panic I can feel flooding through her. She claws uselessly with her one free hand at something shadowy lurking in the water around her until she suddenly grows limp, the surprise of the action causing me to release my grip on her hand ever so slightly.
