Recover: Book 2 of the Magic Mutations Series | ✓

69: Serving His Sentence

My hold wavered as the reality sunk in that Ben was gone. That he had really passed.

But in my moment of distraction, Rüdiger saw his opening.

Hands shooting up, he managed to pry my fingers from around his throat. In one swift motion, he flipped us around, this time pinning me to the wall.

As his hand constricted around my neck, my eyes couldn't help but scan the room.

Olivia knelt over Ben's body, her fingers pressed to his neck.

A pool of blood slowly broadened its spread over the floorboards.

Ben's blue eyes, lifeless and vacant, ghostly stared at the ceiling... no longer looking for the cracks.

Ollie moved her hand away from his neck, hesitantly extending it upwards towards his eyes.

And as I watched her shoulders slouch, her back started to shake in the agony that would most definitely be sweeping through her right now, the world around me started to go black.

Oxygen cut from my body, I was starting to lose consciousness as Rüdiger fixated on his mission of knocking me out.

Only if I was gone would he have a clear path to Ollie...

And as the living room began to disappear from my sight, in the distance I almost thought I heard Ollie's voice, full with venom, shout, "Hey, fuck face!"

Immediately, the air started to come back into my lungs.

Rüdiger's grip had loosened on my neck, allowing me to draw in just enough oxygen to maintain consciousness. As my uncle glanced over his shoulder at Ollie, I used my little bit of strength and his distraction to pry his fingers away from my neck.

As my body fell to the ground—Rüdiger no longer caring about me as I gasped for air and tried to take stock of my breaking body—my uncle pivoted on his foot, attention now on Olivia.

Rüdiger's hand in front of my face clenched into a fist. And as I glanced further up, I watched Olivia's eyelids narrow over her green glare.

A snarl took hold of her normally gentle face.

And then she charged at him.

Rüdiger braced himself just before she reached him, hand lifting to right-hook her. But Ollie leapt off the ground, hand immediately grabbing his as he swung his fist. And the moment they collided, Rüdiger froze. Still coming down from the air, Ollie's grip slid down my uncle's arm until she locked herself around his body, shoving him to the ground.

Pinning his body—now shaking in agony—against the floor, she quickly manoeuvred her feet so that she was fixing his legs down behind her. Then her arms reached around, moving his hands above his head.

Once he was secure, her head whipped up, frantic emerald finding me. "Lukas!" she shouted. "Hold his arms."

I still was struggling for air. I could feel the bruises already forming around my neck. And my chest was throbbing from the broken rib. Nonetheless, I dug deep, searching for any trace of magic within me. Then I flicked my hands alight, pressing them down on my uncle's arms so that Ollie could free her hold.

Rüdiger screamed and thrashed beneath her, but Ollie paid him no attention. Hand slipping into her pocket, she retrieved a vial of her blood. At once, she yanked the stopper from the top and turned her vacant, murderous gaze down on my uncle.

Then her free hand reached down, clasping his cheeks as she forced him to look at her.

Rüdiger's black eyes filled with fear—a look I had never seen—as Olivia brought the vial closer to him.

"For torturing my best friend when he was little," she started. Ill-timed, my bond string glowed to know that I was the first reason she'd think of before the spiel that followed. "For planning to kill humankind. For experimenting on innocent people. For killing a poor, young witch who had her whole life ahead of her." Anja's blonde locks and blue gaze flashed into my mind at Ollie's words. "For slaughtering countless numbers of my ancestors and inflicting fear in them that they had to go into hiding. And whatever other atrocities you've committed I don't know about. And finally... for killing the first person who ever truly loved me and who I truly loved. My bonded partner..."

And the bond string stopped glowing. I felt the magic waver in my hands as her words hit my heart.

But then the bond whispered, Focus for now... We will feel later.

So, again, I channelled the magic back into my hands, trying to not let her final words affect me.

Ollie needed me to stay steady right now.

"... for taking a son from a kind man who already lost his wife..."

Stephen... What am I going to tell Stephen? How will I ever look at him again?

"Your punishment for your actions, Rüdiger Fuller, is death."

Then, with no hesitation, the glass vial tilted over, red liquid forming a stream as it poured into his mouth.

And as I watched him swallow, Adam's apple dipping in his throat, his eyes immediately went blank. His body froze over as the Terra Fairy blood took precedence over the pains of the shocks.

Rüdiger's mouth opened, a croaking wheeze exhaling from his mouth as suddenly his skin began to sink into his bones.

We watched in shock as his muscles atrophied.

As his skin turned pale.

And as his heart gave out its final beat before the life whispered away into the air, leaving us with just the chill of the room.

That cathartic release I had always hoped would come with the death of my uncle never did arrive though.

As Ollie finally allowed herself to release his face.

As she climbed off his corpse onto the ground.

And as she curled into a ball, head tucking into her knees, I only felt regret.

At once, I retreated my magic from my hands and yanked her into my chest, not caring that her touch shocked my body.

While Olivia heaved blood-curdling wails—a depth of agony and suffering I knew all too well—into me, I only tightened my grip on her.

Hoping... praying that I could hold her together as she let the bottle overflow and shatter around us.