Reckless

Chapter 7 Part 1

Present Day

Character POV: Roxanne

I can't think. And when I can't think, I'm slightly drunk, and my emotions are heightened, even I know I shouldn't be driving a car down a highway going 60 miles-per-hour. The gravel crunches under the tires as I pull the car off of the road and onto the shoulder. It's a desolate bit of road, so no one should come upon the car. If I'm bothered, it won't be a very difficult spell to weave to send them on their way.

I turn the key in the ignition, hearing the engine gutter out and the only sound left is that of the crickets and cicadas in the grassy forest that runs in strips down either side of the road. The sounds that otherwise would have been soothing or, depending on how loud the cicadas get, annoying enough to stop all other thoughts in my head do nothing this time.

Each thought wrestles with the others, trying to achieve dominance, but none prevail. I keep seeing the body strung up along the electrical pole. I see her face, so similar to my own, the mark where Ariadne's mouth had been as she sucked the life from her. Where is she? Where is the Ariadne that I walked out on all those centuries ago? The woman who looked at me, and saw what I was doing and why, and didn't try to step in my way, because she understood that someone had to take the hits so that our two people could survive and not constantly beat against one another, leaving less and less of us after each clash.

Now, she's killing a person who looks like me, who has the same inner demons as me, and leaving her where I can find her, like a message. A message she clearly thinks I am clever enough to understand. But I'm not. I haven't spent the last few centuries running through every detail because I thought I would never see her again, a foolish thought considering we're both immortal and the world is becoming increasingly small due to globalization.

And then it hits me, slams into me like a train on the tracks. This was her warning, her heads up to me. She's not hiding any longer. She's starting things up again, a war or something worse. She's making her moves, and she will not be keeping me out of it. She knows that her actions might well drag me into this mess, that they might impact me, but she's not stopping it.

Which means that I need to start thinking about what she is going to do next, and if I need to intervene and stop her. All of those centuries ago, Analize was prepared to kill Ariadne even if it killed her, too. So was Ariadne, willing to die if it killed her enemy. So short-sighted, like she would even be alive to enjoy victory. As if there'd even be a fucking point with her dead. If I don't act now, do all that I can to stop Ariadne from getting herself and her entire people killed, it may be too late. With so few witches left to protect, Analize will not be backing off. She will do whatever it takes to kill all of them off. Permanently.

Where would she go now? What would send a message to me in case I missed the first one, or clarify her objectives? There's got to be something from our time together, something she thinks will stick out in my memory and push me to action. But what is it? We spent decades together, not centuries. You'd think that it'd be easy for me to remember. But I've lived centuries, millenniums. There's simply too much to remember.

Breathe. I need to breathe, and it'll come to me. I close my eyes, sucking in a deep breath through my nose, holding it for a few seconds before I exhale through my mouth. My mind stilled ever so slightly, I turn inward, starting from almost the beginning. The first people we saved from the witch hunters, the first night that we took their hatred and warped it, using it to open a door to get revenge for those they killed. Once I start to look inward, allowing myself to be open to the past and to feel the things that I once did, memories start flowing faster, easier. Gradually, as I try to wrack my mind for any details that could be useful to me in this moment in time, the feeling that I am doing something wrong begins to fade as the memories envelop me.