Reckless

Chapter 13 Part 3

present day

character POV: Roxanne

After a few minutes, she comes back out carrying a small dead lamb. My stomach threatens to spill its contents all over again at the sight and knowing what is going to happen next. She places the dead lamb on the counter and calls over her shoulder, "Easy. I found a way to do this without being brutal and cruel. It works just as well, as it turns out, with animals that were stillborn." She faces forward again as she takes the knife and cuts open the stomach of the animal. I hear the disgusting squishing sounds as she moves the intestines around. After a moment, she speaks to me again, but her voice sounds distant and far away, causing me to sit up a little straighter as she tells me what she has divined, "Who you think is in the wrong is the answer to your questions. Who you think is in the right is behind your problems." She turns away from the dead animal, her hands covered in blood up and over her wrists. She reaches for a black towel that's on the counter and takes it, wiping her hands off as she faces me and shrugs, "That is all that I am getting. The answers aren't forthcoming where Ariadne is concerned."

I nod along to her words, saying nothing because I know Arsinoe well enough to be able to read her body language and I know that she has more to say. She walks over to the couch and takes a seat on it, leaving the lamb on the counter. She nods in my direction as she says, "I wish you luck with Ariadne." A smirk plays on her lips as she says, "Hopefully, things will go so well that you and I will not see each other for another 3,000 years."

A small laugh bubbles up inside of me, surprising me. I can't remember the last time that someone has made me laugh genuinely. David never really made me laugh, not even once in our whole relationship. Everything was also so serious when I was around him. Analize has no time for jokes. The last time that I think I actually laughed was back when Ariadne and I were together and things were going well. There was a time where her quippy one-liners would make me laugh instead of haunt me and make me concerned about what was going to happen next. My mind goes back to when Boudicca was still alive, how easily she made me laugh, and I feel a yearning for that time that I haven't felt in centuries. A sharp pain in my heart drives the brief moment of joy back as I remember what I lost and the family I will never get to see ever again.

Arsinoe's smirk dies off of her face as she sees my own face fall. She crosses one leg over the other, rocking that foot back and forth as she gives me a long and evaluating look. After a few moments, she says, "It's good to see you at least somewhat sober. It's not great to see how you're going through withdrawal. But, after hearing for centuries from my own sources that you have been self-medicating since you created peace between the vampires and the witches. Hopefully you'll stick with your sobriety this time, regardless of whatever shitshows await our species in the future." Her dark tone makes a shiver run down my spine that has nothing to do with how my body is being wracked with chills. As someone who is known to be able to see the future and read the signs, a statement like that sounds more like a prediction of horrors to come.

The light and breezy conversation between Arsinoe and I comes to an abrupt end. A thought comes to me then as I remember the Arsinoe of my early years, so at odds with the woman in front of me now. I muse, "You chose to specialize in seeing the future and doing readings for people because it kept you in business and needed while simultaneously keeping you out of the spotlight and direct line of fire." She dips her chin a single time in confirmation, which prompts me to ask my next question, "But when I was first starting out, the other witches were afraid of you. Even Analize would not go toe-to-toe with you. It was rumored that you had specialized war powers that no one else had. You had the gift of seeing the future and what others would do and then being able to step in and kill them when their defenses were lowered without ever getting caught. But then, when I was looking for allies to help stop the Romans from killing my sister and her family, you had no more fighting powers to speak of. So one has to wonder, where did they go to?" I fix her with a hard stare in the hopes that it will prompt her to be open with me for perhaps the first time since I've known her. I keep hoping for honesty from people who have been keeping secrets from me for the majority of my life. Maybe that's what makes me insane, expecting things out of people that they are completely incapable of granting me.

This time proves to be no different. Arsinoe pushes up from the couch as she says to me, swiftly shutting me down, "I guess we'll never know, will we? Now, I'm going to go over there and cook up that lamb. You're welcome to dine with me. Then, I'm going to bed. When I wake up in the morning, I hope you will have seen yourself out." I nod a single time in reply and that earns me a small smile from her as she turns and walks back over to her small kitchen. She calls over her shoulder, "And next time you send your spies out, stop having them search for someone named Arsinoe. It's a Hellenistic name, so out of date it's ridiculous. It would make me stick out to an insane degree in Egypt at this point. I go by Zahra now. That's what everyone here knows me as."

I smirk slightly as I murmur, "I guessed you had changed it. It doesn't make sense for you to be known as Arsinoe any longer, just like going by the Oracle of Ammon at Siwa doesn't make any sense when that temple has fallen apart and most people believe that the person who talked to Alexander the Great was male." She glances back at me, a warmer smirk on her face as she starts to dice up the meat. "Also," I add, "it makes it easier on me. It was getting confusing with all of these A names. Ariadne, Analize, my old name, then yours-- it'll be nice to have some variation."

She barks out a tight laugh at that, then mutters something about needing to get some more spices out of the back room. The moment that she is gone, movement at the edge of my vision catches my attention, and I see Hallucination Ariadne take a seat on the couch, arms spread out over the back of it as she sighs in contentment. She winks at me as if in greeting before she nods back to where "Zahra" went, and asks me in a chirpy way, "Don't you think that that was weird? How she just shut you down when you asked about her powers? Or are your psychic senses so distorted from years of self-abuse that you have no idea what's really going on around you anymore?" There's a hint of rage as the finishes that statement, anger at how I treat myself, that makes me look away from her abruptly.

I whispers in a sharp tone, "Shut up." I close my eyes as tight as they can possibly go, taking a deep steadying breath and counting to ten in the hopes that when I open my eyes, the fake Ariadne will be gone. Thankfully, when I do open my eyes, Hallucination Ariadne is gone and I feel myself loosen up once I realize that it's just me and Zahra in this place. Right now, all I need to worry about is getting through this sped-up withdrawal and getting back on track before Analize realizes I lied to her and does something to Ariadne, possibly even starting the war up again. I need to know the truth, and there's a time limit on that.

But talking about what happened in the past, where Zahra was supposed to help save my sister in my mind but was completely unable to, has triggered even more memories that I thought I had buried. Despite my best efforts, now that I have nothing else to occupy my time or my energy in this moment, my mind goes back to that dark period in time where I was completely helpless to save my human family.