Bad Dreams | Newt x Reader (Being Edited)

Chapter 42- The Confusing Words of Élliot Laurent (The First Instalment)

As soon as I drifted off I was in a desert wasteland, which wasn't too different from reality. The Wraith stood a distance away, black cloak rippling dramatically as she stared out at the hazy horizon.

I went to her side. "I was expecting you to come sooner."

"I thought about it," was all she said.

"Why didn't you?" I asked. She was unpredictable and therefore dangerous. Everything she did had a motive. This splinter of my consciousness had the ability and will to destroy anything and anyone she wanted.

"Now that you're back to yourself, I decided to spend time finalising my plan."

"Your plan?" I asked, my limbs stiff with cold dread.

"To topple Wicked and kill the Phoenix and Wolf," she said casually, as if she was talking about the weather instead of the murder of hundreds if not thousands of people.

"How do you plan on doing that? You know that we don't have that kind of power." I silently vowed I would do whatever I could to stop her.

"Yet," the Wraith said vaguely. Her smug smirk had taken residence on her face as she stared out at the imaginary desert.

Sand whirled across it, carried in the breeze. Storm clouds bloomed on the horizon, dark as the night as they stretched closer and closer.

"What do you mean?" I asked though I knew she wouldn't answer. The Wraith wouldn't reveal her plans until the very last second, until the world was crumbling and burning around me and there was nothing left but her victory.

"I told you so, by the way," she said, changing the subject.

The smug note in her tone made me sick.

"What do you mean?" I asked even though I knew what she meant.

"About you not wanting you don't want to know what happened in that memory," she said even though she knew I knew what she meant.

A dozen splinters of that memory flashed in my mind. Me, carrying my little sister. My sister, coughing black blood. Lillian when she lunged at me after she started to turn. What I did. I pushed them all away and felt tears trickle down my face. Pain throbbed in my heart. Almost enough to break me.

Almost, but not enough.

"You should tell him," the Wraith advised, eyeing me from the corner of her eye. "You leave it and the more upset he'll be when he finds out."

"No one has to know," I insisted. Telling Nik would break his heart. He'd had enough pain and it was my job as his sister to shield him from more.

"You're already drowning in your guilt," the Wraith mused, head tilting backwards as the swollen clouds blocked out the sun. "You've had your memories for barely a week. How much more do you think you can take?"

I couldn't answer, keenly aware of the pain slipping into the cracks of my heart and resolve. I had kept my head above the water for months before I had my memories wiped. I could do it again.

A small, weaker part of me ached to tell Nikolai. To have him tell me I did the right thing.

I turned to face the Wraith but I was alone, as I always would truly be.

Newt's POV

A week after the fight with Wicked, the girl finally woke up. She had been sleeping on one of the makeshift stretchers when she had jolted away with a cry and fell off it. People shouted in surprise, but the girl did nothing but curl in a ball on the ground.