The Five Cursed Witches: Volume 1 - Zoe, the Witch of Innocence

Chapter 59 To catch a witch

Felix

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I had an extremely uneasy sleep. My dreams kept morphing into new ones, though all of them were about Zoe.

There was Zoe, looking cruel and laughing at me as blood spilled out of my eyes. My dad torturing her and she screaming in agony. I saw the woman I had seen in Zoe's hotel room laughing and taunting her, calling her a monster and throwing rocks at her. And then one that was so lovely and so cruel.

Zoe was dressed in a light green dress. She ran through the grass and I ran after her. I caught up to her and put my arms around her waist. We both fell and tumbled on the ground until we came to a stop, laughing together. We laid next to each other in silence. Just enjoying the closeness and the bright, happy sun when a hole appeared in the ground and she fell into it. At the bottom was a fire, which engulfed her.

"Save me!" she screamed up at me and then the scream became one of pain as the fire tore over her body, destroying her. It was a scream of pain like no other that I had ever heard. Everlasting, echoing, raw.

I sat up in the bed panting hard and dripping with sweat. I had taken a shower before the nap, but now that shower became redundant. It took a long time for my heart and breathing to become normal again and as soon as it did, I stepped into the shower once more, hoping against hope that the water would wash away more than the sweat.

When I was dressed and looked as presentable as I thought was possible, I went to the kitchen. Dad sat by the table and things for me to make sandwiches with were on it. For a fleeting moment, I thought about how nice it would be with strawberries, but I quickly shut the thought down. An image of Zoe eating one had time to surface, however. Her biting into it and licking up the juice that spilled on her lips.

"You look a bit better," Dad commented as I started making a sandwich.

I just nodded as a response.

"I got what I need to sedate the witch ready," he continued.

"Sedate?" I echoed and froze in the middle of putting ham on the bread.

"Yes. I want to know how she's managed to get such a terrifying power. If we know, we can hopefully stop any witch that tries in the future or at least find other witches with the same power faster."

"So you will bring her back to question her?"

"Yes."

I wasn't the least bit hungry anymore. I had only been in our basement a handful of times, but the torture instruments in there were sickening. What would he do to her? She was so small and her body seemed so fragile and...

"She has you under a spell," Dad reminded me. My thoughts must have been clearly written on my face.

I gave a slow nod.

"I will need your help with getting to her. Do you think you can arrange a meeting with her? I'll take care of everything else."

I nodded again and kept my feelings numb as I followed my dad's instructions and sent Zoe a message. I had to repeat to myself over and over that the spell would lift as soon as she died to be able to do it. The horrible feeling in me, which made me want to double over in pain, would soon be gone. She only had to die.

I wanted to retch at the thought.

Finally, I had sent a message in which I asked her to meet in a public enough park, but that also seldomly had people around as my dad had asked me to. That way, as he said, it would give a false sense of security, but no one would be around for when he drugged her.

I put my phone on the table to wait for a response. But I also didn't want the response to come. For each minute that went by without one, my hope for that she had forgotten or thrown away the phone increased. Maybe she had gone far, far away, so Dad would never be able to get to her. Maybe to a cottage deep in the woods somewhere to live off the earth like she wanted to.

But then my screen lit up.

I'll be there. Anything for you. Make sure to wear an amulet.

I stared at the last part. What did it mean? Why did she say that? What game was she playing? Was it out of worry or was it calculated somehow? Did she, like Dad wanted with picking a park as the meeting place, want to give me a false sense of security?

It didn't matter, though. If everything went like my dad wanted to, nothing that Zoe planned or wanted mattered. She would be drugged, taken to the basement, and then tortured until Dad had gotten all the answers he wanted. Then she would finally die.

My stomach lurched again at the thought, and I pushed it away. I read her message over and over instead. And my mind started to try to picture what she might have looked like. A stupid part of my brain pictured her with an excited grin and had she gotten such a message from me under other circumstances that might would have been the case. As it was, she had probably looked fearful and anxious while answering. Biting her lip. 

"I'll come with you," I decided on a whim after a long time. "I can talk to her and she'll be distracted and you'll have an easier time getting to her."

"Are you sure that's the reason? Are you sure you can handle it?" Dad asked and looked me up and done.

I wasn't sure. About anything. Everything was just chaos. Did I want to go with to help Dad or to protect Zoe? I had no idea. But my nod was decisive as well as my words. "I'm sure."