The Demon's Half

Chapter 50- THE WITCH'S WRATH

Epilogue.

                                      Alilla.

I made it out. 
I made it out. 
I made it out.

The words looped in my head like a broken record, but I clung to them anyway. Because if I didn't, I might start screaming, and I wasn't about to give my dear aunt the satisfaction of knowing she'd broken me. Not even in my own mind.

My boots slammed against the pavement, the blisters on my feet screaming with every step. I refused to stop. The streetlights blurred around me, their glow flickering like casted spells, but I kept going. 

I was Alilla fucking Toothaker, and I didn't run from anything—except, apparently, a castle full of psychotic witches and their sadistic goddess. But I'd find payback. I could taste it, sweet and spicy on my tongue.
Soon. 

But I made it out.

The mantra was the only thing keeping me sane. That, and the look on the Veil Queens' faces when I'd finally shattered that crystal prison. 
Oh, they'd been pissed.
Good. Let them seethe.
Let them choke on their own bile and arrogance. They'd thought they could break me with their little display case and spells. They'd thought they could leave me naked, starving, and parched in a glass box, humiliating me into submission. Joke's on them, I looked damn good naked, and no amount of their petty magic could change that. 

I made it out.

But the memories still clawed at me, no matter how hard I tried to erase them: The crystal walls pressing in on me until I could barely breathe. That crystal, made with ancient runes by my own grandmother, according to Camille, was designed to break lesser witches. 
The magic had hummed against my skin, like a thousand syringes filled with poison. And the witches—oh, the witches. They'd circled me like vultures, their eyes starving for my surrender as they hurled spell after spell, trying to crack me open.
They'd tapped a rune on my chest, one I didn't even know I had, that glowed purple whenever they used a spell. It burned me from the inside out. My bones felt like they were melting. My blood felt cursed. Second-worst pain of my life, right after death.

But I wasn't some fragile little thing to be broken. 
I was Alilla, and I didn't fall.

I made it out.

Even Daniel hadn't broken me.
Thinking of him hurt, so I didn't. I had to fight the urge to look behind me as I kept walking down the street. I knew he was there, following me. Watching me. But no, actually scratch that.
That wasn't Daniel anymore. My Daniel. The man I'd known. the one who'd laughed with me, fought with me, loved me, was gone.
The memory made my mouth taste bitter. 
This 'Daniel' stared at me while I was imprisoned, naked in that crystal cage. He hadn't lifted a finger to help me. Not that I'd expected him to. Demons didn't have beating hearts, and they sure as hell didn't have humanity.
But still... it stung.
More than I cared to admit. 

I made it out.

I passed the Winter Bridge where Jade said she used to live under. The street around me was eerily quiet, the only sound was my boots against the pavement. Nothing more.
Not even the demons behind me made a sound. 
But it was better than the noise inside the Goddess Court—the clatter of spells, the hiss of whispers, the laughter of the Veil Queens as they watched me suffer. I could still hear it, like a bad dream. But I wasn't there anymore.
I was here.
And here, I was free. 

I made it out.

The words felt like a protective spell.
But a part of me wondered: For how long?
The Goddess would come for me.
We'd made a pact, she'd help me bring back Daniel in exchange for my freedom. Even if she'd tricked me... the burn on my waist, a new tattoo of a rune that glowed purple, didn't let me forget it.