Gracie Abrams is eking out a solitary existence, fighting day-in, day-out against the drain of working customer service and nursing two newborn kittens in her off time. Out on her own ever since her sister moved in with her boyfriend, the burden of...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Patty laughed. Funnily enough, the rain didn't muffle the sound at all. Rather, it was amplified. I felt those insane peals poking right inside my chest.
Then, the laughter cut off abruptly. I wondered if her bout of insanity was over, if only for Sam's sake. But her next words added a weight to my chest, one that followed Hisoka's boot that moved right over my rib cage. Rain pounded my eyes, and I couldn't see him up there. Maybe there was a smile, some slithering thing that stretched far too wide for my comfort. Maybe there wasn't. It was all shadows.
"And what can you do about it? What reason do you have to ruin things between us? Right now? Now? You have to know our life together cannot continue the way it has. You have to know you've lost all rights to stay at my side and see my daughter. Why couldn't you just stay with me, hm? It would've been everything you've ever wanted."
Silence pounded out the rhythm of the deluge. I heard a crack of lightning, followed by a gigantic boom of thunder. The whole area lit up around us in a disastrous purple. I could see Hisoka's face.
But I could see beyond Hisoka's face, too.
I accidentally let out some air, letting Hisoka's boot press my ribs further down. Now, I could barely breathe, and stars flittered at the edges of my vision. My ankle didn't throb so much as it pulsed with an army of fire ants. Keeping it still sent resounding waves up and down my body, but moving it felt like being awash in flames. Which one was better? Neither. It was all horrible.
"You're not the only one who summoned him here," Ginny said, and another fork of lightning shook the sky.
Wait.
I guess I had passed into the downward spiral of delirium because how could lightning shake anything? Wasn't thunder supposed to do that?
The area lit up purple again, but this time—by craning my neck as far back as it could go—I saw the two witches, one dark, one light, facing each other. Their hands were held out almost like they were about to start sumo wrestling.
No. They were already fighting.
I blinked, but then the sky turned dark again.
At the next lightning strike, I looked at the space between their hands, my eyes nearly bugging out of my head. In the short distance between their outstretched palms, vivid light shot back and forth, almost like the strings on a harp, except they kept splitting and fading away, only for new ones to take their place. Each string vied against the others, and occasionally, many of them would meet in the middle, causing another round of world-illuminating lightning.
I'd already thought Sam's magic to be incredible. The idea of anyone using magic before my eyes was still so novel, but this back and forth between two of the highest ranked witches in the world was mind-bending. I knew I would never be able to understand it, so I stopped trying.
