Witch {Book One} [UNEDITED]

XXXI: Venenum

I woke up late in the morning. Sammy was next to me, still asleep. I slid out of bed and got dressed. She was still asleep. I went to the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror for a long time before lighting a cigarette. I braided my messy black hair and covered up the dark circles under my eyes with equally dark painted-on circles on my lids. It looked like my eyes had been sucked into my skull. I put red lipstick on so I would look more colorful. I wiped it off and put black lipstick on after deciding red didn't look good with my cigarette. When I went back to my room, Sammy was still asleep. I left my room and left the house. I used Jemma's car, as it was the only one that I knew where the keys were. I drove into town, past Devilswood, past Propaganda, past Slum City. I pulled into the parking lot at the Bitchy Witchy. I sat in Jemma's car for five minutes before climbing out and walking into the bar. I wasn't sure what I was looking for; did I want to get drunk or laid or both or was I just looking for a distraction? I wasn't even sure what I wanted a distraction from. Did I want to distract myself from Annie? Did I want to distract myself from the trials? Ada? The Hell Hounds? The fact that Thomason was a target for the Hell Hounds? I sat at the bar and ordered my usual vodka. While I waited, I glanced at the table Black Lotus always sat at. I sighed and snuffed my cigarette out. No one bothered to protest that I just destructed the property. 

The bartender slid me my shot glass of vodka and I downed it quickly. The bartender refilled it and gave me a sad look. 

"You okay, hon?" She asked, perching her elbows on the bar. 

"Define okay," I murmured, taking my shot glass. 

"Lemme guess. Breakup?" She refilled my glass. "Tell me what happened an' I'll give you whatever you want to drink on the house." 

I swallowed my vodka back and looked her dead in the eye. 

"My ex-girlfriend turned out to be a psychopathic bitch who murdered four people I cared about. Now this psychopathic bitch is making me do a bunch of shit that'll probably kill me in the end but, hey, at least she's not slaughtering me yet. My new girlfriend has a secret that she doesn't want to tell me but I already know what it is and it's most likely going to hurt someone and potentially kill them. Let's see . . . m'two friends who've been helping me out a lot are in danger because one of them is being targeted by my psychopathic bitch-ex and the other is gonna kill 'imself if his boyfriend dies, which he prob'ly will." I shrugged. "So nothing much." 

The bartender--I scanned her uniform and found her name tag. Lynn--stood up straight. 

"I--" She shook her head and poured two more shots, one for me and one for her. 

"Kiddin'," I murmured. "I broke up with my girlfriend this morning." 

"Figured. She cheatin' on ya or was she just a bitch?" Lynn turned and grabbed a bottle of something stronger than the vodka I had been drinking. 

"Cheatin'. She was the sluttiest whore you'd e'er meet." The lie rolled off my tongue so easily, even I believed it. 

"Damn. She any good in bed, though?" She poured the drink into a glass and slid it towards me. I took a sip. Whatever the hell it was, it was good. I downed the rest of it in one gulp. 

"Weren't with 'er long enough to find out," I muttered. Lynn refilled my glass with more of whatever drink she previously gave me. I drank it back. "The hell is this? It's really fucking good." 

Lynn's red lips curled up in a smile. "Venenum. Made it myself." 

"Venenum. That Latin or somethin'?" Lynn nodded. I pulled back my sleeve to show her the Insomnia tattoo. 

"Kill all the angels; Heaven belongs to Hell?" She leaned forward to read the fine calligraphy. "That's an interestin' saying. Wait a minute. You know Jemmaria?" I hesitantly nodded. "She has the same tattoo. You two friends or sisters or somethin'?" 

"Something like that," I finished my glass of Venenum. Lynn refilled it again and after taking a sip, I started to feel dizzy. 

I'd been drunk before. I'd even been high once. Getting drunk was a slow process for me and the only thing it did was make me slur my sentences even more--as my drawl was so lazy I always slurred--and make the voices in my head louder. This drunk hit me like a bullet. Maybe even faster because whenever I held a gun to my head and pulled the trigger, the universe seemed to stop. One second my mind was clear and it was just me and Lynn and the few people in the bar. The next, well, it was me and Lynn and twenty or so people in clothes that looked like they came from the 1700s, people with black eyes, people with claws, monsters. I stood up, tipping over my drink in the process. It spilled all over the bar but I paid no attention to it. I stumbled back, my vision blurring. 

She drugged me, I thought, grabbing the edge of a table to stabilize myself. She fucking drugged me. 

I turned my head to look at the monsters in the room. Lynn was nowhere to be seen. 

And then I saw her. 

She had the same brown hair as before, but it was curly and her bangs were gone and it went to her waist. Her eyes were hollow and dead. She didn't have glasses. She wore a simple black dress that floated around her ankles. 

Ada. 

"Well, well, well," she said, her lips curled up in a smirk, "Adelaide Lee. How nice of you to show." 

"Whatthehelldoyouwant?" I slurred. My voice wasn't even my own. It sounded thicker and scratchy and broken. I bit down on my tongue to prevent myself from talking again. I tasted blood but couldn't care less.

"If you even think of talking to Annie again, I will kill every last one of your friends, starting with that pale boy I already have my Hounds going after," she hissed. I turned around and leaned against the table, looking her dead in the eyes. 

"YoutrytokillThomasonand--" I cut myself off. I let my blood drip down my chin. I didn't care. 

"And what? Are you so pathetic you can't even think of a proper threat?" She tossed her head back and laughed. If I had enough strength, I'd advance forward and punch her in the throat. Could I punch a ghost? I shook the thought away and glared at her. 

Ada walked closer to me. She grabbed my chin and I was forced to look at her. I always knew I was short (I was taller than Jemma so that was an accomplishment), but compared to Ada I was nothing. Maybe she was floating or levitating or doing whatever the hell it is ghosts do. I didn't want to take my eyes off of her to check. 

"Your birthday is coming up," she growled. "And my Hell Hounds are getting hungry. The trials are going to get harder and harder because I want you to die." She shoved me back. My back hit the table and I had to bite my tongue again so I wouldn't cry out.  She snapped her fingers and she--along with all the monsters--disappeared. 

I stood by the table, horrified, as I watched the people. There were a few guys playing beer pong in the corner and there were a few bartenders dressed in the skimpiest of skimpy clothing behind the bar. A few girls sat at one of the tables, playing some weird card game I didn't want to know the rules to. No one seemed to notice me. Lynn was no where to be seen. 

When I got back to Safe House, there was a note that said that the others were at Common. I turned my phone on and opened the Honorary Insomnia Group chat. 

I'll be at Common in ten. I sent the message. 

Jemma replied first; Why the hell did you take my car?

Irrelevant. I'll explain later. I said. 

You owe me big time. Jemma replied almost instantly. 

I turned my phone off again and went to my room. I pulled my dress off and lit a cigarette. There was definitely blood on my back. I went to the bathroom and craned my neck back to see what there was. I followed the long pink scar down my spine to find a purplish-greenish bruise with a small red line in the middle. I opened one of the drawers under the sink and pulled out a box of Batman bandaids. Two left. I sighed and put both bandaids awkwardly on my back, went back to my room, pulled on a new dress and snuffed out my cigarette. 

Twenty minutes passed before I finally got to Common.

And when I got there, the first thing I saw was a poorly made wooden coffin.