Bloodstream (#2 Blood Series)

Chapter 17

It's dark. A wind is screaming around me and the trees bend to its will. In the ground I see a blonde boy, his eyes are shut tight while blood runs down his face. It's a gruesome sight; light gold mixing with dark red. He tries to get back on his feet but he keeps falling down. That's when I realize that all the blood on his face is pouring down from his left eye. He's bleeding out but trying to die standing.

Then again Oliver always was too stubborn for his own good.

"The Bloods have once again won and you are lying here waiting for death", someone speaks up and just then I notice a woman wearing silk dress and a light grey robe that dances in the wind. It's Mirabelle, Queen of Underworld and she looks exactly the same as she does now, right down to those creepy turquoise eyes and cruel look masked as concern on her face. She walks over to Oliver and drops to her knees next to him.

She looks at him with almost pity in her eyes.

"What were you thinking, taking them all on by yourself? Silly boy, silly boy, why are you acting silly, boy?" she whispers to him as she slowly turns his cheek to her to assess the damage. "But then again I do love a rebel on a mission to right wrongs done in the past. Those with an agenda are the easiest to control. I could use someone like you on my side. Come with me, child. I gave you that chance already once and you chose wrong. Maybe this time I won't give you a choice. You clearly can't be trusted to make your own decisions."

I nearly huff in annoyance at how similar my mother and Mirabelle suddenly sound like. That's how you know things are bad at home when your nemesis and your mother start to sound alike.

Oliver tries to open his damaged bloody eye but has to admit defeat and settles on glaring Mirabelle with his functional eye. "Fuck off, Mirabelle. I work alone", he growls. I jump a little at how different he sounds like. When he speaks there are actual emotions in his voice. That's missing from the present Oliver. Nowadays he merely pretends to feel emotions that fit his current agenda.

Mirabelle isn't listening to him. She keeps caressing his cheek with fascination in her eyes. "But you're hurt, my dear. Let me heal you. Let me make it better", she tries to coax him but he's not having any of it. Even dying he refuses to let someone else take control. It is so odd to see him like this when usually he does whatever Mirabelle tells him to.

Oliver slaps her hands away. "Keep your claws off of me, freak."

"I'll make it better, Oli. I'll heal you", she hums and suddenly her palms light up but this fire isn't blue, it's golden. She keeps chanting something as she places her hand over Oliver's bleeding eye. Oliver tries to fight her off but she's too strong for his weakened powers to vanquish. Suddenly Mirabelle yells some incantation and a horrible cracking sound can be heard when she sticks her fingers into Oliver's eyes. He screams out as the pain burns through him, his hands are in the air, grasping for help when there is none.

"That's better. You're all better now", Mirabelle coos to the unmoving Oliver whose head rests now in her lap. She runs her fingers through his hair and whispers for him to wake up. "You're all better now. I fixed you, my child. You're mine now."