Different

Chapter 14

The alarm noise was deafening. I woke up so annoyed, regretting why I had set it to ring at 6. I hit the snooze button. Ten minutes didn't seem much, but I had to get up. My head felt like it would detach itself from my neck and fall. My shoulder pain was worse than the day after I was abducted. The air created a shrill sound as it passed through my nostrils, although I didn't have a cold.

My room was a mess, and the clutter bothered me. It took me a few seconds to realize it couldn't have been another intrusion. Three bottles of liquor were left open. Two of them were empty. There were two glasses of wine, both empty. I tried to recall what happened the previous night.

I was with Matt. I remembered him getting into my unit after dinner. We spent the night drinking. And then...

Fuck!

I pushed the blanket and jumped out of bed. I was naked, and I felt sore. My clothes lay on the floor. I rubbed my palms against my face, trying to recall clearly what took place. A red stain in the middle of the bed teased me. It was blood. I wasn't sure whose, so I ran my hand over my head and down my hair while collecting and putting all my clothes in the laundry basket. A man's boxer-briefs arrested me.

"Shit!" I threw the offending thing into the trash bin and then proceeded to the silly part when I took it and examined it to make sure I knew what I was seeing. I wanted to call him, but I still had no phone. I didn't know where he lived.

The time I spent in the shower was longer than usual. My anxiety kept me there. The pouring water couldn't alleviate the dire thoughts that mocked me. We had sex. We had? The question lingered on my mind. And I couldn't fucking remember it. But the stain on my bed and my sore ass were the indications. I was angry. Damn, I was furious and confused. I asked myself repeatedly if I had consented to it.

Walking felt terrible. It was just some bad sprain. That was what I told three people concerned about my limping, which I tried to hide. I considered brewing some potion but realized I had little time to devote to it. Besides, potions are a messy affair. In addition, we have painkillers for crying out loud. I was never really good at brewing potions anyway. I tried doing the lone healing charm I knew, but my powers hadn't yet returned fully. I wasn't sure whether the relief I felt was due to the spell half working or due to the painkillers I took.

I swore if Matt appeared I would punch him in the face. The day passed without a shadow of him, but not a minute passed by without his stupid face running across my head. It was a torment. Finally, I gave in to the temptation of wanting to get even. As soon as I arrived my apartment, I took the stuff hidden in my little box.

There's the scrying crystal, which didn't look fancy. I looked for my map. If I had my phone, I would have used Google Maps. I didn't realize how much easier was it to use a larger map. Old witches would have used a ball or a couldron and peeked through the water. That's too messy for me. Matt's underwear was around my hand wrapped in the chains that held the crystal. No, nothing looked out of the ordinary. No glow of the crystal. Nothing. Just me and my index finger trying to find the sex offender on the local map. I was a modern witch, right?

One of the things I didn't like about scrying was its unreliability. You just had to feel it, and I didn't even understand that. What was I supposed to be feeling? But the static I felt in a suburb in town from across where I lived must have been an indication. I tried teleporting, and then I realized how careless that idea was. I appeared in the middle of a busy highway. What the hell was I thinking? My powers hadn't returned to their full strength yet.

"Shit!" A bus almost hit me. I couldn't cross the freeway amid heavy traffic. I tried disappearing, hoping I would appear somewhere safe. And I did. I tried checking the map, never bothering about how stupid I looked holding a map in the middle of the city, and I thought I was near the location.

The houses looked the same. The village was quiet. Some houses had lit living rooms. Others, dark. Thankfully, all the streetlamps were lit. I wondered where Matt's house was. There was no sign of him. Thirty minutes of walking and looking out for a tiny clue was useless. I couldn't believe how much I went to such an ordeal just to find the guy who fucked me. I didn't even had a plan for a confrontation? Would I just punch him on the cheek? Or would fuck him too just to get even? That douche bag screwed me in the rear and ran away. That coward! I was ranting on my mind. I couldn't help it.

All right! I had had it. I didn't know where he lived. I didn't know where his house was in that quiet village. It dawned on me that I wasn't even sure if the scrying I did worked. So I improvised a spell. "From where I am, from where he is" -- I held his briefs tighter -- "take me to the place where..." I felt silly. I admitted to myself how much I hated casting verbal spells. I was never a fan of poetry. "Screw this! Take me where he is!" My surroundings spun as I turned.