The Psychic Next Door

[First Draft] Chapter 19: Blood

"They're still the same!"

Luc pounded his fist on the table in frustration. I was very close to doing the same but instead I only managed a sigh. I didn't see the point in wasting the energy for getting mad; it wouldn't solve anything. That's how I felt about everything these days.

My determination had begun to give way to apathy and I could feel my resolve to fight slip away with the hope of a solution. Every day was a failure, and every failure wore me down a little more. And there was a little whisper in my head that would grow a little louder each time, a murmur that urged me to just give up.

The cards were the same—same as the first time we had tried to get a reading since his powers had returned. They only returned the same vague answer every time we laid them out on the table, trying to discern some more information from them. But we had been trying for over a week, several times a day, to no avail. We attempted to coax a different outcome from the cards by approaching each time with slightly different questions... but still the cards wouldn't change. My reading would always be the same. Vague. Unhelpful.

I knew nothing about the deck he relied on to give us insight, but even I was beginning to recognize certain cards—each formation was filled with the strange designs and words that I couldn't read, but I knew I had seen certain ones many times before. I didn't know what was holding us back... was it me? The nature of the cards? Or was it Luc? Was I just stuck in some strange in-between point in my life where the answers just couldn't be clear? Or was Luc's magic still too weak to control the cards properly? Either way, we had to admit to ourselves there was nothing more we could do. We had finally run out of options.

The only way we could improve our odds was to fully regain Luc's powers... and we had no way to restore them without Polly's help, and she didn't look like she was interested in helping us any time soon.

Luc rested his forehead in his palm as he continued to search the cards for answers even though we both knew he would find none. I felt my brow droop in sad frustration. I considered for a moment reaching out to him to comfort him, but resisted. My mood was no better—maybe even worse—than his, and I knew that I didn't have the energy to pretend to be optimistic. Any comforting I would attempt would fall flat. Instead I glanced across the room at the little calendar that hung on the wall.

We had been careful to mark each day off after it had passed, like prisoners carving their time spent into stone walls, tallying their days spent inside. I noticed that it had been exactly one month since Polly and I had botched the binding spell next door. Four weeks since we had faced our most brutal attack yet. 30 days since Luc had to rush in and save us from our mistake. And in that time, we still hadn't gathered any new information that could actually help us. The constant noise of the Beast next door reminded us that we were still hostage to it. Nothing essential had changed about our situation... just the relationships between each other.

I regretted the strain and tension my new relationship with Luc caused between Polly and me, but I couldn't bring myself to regret the relationship itself. I knew that I was probably rushing it, and that this really wasn't the best time... but I had come to truly trust Luc, find comfort in him. I knew that this wasn't the best setting to fall in love, especially because the mere suggestion of a romance between us was what had gotten us into this mess. But as I saw it, we were already serving the time, why not actually do the crime? Why not act on the thing that you had already been damned for?

And it helped that he was the one good thing in my life at the moment. He was the sliver of light in the overwhelming darkness, the thing that could make me smile through all the pain, uncertainty and suffering. I had always been physically attracted to him, since day one. But once I actually got to see the unguarded side of him, I couldn't help but feel that the only mistake I could be making now was not to fall in love with him.