Recovery And Magic

8

I expected the hand to belong to Ian. Pulling me away from the trainwreck he warned me about. About to give me a speech that's supposed to make me feel better but instead will rip me apart. Another mistake. Another failure.

But the warm hand belonged to Niki. The fact her hand produced any body heat almost threw me for a loop. I would have bet she was cold as her eyes. Her head was held up as she dragged me through the hallway and into one of the doors. Where the cold, concrete training room waited for us. Scorched marks still freshly painted on the floor. Guess they don't clean up here.

My stomach started to run up my throat from the sight. At least the smell of smoke didn't hang around. I might have thrown up at that point.

"What are we doing here?" I asked, avoiding the scorched marks at all costs.

"I just wanna show you something," Niki said.

Why wasn't she yelling at me? Why aren't you disappointed? Why is everyone so fucking nice here?

"It's fine," I muttered, stepping over towards the door. "I'm not gonna come back to the meetings anyways. So it's all good."

"Just give me like five seconds." Niki cut in, blocking my way. "That's all I'm asking."

I could just walk through her. But I might just get my ass handed to me from whatever kind of magic she has.

I took a step back and waved to the ground. The stage was hers.

Niki gave a quick smile before crouching to the ground. She tapped the ground three times while muttering something under her breath. The icy white eyes started to glow. Brightening up from each tap her fingers made. My stomach squirmed it's way back down to the empty husk of my belly. I took a step back, cautiously watching what was happening. The build numbing the ends of my fingers. I might accidentally burn her if this keeps up.

Niki stopped her muttering and raised her hand. The ground she touched started to crack open. The air around us snapped with a cold whip. Shocking my lungs in breathing a little faster. The build starting to burn the corner of my palms. Any second now this whole room would get eaten by flames.

Breathe, breathe, breathe. Breathe slowly. I just need to breathe slowly. Don't panic. Don't set this crazy, cold, white eyes woman on fire cause you were freaking out by what she was showing you.

I gulped down air watching digits of small bones drag itself out from the crevasse of the cracked ground. Wiggling and worming itself to form a small skeleton hand. The bones clatter against the cement surface as it skittered around. Niki offered her hand and the hand rushed up to her shoulder like a spider. Too agile and way too lively for any disembodied, boney hand.

I stared at the hand and back at Niki who kept her small smile. I've only discovered magic maybe three days ago. But this is probably the strangest one of them all.

I didn't know whether to smile back or let the build shoot fire at the thing.

"It's not gonna hurt you," Nikki assured, patting the hand that was resting on her shoulder. "I'm controlling it."

And I am barely controlling any part of mine. Don't know if that's a good thing yet.

"Yeah umm," I replied, eyes still on the skeleton hand. "So why did you drag me in here? To show me that?"

Niki dropped her smile and snapped her fingers. The hand went limp and turned to dust.

"I wanted to show you that I know how you feel." She sighed, brushing off the remains.