Back to Me

Warning - This is the longest chapter so far. I recommend you take a seat ;)

Fun Fact: I rewrote this chapter four times.

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Hope thrashed against the binds. The sharp scales of the scims tore her wrists, but she barely felt the sting. Across the field, Alyssa held a blank expression, carefully concealing her thoughts, although her eyes were trained on Josie's broken body.

Her silence unnerved Hope. It crashed over her like ocean waves, greedily suffocating the little air in her lungs. She wanted Alyssa to say some witty remark so she could scream at her, unburden her heart of the vice grip squeezing it.

When it never came, Hope couldn't keep her gaze off Josie a moment longer. She felt like a knife was stabbed into her chest over and over. The ground was tarnished red with Josie's fresh blood. Her neck split open and her arms bent in jagged angles. Like a rag doll, she layed on the cold dirt. The scene burned itself into her brain like an unwelcome visitor.

Her eyes stung with tears. She let them fall.

Without warning, the scim in her mouth slithered away. A cry nearly escaped her lips when her wrists were set free. She dropped to her knees, deep purple and black bruises already forming on her milky skin. The scims dissolved into the shadows and away from her view.

Alyssa studied her from above, uncaringly scrutinizing her.

"You disgust me," The witch bit out, an ugly sneer contorting her face, "I thought you cared about Josette. I see now that you're nothing but a lost cause-- consumed by revenge. Your family had every right to put you in that cell."

Hope balled her fists, clutching the wet ground in her palm. Alyssa had let her go... that was her first mistake. 

She was going to wear the witch's spine like a necklace.

Alyssa turned on her heel and stalked towards the stone where she had previously set the compass on. The sigil had been blown away, so she took another piece of chalk from her coat and began redrawing it.

Without sparing the seething tribrid a single glance, Alyssa continued, "Blasting Josette with a shockwave on the off-chance you hit me too? How desperate must you be," The sheer repulsion in her voice made Hope flinch, "Someone who kills so carelessly is not worthy of my time."

Hope bared her teeth, breathing heavy and sporadic. She focused on Alyssa's back, fearing that if she let her eyes wander ever-so-slightly to the right, she'd burst into flames with grief.

How had their plan come to this? She dug her hands into the soft ground beneath, wishing, praying, for Josie to wake up and reassure her everything would be ok. For Josie touch her again with warm, curious fingers. For Josie to smile at her or pout. To laugh or glare.

She just wanted Josie.

She choked back a cry. She beat a fist against the ground. Then another. And another. She relished the ache in her knuckles, however brief it was. She deserved the pain. 

She deserved it.

She deserved it.

"Phasmatos revenios un Animum..."

Alyssa began chanting the spell again, ignoring Hope like she was a bothersome child.

A familiar rage sprouted in her chest, running wild through her veins before she could think of stopping it. She had always feared it. It was the same rage that crowned her father The Great Evil. The same rage she inherited from him. The same rage her family worked tirelessly to smother. Hope kept it at bay every day, aware of the chaos it could cause if she lowered her guard.