Experimental Magic ✔

My Sister's Keeper

Markos was laying around the apartment watching TV with Meadow when he felt an intense pain shoot through his chest. He sat up in his seat and put his hand over his heart, gritting his teeth. Shortly after, he developed a splitting headache that pounded in his ears. He closed his eyes to escape the harsh light and a blurry vision clouded his mind. It started to come into focus, but the background and fine details were still fuzzy. Out from the fog of his mind, Misty appeared, shaking and crying on the floor. As her cries rang in his ears, his pain turned from physical to emotional. Everything she felt, he felt.

"Markos?" Meadow said, but her voice was muffled.

He could barely hear her.

"Markos?" She said louder and with more urgency.

She grabbed his shoulder and shook him, violently breaking him out of his trance. Markos snapped back to reality and shot up from his seat. He jumped towards the coffee table, clearing all the junk with one reckless swoop of his arm.

"It's Misty," he said. "She's in trouble."

"What? What do you mean? What's wrong?"

"I don't know," Markos said. "That's why I need your help. We need to do a locator spell."

"Okay," Meadow said and got right to it.

She searched the house as quickly as she could, looking for a compass, a map and a pocket knife. Even though Meadow was technically still mad at Misty, all of that went out the window the second she learned she was in distress. She knew that Misty would only call out to Markos is she was really upset, so it had to be serious. As much as she hated Misty at times, they were sisters til the end. Do or die, they'd be by each other's sides.

Meadow tore through a pile of Markos's stuff until she found what she was looking for. She grabbed each of the items and rushed them to Markos. Markos grabbed the map, spread it out on the coffee table and placed the compass right in the middle. Without hesitation, he took the pocket knife and sliced his palm open. He balled his hand into a fist, squeezing as hard as he could, and let the blood drip down onto the compass. The needle started to twitch back and forth as it tried to locate Misty.

"Come on, Misty, where are you?" Markos muttered to himself impatiently.

He probably had only been waiting a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity. Every second that passed was one more second that Misty would have to endure her heartbreak alone.

Finally, the needle of the compass found it's way and settled on a location. The blood seeped from the needlepoint onto the map. It crawled it's way through the map, drawing a line to where she was. When it reached its final destination, Markos quickly jotted down the coordinates on a piece of scrap paper.

"All right, Meadow," he said as he tore off the bottom of the paper and crumpled it in his hand. "I need you to go get Millie and bring her back here. Tell her Misty needs us and that you two have to stay together."

"Okay," Meadow nodded. "Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?"

"Absolutely," Markos said. He was sure this was something he needed to handle on his own. "You stay here with Millie."

Markos went over and gave Meadow a quick kiss on the forehead, then he was off. He disappeared in the blink of an eye and reappeared in an opulent hallway that he didn't recognize. He wasn't sure exactly where he was going, so he let his heart lead the way.

It didn't take him long to find Misty. When he entered the room, she lifted her head from her knees, revealing her blood-shot eyes and tear-stained cheeks.

"Missie," Markos said. He hurriedly joined her on the floor and wrapped her up in his arms. "Are you okay?"

She didn't even try to hide it. She let herself break to pieces and fall in his arms, hoping he could hold her together.

"No," she cried into his shoulder. "I'm not okay. I've never been okay. I tried. I tried so hard. But I - I - "

Misty couldn't finish. She broke into another round of sobs. Markos squeezed her tighter and let her cry as much as needed. She wanted to talk to him. Tell him she was sorry, ask for forgiveness, but she could barely catch her breath. That didn't mean she wasn't going to try anyway.

"You were right," she said in between the sobs and the hiccups. "They don't care about me. I'm nothing to them. I'll always be nothing. I should've believed you. I should've trusted you. They fed me nothing but lies, and I ate them right up. I'm so stupid."

Misty broke down again, embarrassed and heartbroken. She had pushed away someone who truly cared about her for a fantastical mirage of a life she would never have. All those years, she had blamed him, for their family being torn apart, but she was equally as guilty. The veil had been pulled from her eyes and finally, she saw things for what they really were. Markos wasn't the enemy. The Assembly was.

"Hey, you're not stupid," Markos whispered. "Don't you think that for one second."

Hearing Markos's kind words soothed Misty. After everything she put him through, there he was by her side comforting her in her time of need. He didn't have to come. He could have let her suffer alone, or worse yet, thrown it all in her face. But he didn't. He selflessly dropped everything without even giving it a second thought. He must have really loved her.

"Do you want to tell me what happened?"

Misty pulled her head from his shoulder, wiped her eyes, and nodded. She still shivered and sniffled as she spoke, but she was feeling much stronger than before. She told him everything. Her fight with Meadow, the basketball game, the mistakes she made, her date with Scottie, the betrayal. All of it. She didn't spare a single detail. It was the most she had spoken to him in years. With every word that she spoke, the burden of her pain was eased. It was as if she had been pushing a boulder up a steep hill. Although she managed to push through, her arms had grown sore and weak and her spirit dejected. But now, after all those years, she had someone else to share the weight.

While Misty's confessions freed her mind, they trapped Markos's into a pit of indignation. Misty had lived through these experiences, but for Markos, it was all brand-new. And it was coming at him all at once. The gears were spinning in his head as he tried to process everything that happened. He tried to listen to everything, but the wheels kept getting stuck on Scottie. All the hurt that he had put her through, all the ways he had wronged her. He kept picturing his smug face and his smarmy smirk, using Misty like she was a toy for his amusement. That motherfucker.

Misty turned to look at Markos. She could see the muscles in his face shifting under his skin as he gritted and ground his teeth. His brows were furrowed and his mouth was downturned in a tight frown. His chest rose and fell as he breathed deeply in and out in anger. He didn't look at her. He stared off into the distance, his eyes glazed over and falling deep into a black hole of his own vengeful thoughts.

"He won't get away with this," he muttered to himself.

He nodded his head as he spoke, hyping himself up for what he felt he had to do. Markos let out one last breath and turned to Misty. The wheels were no longer turning. A decision had been made. She could see it in his eyes. Misty's heart flipped and her stomach dropped. She had seen that look in his eyes only once before, and nothing good had come of it.

"I'm gonna fix this," he promised Misty, much more definitively.

Misty swallowed hard and nodded timidly. She knew there was nothing she could do to stop him and that scared her. For she knew exactly what happened when Markos fixed things.

****

Thank you so much for casting your ballots last chapter! The verdict is in and Scottie was deemed innocent by a landslide. I have to say, I'm a little surprised by the results. You all have way more faith in him than I thought you would! Time will tell whether your predictions were correct...

As always, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts!