I make a sharp right; it yanks me to the left. Straight ahead before turning into an alley and unto a musty narrow lane I’ve never seen before, the roads are filled with potholes pooled with water and questionable people, it’s the type of place I’d find myself at when I’m looking for trouble or a sack of whatever those two are trading in the shadows, not her, but Samantha—
“She’s fucking dead!”
Keeping my breath steady I push harder and faster, the door to a building suddenly swings open and a man jumps back upon seeing me, I rotate around the door before yelling a quick apology.
The pull gets weaker adding fuel to my blazing desperation, don’t die on me.
I continue straight, completely lost, the buildings are old and grey, vines crawl at their feet and water leaks from broken pipes, the puddles breeding swarms of buzzing mosquitos.
I can hear my own panicked breaths in the deathly quiet empty lane, I slow down my steps before stopping, it’s gone…
I bite my lip and reach my hands into my hair, no she can’t be, she must’ve taken it off. My calves burn with every run. “Rae!” I shout. I blindly search, the widely spaced buildings are all dead ends, nothing but the occasional trash bin and street cat.
The lanes are much darker due to ledges and zincs and the fast-moving storm clouds. I can’t sense a pull or her magic energy but I can still find her. I channel my magic energy into the jewellery, and then more, a constant flow of energy grazes and glides beneath my skin in large amounts until a powerful burst of light comes from between two buildings at the dead end. My shoulders relax. “Rae,” I sigh.
I run towards where the light came from. “Rae, I thought I’d never—”
My stomach burns before throbbing in pain, my hands reach for the wound as the knife slips. My knees buckle, I look into her eyes, she’s shaking, kneeled crying with her hands tied behind her back, her eyes empty and unfocused, and the side of her face dripping blood. I can’t do anything; everything becomes fuzzy balls of colour framed by a black haze that’s closing in.
I reach into my mind for anything but I reach into a void.
Why can’t I feel my magic?
The world turns sideways, and my head hits the ground before my eyes shut. I pant heavily unable to move as someone lifts my head by the hair and ties something over it.
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