Chapter 5

Daniela

Awareness was slowly returning to me. I could hear distant voices talking urgently. I could hear the incessant ringing of a phone. 

As I swam closer to consciousness each sound came into sharper focus. “We should put her down! She’s a danger to us all! Just because your pretty words worked this time doesn’t mean they’ll work next time!”

“She needs help! She needs control. You can’t rob her of all the life she has left just because you're too scared of the what ifs.”

“Damn right I’m scared! Look at you!”

“I’m fine. I told you I was fine.”

“No you aren’t. Your magic is so depleted you might as well be on your deathbed.”

Another voice cut in, “she’ll be fine Anthony.”

“See! I told you, it’s fine.”

“Serena! You will listen to me! She needs to be exterminated. We don’t know what she is or what she’s capable of.”

The female cut in again, but this time with a much calmer tone. “She’s a girl Anthony. A girl with so much life ahead of her. We can’t take that from her. We have to try.”

The response never came. Instead I could hear a heavy sigh and retreating footsteps. Then the slamming of a door.

Another voice cut in. A vaguely familiar rumble, “he’ll give in, Ren. He just needs some time to mull it over.”

“I know, I just wish he wouldn’t leave like that.”

“He has his own way of dealing with things.”

Another silence reigned. It was so silent I almost wanted to drift back off the sleep, but another part of my brain demanded I open my eyes. I pushed past the heaviness until a sliver of light escaped past my eyelids.

“She’s waking up,” the deep male voice said.

I pushed through the rest of the fog until the ceiling came into focus. The ceiling was high and made up of glossy wood and so were the rest of the walls. I pushed up from the couch that I seemed to be laying on to find a group of people staring at me in a chaotic wall of emotions

Some looked angry, others worried, another inquisitive, and the one girl in the room was giving me the biggest smile she could muster around the exhaustion that seemed to permeate her poster. 

Wait, I know these people. It’s that group from the pub. What the fuck are they doing here?! And where the fuck am I?!

“I know you must be confused,” the girl spoke up.

“Yeah I’m confused! Where the hell am I?! Who the hell are you?!”

“What’s the last thing you remember,” the man with the salt and pepper hair asked with a sort of unshakeable calm that I definitely was not feeling.

“I remember leaving the pub. Then,” I wracked my brain trying to remember the events that followed. “Then, I was walking to my apartment and these weird people showed up. They were wearing black robes and they took me to the park. Then…” My mind went blank as the rest of the events escaped me, but that didn’t stop my mind from making connections. 

“Was it you?!” I accused, burning with an almost foreign anger.

“No,” the girl quickly cut in with a soothing voice, but it couldn’t quell my anger.

“So you just decided to kidnap me and take me wherever the hell this is -”

“Our home,” she cut in. “This is our home, and we didn’t kidnap you. We just wanted to take you to a safeplace.”

“A safeplace?! The hospital would have been a safe place! Did you even call the police?!”

“No,” the man cut in again, but this time his unshakeable calm seemed to be shaking. There was an almost imperceptible anger simmering below the surface.

The girl moved to stand in front of him. “We couldn’t take you to the hospital. They would have asked too many questions.”

“You aren’t making a great case for your good person act.”

“It isn’t an act.” Her voice seemed to become more stern, but I wouldn’t say angry. It seemed more like irritation, maybe just pure exhaustion. 

She took a deep clarifying breath. “Sorry, let me just start over,” another breath. “My name is Serena. This is Val,” she pointed to the man standing protectively behind her. “This is Silas,” the dark skinned man with shimmering grey hair, “and this is Holland,” the short blonde. 

I gave her a sceptical look, but she continued on. “We work for an organization called Citadel.”

“It’s like the ghost police,” the man named Silas cut in, a goofy smile on his face that did not match the situation.

“Right.” I almost burst out laughing from the absurdity of the statement, but I decided to let them continue, just to see how far the lie would go.

“Yeah, it is kind of like the ghost police. We’re in charge of solving crimes involving supernatural beings.”

“‘Supernatural beings’? Like what?”

“Well…” She hesitated, looking to Val for reassurance.

He picked up her trailing sentence, “I’m a vampire.”

“I’m a werewolf,” Silas cheerily chimed in.

“I’m a witch,” Holland begrudgingly divulged.

“And I’m a psychic.”

That was my last straw. I burst out laughing, so hard my eyes began to water. “Wow, you all are a bunch of psychos. Well this has been a fun story, but I’d like to go home.”

I pushed myself off of the couch, my legs wobbly at first, but I quickly got my bearings and began walking towards what must have been the front door. That’s when Val stepped in front of me, his imposing figure blocking my advance. “You can’t leave.”

Anger came to a boiling point inside me, “yes I can! You can’t hold me here against my will! I want to go home and I never want to see you again!”

For some reason, my yelling seemed to have worked. All the people in the room backed up, and at first I felt proud of myself until I really took in the situation. Everyone’s eyes were glowing a rainbow of colors. Val’s had turned a blood red, Silas’ a glowing yellow, Holland’s an uncanny green. The only one that seemed unphased was Serena, “Ok, everyone take a deep breath, she won’t hurt us.”

“How can you be so sure?!” Holland fumed. “I mean she already hurt you! We barely contained her in the first place! And you had to make a deal with whatever demon is possessing her! I’m starting to think your brother was right.”

“It wasn’t a demon,” against all odds she maintained her calm. “I don’t know what it was exactly, but it wasn’t a demon. I know demons and that wasn’t a demon. Whatever it was, whoever it was,” she corrected herself. “They were just scared. All they wanted was to feel safe, that’s something I’m more than willing to offer.”

I wasn’t exactly following the conversation. I couldn’t understand what they were talking about, because it couldn’t be me, right? I mean I’m just a normal girl, and I refuse to play into their shared delusion.

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about, but I’m sure you can figure it out without me. I’m going home.”

I went to take a step but that’s when I heard and inhumane snarling coming from Val and Silas. Their eyes truly glowed, producing a bright light. But that’s not possible is it? But that wasn’t the craziest thing. A green looking smoke was surrounding Holland, swirling around him with ferocity. 

I shook my head, trying to clear the images, but they wouldn’t disappear. “What the fuck is going on?! What did you do to me?! Did you drug me?!”

That seemed to make them even angrier, the tension in the room was about the burst, and I prepared to defend myself. Some part of me was scared of them, but another part of me knew I could take them down. They were no match for my power. What power? My head surged with an unbearable pain and I fell to my knees, crying out. 

I cradled my head and rolled into a ball on the floor, trying to ride out the pain when I felt the most amazing wave of calm wash over me. It enveloped me and chased away the pain, chased away the anger. That’s when I felt a gentle hand on my back. “Listen, I promise I’ll explain everything, but you have to sit down and listen. You can’t run away or you won’t find the answers you’re looking for. I promised I’d protect you, that I’d help you, so please let me.”

I was still drowning in serenity, so I listened to her request. I accepted her help off the floor and she led me back to the cozy couch. A soft purple was swimming in my vision, but it was slowly fading out of focus. Once clear smoky swirls, it now faded completely from my sight, but I could still feel the unwavering calm enveloping me. 

I dazedly looked at Serena, “well start explaining.”

“Like I was saying before, humans aren’t the only ones in this world. All the myths and legends you’ve heard have some sort of truth to them.”

“Even bigfoot?”

“Yes, even bigfoot,” Silas cut in, “He’s a nice guy! I can take you to meet him if you want? You could get his autograph,” He wiggled his eyebrows with a dopey smile on his face.

I rolled my eyes, “you aren’t totally convincing me that this isn’t all a bunch of bullshit.”

“Don’t listen to him,” the blonde witch (allegedly) said, giving him a sharp shove that Silas just laughed off.

Serena continued in spite of the chaos in the background, “last night there was a magical anomaly. Basically, a big explosion, but it happens on the magical plane so only beings with magic can sense it.” She paused to make sure I understood, and I nodded for her to proceed. “It was by Harrison’s pub so we responded to it immediately, and when we got there we found that the source of that magic was…” She paused and began biting her lip, before finally spitting it out. “You were the source of the anomaly.”

It was like the whole world stopped when she said those words. Suddenly memories came flooding back to me in broken pieces. My throat began to burn, and I grabbed at it with my hand, expecting to feel blood pouring from a phantom gash. 

“I died.” It felt like the whole world was collapsing around me as each memory fell into place. “I killed. I-” I felt at my back fully expecting to find another set of appendages. “What am I?”

I looked up at the faces in front of me. Serena looked concerned, like she wanted to help but didn’t know how. The smile had even faded from Silas’s lips. Holland glared at me, clearly not so sympathetic, and Val had returned to stone faced. 

I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand all of them standing there, looking at me, judging me. I felt like my whole world had shattered. Everything I knew was crumbling around me. Even the one thing I thought would never change, had changed. I’m not human. I’m - I don’t even know what I am anymore. I don’t even know myself,

I tried my hardest to hold back tears. These people will not see me cry! I wanted to run away so bad, be alone, free from the prying eyes surrounding me. 

“What am I?” I repeated, shooting a seething look towards Serena.

She seemed to flinch, before collecting herself. “I - I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. You’re still you. This doesn’t change who you are -”

“It changes everything! You don’t understand! My whole life fell apart and I thought - I thought I finally had it figured out! But then your stupid magic swoops in and ruins everything! Couldn’t you have just left me to die?! Why couldn’t I have just died?! Died with hope for the future, but now, now, I see the way you look at me with fear. I heard you talking about killing me. I’m a monster!”

“No you’re not!”

“Why couldn’t you have just left me alone!” I stood up and went for the door, but Serena stood in my way and all I saw was red. I shoved her out of the way and I could feel my power begin to swell. 

That’s when the purple smoke began to surround me, soothing me. I could feel my power beginning to dissipate, but my anger didn’t quite leave.

“Serena that’s enough!” A man came bursting through the door wearing a white coat and a pair of thin frames placed on the bridge of his nose. “You’ve done enough. You can’t use it anymore.”

The purple haze quickly retreated along with the calm. “That was you? You can’t use magic to just make me stop being angry at you!”

“No, that's not what I was doing. I was just trying to help.”

“I don’t need your help,” I growled.

“Listen!” Val cut in, a sharp command in his voice. “You need to calm down. We’re all trying to help you. Serena most of all. She advocated for your life and you nearly killed her. You don’t understand how magic works so don’t assume what it’s meant to be doing based on one effect. You need to stay put with us until you can control your magic and your anger.”

He scolded me so thoroughly I felt as though I was back in kindergarten, getting scolded by my dad for pushing mean Maddox off the swings after he stole my lunch. I sat back down on the couch and resigned myself to listen to whatever else he asked of me. 

“Reed, please take Serena to her room and don’t let her out. She’s had enough excitement for one day.”

The scientific man, Reed apparently, gave a sympathetic look to Val, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder before helping Serena off the floor and guiding her somewhere else in the house.

Val returned his attention to me. “Please, stay here for just a few days. Let everything sink in. I promise we’ll keep you safe, and you're not a prisoner here. You can leave, but just be conscious about your situation. We don’t know anything about your magic except for its way too powerful for us to handle. The only reason it worked out before is because of Ren, and that’s the only reason it’s working now. Her magic, it can help you with control. Her magic does have a calming effect, just inherently, but she wasn’t manipulating you, she was suppressing your magic.”

“She shouldn’t have done it without telling me first,” I remained firm. It didn’t matter to me what she was doing. I was angry, and she took that away from me.

“She won’t do it again,” Silas assured me, a more serious smile on his face, but no less genuine. “She was doing it for us. We’re a bit trigger happy, if it got more out of control than that we would’ve… Well lets just say we would’ve been less inviting.”

For some reason, I was inclined to believe him. More than that, I wasn’t even particularly mad that he basically said he would’ve taken me down by force. I could tell it wasn’t personal. These four were clearly close, and it was clear they would do anything to protect one another. If nothing else, I could trust their skills as protectors. Whether or not they had my best interest in mind? Well that I’d have to see for myself. 

They were right about one thing though, I don’t know what’s happening to me and they do, so for now I’ll see where this goes, but I won’t like it.