Bitter Blood (BBi)

Chapter 51: Fault

Chapter Fifty-one
Fault

My eyes are open before my brains awake.

All I see is brown in my sight for a long minute. I blink, trying to clear it, trying to see in the dark.

Everything smells of blood; metallic and coppery. When I move my mouth I can feel it dried all over my skin, taste it when I wet my lips. I'm sitting upright but my head feels like it's been stuffed full of cotton and weighs too heavy on my neck. I raise it slowly and nausea hits me. Sick comes to the back of my throat. I cough, choking it away.

I try to reach up for my face, feel for the damage, but my wrists refuse to lift. I look down.

My hands are tied to the chair I'm sitting in, my ankles wound in rope to the two front legs as well. The chair itself has been bolted to the cement floor beneath me.

I feel sick again.

I don't have to look around to know Blue isn't here. I remember him lying in a pool of his own blood. Dying. Dead.

Raina did this.

A loud screeching tortures my ears. The place I'm in is very small; a rectangular shaped building constructed from metal cladding and steel beams. It all looks rusty and aged. A part of the right wall draws aside and Raina steps into the shed from outside.

There are two prominent purple bruises against the pale complexion of her face; one on her cheekbone and the other along her jaw. I feel proud knowing I caused them before I went down.

She smiles. “Evening.”

Psychopath.

I try to ask her where I am but those simple three words come out so slurred I'm not even sure if she understands me.

"You know,” she begins, pulling the door closed. “When someone goes through all the trouble of casting a hex they're kind of hoping that it'll stick. Kill whoever it is you are trying to kill.” she walks over to stand in front of me. “It appears my hex has failed to do that.”

Her hex.

“But– “ she holds up a finger, “–when I found out you managed to break it I was a little relived. It took far too much energy to uphold.”

She crouches down, still smiling up at me.

“You're a resilient one, aren't you?” she asks. “I sent wolves to bite you and you murdered them all. I hexed you and you broke it."

Dread dawns and I blink to see her face properly when I say; "You sent the gang that night in the school gym."

She nods and presses her lips together. "I guess I have your Hound to thank for saving you."

She stands up and wanders away from me, looking around at the rusty shed walls that surround us both.

“It's okay, though.” she says as if I objected to it. “Cause if he isn't already dead, when you die, he'll die alongside you.”

My hands are shaking, my wrists straining against their bindings.

My Blue. My friend, my companion, my protector.

He can't be gone.

“Why are you doing this, Raina?”

She turns around, her features delicately confused. The first time I met her she had been quiet and shy. Not this.

“You've already asked me that.” she says.

“Give me a real reason.” I tell her. “You can at least do that.”

She pauses for a moment before agreeing, “Fine.”

She comes to stand in front of me again.

I want to press on her bruises, make them hurt.

"Since the day I first met your mother I understood how powerful she was, how great of a leader she would be. I look up to her, do everything she asks.” she says. “But do you know how many times the coven have called me weak? Incapable? I'm going to prove that I'm just as powerful as the rest of them.”

She leans down, her hands resting on the arms of the chair where my wrists are. I want to headbutt her, crush her nose, break her face.

“I'm going to kill you, harbinger, and then you're mother will understand.” she says. “You aren't a real Witch. You aren't like us."

Closer. Come just a little bit closer.

"You're right. I'm not like you.” I tell her. “I'm not a psychotic bitch.”

Raina does the opposite of what I want. She straightens up, her demented smile never faltering. She's a hunter and she knows she has me captured.

The word harbinger echoes through my head.

“You're the reason they all know where I am, aren't you?” I ask her. “My mother told the coven who I was and you told the rest of the world.”

So blatantly pleased with herself, Raina turns and heads for the door.

"The people you sent after my friends. It was a Werewolf gang, right?” I call out. She looks over her shoulder at me. "Wanna explain how exactly you got then to work with you?"

She turns around. "It was surprisingly easy, actually. All I had to promise was that I'd give them a chance to rip apart Elise Kingsley's daughter and they agreed in a heartbeat.” she smiles. “I'm sure if they knew that you were the harbinger as well they would have come after you even sooner.”

I realize then that all of this is her fault. The body in my backyard, the gangs at our doorsteps, the witches attacking my friends. The same friends she may have finally succeeded in killing.

God Avery, please be safe.

"A coven Witch and a bunch of enemy Werewolves." I shake my head at her. "Don't you realize that the people coming after me are going to smell you both here? If I die, they'll hunt you down and rip you to pieces. You won't even make it out of the forest."

She walks a few steps back to me. “It won't be like that.” she says.

“Oh yes it will.” I tell her. “You'll die before you get the slightest taste of the lifelong glory of being a murderer.”

The slap is hard; the sting buzzing through my entire face. I lift my head back up.

"And if my wolves don't find you,” I say, speaking through the pain, “then my mother will. Because she'll know – she'll know that you attacked me, tied me up, tortured me, and she'll do the exact same to you."

Raina's hand darts forward and she grabs me by the throat, fingers clenching around my windpipe tight enough to make me reconsider my taunting.

"And then there's my Hound." I say anyway, lifting my chin from her hand. "He'll find me. There's no doubt about it. He'll make you pay for every bruise, every drop of blood." I meet her gaze, channeling as much anger and hatred in my last words as I can, enjoying the idea of them, almost smiling.

"You'll die screaming." I promise her.

Raina rips her nails across my throat and I cry out. She straightens up.

"You first." she says.

She slams her fist into my nose as hard as she can. Bloods pours over my lips.

Then she does it again and again until night rolls away and morning falls and there's no feeling left in my body at all.

I'm numb when she finally leaves, closing the screeching door to the shed behind her.

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Sorry about the short chapter. We're getting very close to the end.