Fade Into Black - Shadows of the Night 5

Chapter 14

Hi!

Choices have consequences. It's a very simple statement, but - I think - so very fitting for this chapter, I had to start there. Right or wrong, or maybe somewhere in between. Where is Anna? And where do you think is she headed? 

Lara

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Chapter 14

Stinging pain. A hard slap on my cheek. Then another. The voices came to me like abstract noises from a distant, half-forgotten dream.

"I need you awake for the portal. Come on, Anna, or are you gonna sit here until the rest of the Circle shows up?" The Raven said.

Slowly, I made the connection, understanding like a soft yawn in the morning – the stretching, the first twist of muscle and bone. My vision was fuzzy around the edges, a faint flashlight you have to shake as you make your way through a dark, unfamiliar house.

Pain. My hand felt like it was on fire. I hissed, blinked, chased away shadows with light.

The smile was the same, but the Raven's face was dust-streaked, looked eerily white and ashen. There was blood on his cheek. Someone grabbed me underneath my arms, lifted me into a semi-upright position.

Nausea made my stomach twist in a churning, downright wrong way. The world moved, a blend of dream and nightmare. My vision tainted, might as well have been part of a subconscious delirium. Showing me what might be, not what was real. Above all the flaring heat in my hand and the pain.

I tried to see more, but couldn't seem to see past the plumes of smoke.

Smoke.

I blinked. Signs of motion, or rather commotion: trampling feet, angry voices shouting orders, and then the Raven's hand was on my upper arm. I whimpered. What was wrong with my hand? The popping sound of portals opening like the flap flap of soft wings in the night.

The pull of the in-between sucked me in, made me lose my mental equilibrium. I was too shocked by what happened to prepare myself for it. Instants before the portal opened, before that first jerk of the in-between knifed into my mind, part of the smoke lifted, driven up and dispersed by a fierce gust of wind. Details, bits and pieces of vision aligned. All of a sudden they made sense in their unity. What I saw made the blood in my veins turn to ice.

The building's right wing was reduced to ashes, hands of fire reaching for a dark, vengeful sky. That was not the worst. The worst wasn't even me having a front seat to the spectacle, or the stinging pain in my hand. The worst was that one glimpse of a human form on the floor. It wasn't the only one.

The Inri Brotherhood just openly attacked and stormed a building and I was implicitly part of it. Not only that. Far worse. The Inri Brotherhood killed people this night and I was not only part of it, I was the one who even made it possible. That made me a murderer.

* * *

Darkness around me. Silence, except for the occasional swish of soft leather from outside. No matter which hideout, no matter how sordid a place, the rogues were always on their guard. Even in the dead of night. If I concentrated hard enough I could track their movements in second sight.

My hand was bandaged. They used a clean cloth. I overheard them while I was still half unconscious. Someone said it looked like second degree burns.

My magic came back after one and a half days. One and a half days of wondering whether my magic would come back at all. For a while I would have accepted it as punishment – an act of redemption I would welcome with open arms.