Bereft: Foretold

19 | An Unlikely Rescue

The dawn was hours from rising when the car came to a sudden—and inconvenient—halt.

On our initial approach to the La Voisin coven, I'd noted the presence of obstacles strewn across the desert plain and had considered the prospective difficulty of night travel, but considering those problems and actually suffering through them were very different experiences. Driving in the dark with both headlights busted from ramming the gate was nearly impossible, the road invisible against the velvet of the night sky. I navigated by feel alone, listening to the pop of gravel and scratch of sand, veering when the tires dipped and threatened to leave the trail.

Whatever technical mechanism controlled the vehicle's system continued to short, and within an hour, smoke began to billow from beneath the hood. The acrid veil rolled across the splintered windshield and seeped through the cracks, poisoning the air with its burning fugue. I was forced to yield when the smoke became too thick to see through, and neither of us could breathe.

"Dammit!" I snapped, spilling from the car, the ground collapsing beneath the weight of my leg. I stood upon the cracked edge of a shallow, dry creek bed, sand pouring into my shoes as the prickle bushes tore at my clothes. "The Pit take this blasted place!" 

I used the lever located inside the car to lift its hood, and more smoke billowed into the spangled stratosphere. Nose buried in my sleeve, I looked over the hissing engine block and recoiled from the waves of heat rising off the scorched metal. Had I been a Sin, I could've pulled the essence into me and devoured what transient memories yet clung to the car, the past recollections of mechanics and the engineers who'd touched the vehicle—but, as a human, I couldn't rely upon that skill to learn. 

I stared at the mess before me and realized that if I couldn't solve this, if I couldn't force my mortal brain to figure out a solution with the use of essence or the past memories it held, we would be stranded here, in the middle of nowhere.

I dropped into a crouch and covered my face with my usable arm, sinking my teeth into the mound of my palm. Why was this so difficult? Driving cross-country should have been a simple, albeit time consuming, process. Why did every possible upset seem to occur to me? Why was doing this so bloody impossible?!

My rage and loss, frustration and hopelessness, fulminated inside my chest until my heart and breath were crushed by the pressure. I didn't think I could do this. My head was too unclear, my soul too heavy with grief not yet shed. My desire to see Sara again was fierce, and there were other losses, other changes that were just as persistent, and the culminating effect was devastating.

My brother was gone—dead and buried on some forsaken mountain by my own hands. Recent memories of him were blighted by his madness, but he'd been my closest confidant for millennia. I missed the quickness of his wit, the fervor with which he'd fought and studied. Quiet, worldly Sethan who'd studied magic to tear it apart brick by brick.

Cuxiel and I hadn't seen eye to eye on most issues, but the man had always been good to me. He'd been a guiding hand, a voice of reason. Sometimes, he'd been the only one stopping me from giving into the monster of Pride, and he was gone. 

Maudlin fits disgusted me, but moments like this were too much too quickly, and I didn't have an option to vent my ire or my irritation. It just festered under my skin until it was unbearable and I couldn't withstand it for another second. I wanted to scream my anger into the sky and demand what I was due—but be it by cosmic force or King, I knew this misfortune was exactly what I deserved. Having stolen a thousand lifetimes from time's grasp and ended a thousand more, I didn't deserve to win. I deserved to lose.