Don't be afraid, darling ✔[COMPLETED]

Chapter 37: Respite from suffering

"Oh my dear, celeste. You act like you have a choice in giving me your powers! Well, let me enlighten you. I will have your gifts whether you want it or not. Now, Cabrera. Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

I frowned in confusion. Okay, how many people are here, exactly? And... Cabrera as in... Jacquelyne Cabrera?

My question was answered when a skeletal, crooked figure stumbled out from the shadows.

Wow, she definitely wasn't the legendary beauty that I had expected. Ratty hair, sunken cheeks, dull, lifeless eyes and rotted skin. Missed lots of spa appointments, didn't she? However, all hints of humour were gone when she smiled.

Her pale, cracked lips twisted into a horrible grimace like smile and I flinched. A sense of cold despair settled at the pit of my stomach. Almost like the dementors in Harry Potter.

When she spoke, I almost covered my ears at her screeching voice. "Is that her?" She screeched gleefully, pointing at me.

Nathaniel nodded and extended his arm in her direction. Immediately, she fell to her knees, clawing at her throat.
"Please, master! Forgive me! I didn't mean to... to appear... insolent!"

"Do I need to remind you to know your place, again, Cabrera?"

She wheezed and squealed, now rolling around on the floor, "No, no! Not at all! Not... I know... my place!"

I almost felt sorry for her. But she wasn't worth my sympathy. That b*tch caused Cassian and Zorraine a lot of trouble. And I had a nagging suspicion that she had been the one torturing Zorraine.

Nathaniel lowered his hand and turned to Zorraine, "Now, Cabrera. Get up and do what you're supposed to do."

Jacquelyn scurried over to Zorraine and undid his chains, making him crash head first into the floor.

"Zorraine!" I was about to go help him, when a bruising grip on my arm made me yelp in pain.

Nathaniel glowered at me, "Where do you think you're going? You will stay put until you are told what to do."

I was about to snap, "You're not the boss of me, asshat!" But of course, I knew better than to provoke him again. I gritted my teeth and stayed where I was.

Jacquelyne was careful not to show her ecstacy, but it was evident from her jittery and jumpy movements. She dragged Zorraine up by the scruff of his torn shirt and propped him up against the wall like a grotesque doll. He groaned, but was too injured to resist. Nathaniel muttered an incantation in a foreign language and a red hot circle got burned into the ground around Zorraine, like a boundary. 

Nathaniel kept muttering and the circle glowed brighter and brighter. I could literally see Zorraine's life force draining in front of me, as his body writhed and twitched within the circle. His eyes met mine for a fleeting second and the pleading I saw in them broke my heart.

"Please... please... K-Kiara. Kill me... please...Don't let... him.." he couldn't finish his sentence but he didn't need to. His request could not be any plainer. 

He wanted me to kill him so Nathaniel couldn't use his powers against the people he cared about. 

But I'd be damned if I let that happen.

My tears flowed afresh as I watched his back arch all the way backwards so he I could hear his spine crack. 

His scream chilled my blood and caused Jacquelyne to smirk triumphantly. Nathaniel just continued to chant.

Zorraine looked like he wanted to pass out, but the intensity of the spell did not let him. He was forced to stay awake and bear all the excruciating pain. 

When I was about 8, my parents had taken me for a safari at a wildlife sanctuary. There, we had seen a deer being dragged off by a pack of hyenas from the tour bus. The deer wasn't dead, and it was trying its best ecsape. But struggling was hopeless as the hyenas mercilessly tore off strips of flesh from the deer's stomach and back. 

My dad tried to get me to look away, but I was kind of fascinated by the scene. Eventually, the deer stopped flailing its legs and fell completely still. An old lady sitting behind us said morosely, "God has granted the poor creature respite from it's misery."

Now, looking at Zorraine, I wondered why God couldn't grant him respite. 

Maybe... God had given that duty to me.

If only I could interrupt the spell in some way and stop it...

Praying for my life, I launched myself at Nathaniel, who was so busy absorbing Zorraine's power, keeled over from all my bodyweight. I knew I had taken him by surprise when the both of us crashed to the floor, him lying flat on his back and me splayed on top him. 

The only consolation I got was to hear Zorraine's screams of pain stop.