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ADDITIONAL CAST
Kate Del Castillo as Silvia
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CHAPTER SIXTEEN
LIVE WITH IT
THE HOT WEATHER feels like a weight on my body as my gaze wanders around my surroundings. Little towns are probably the best place for us to be in, but they're not that different from one another and it makes me strive for a change of scenery. That, or being bored and hot is affecting my mood. My gaze moves from the police station I've been sitting in front of for a while now to the book about Mexico that I'm holding open in my hands. After I wandered around the town, I found myself here, doing some research for Seth about how the local police station works, not that he actually asked me to do this.
The real reason to why I'm sitting here is nostalgia. The local police station is very small — it only has one floor, three patrol cars parked at the front and not a lot of movement in and out of it. It's not the most similar to where I used to work, however, it's enough to make me dwell on my memories from my station. I liked going to work, didn't even mind the paperwork that much. I liked the rush that I felt whenever an emergency had to be dealt with and even as a rookie, I liked being a part of something that makes a difference in the world. Sure, a police department isn't solving poverty or fighting for world peace, but it was doing enough in my city.
You can say I'm on the other side of the fence now; living on stolen money, running away from one place to another and tensing up whenever I see any form of law enforcement near Seth. I wonder if my former colleagues would hate me if they knew about my current situation. Then, I push my thoughts and memories away. There is no point in dwelling on my previous working place, no matter how many good memories I have of it, considering the people there abandoned me in my time of need.
After closing the travel guidebook, I give my ponytail a tug and stand up. I feel like I've spent enough time outside for the time being and I head towards the motel we're staying now. It's only a fifteen minute's walk there, but it's enough to make me feel like a sweaty mess.
Entering the motel room we're staying in, I'm very surprised to see Seth there, sleeping. He's lying on his side peacefully and a few steps later, I notice there is a pillow supporting his back. I've seen scenes similar to this one before and I can feel my heartbeat rising as I stare at Seth, hoping that I'm wrong about this.
Then, something catches my eye — a syringe, a lighter, and a spoon. Unfortunately, it means I'm not wrong. No, I think to myself. No, no, no, no, no, no. He didn't overdose, I can see from the steady rise and fall of his chest, but Seth simply using drugs is bad enough.
For a few seconds, I stand there and stare at him before I shake my head, close my eyes in disappointment and sit down on one of the chairs in the room to take off my shoes. I don't try to be very quiet or careful, my current mood making me wish that Seth will get back into consciousness.
He doesn't.
I lose track of time after that. My mind is too focused on taking in what's happening and trying to decide how to face Seth when he'll regain consciousness. It's much harder than it sounds since I feel a strong mix of confusion, anger, and sadness. Pointlessly, I try to understand when Seth started with the drugs, but I can't think of anything that could have hinted on him using them or even starting to. It makes me feel worse.
Personally, I never had a run-in with drugs, at least nothing more than some weed, which was before I started at the police. Aside from that, I only took part in a few drug dealers arrests, but that's it. I don't know what to do with Seth and it makes me pace restlessly around the room. After a while, I even take a short shower to try and calm my nerves, yet it only makes me feel more distressed.
Refreshed but still anxious, I get back to my seat after ten minutes and look at Seth. This is way over my abilities. My mind continues racing as time goes by, only it seems to tire me down and at some point, my eyes close.
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The screech of the bed makes my eyes snap open after some time. Seth is now sitting up, rubbing his eyes with his right hand. Knots fill my stomach as I look at him quietly, partly because I want him to say something and partly because I still don't know how to start this conversation. Then, his gaze meets mine.
The silence between us is unfamiliar and I wish I could make it go away. Seth's expression is blank and I don't know what it means and in what state of mind he is in. Then, I drop my gaze to the evidence he left of what he did, currently preferring to look at that than to share a heavy stare with him.
"Is Kate here?" Seth asks eventually.
I need to purse my lips to stop myself from saying something that will sting him too much. It's almost annoying how much this is affecting me. "No."
He sighs heavily and moves to sit on the edge of the bed. He starts gathering all of his things and I follow his movements as he puts them all in a small, leather case. Cute, I think sarcastically.
"Can you just say something so we can get this over with, April?"
He doesn't sound too frustrated and I remind myself he's high. "I think that I don't have to say anything for you to know where I stand," I reply.
"Great," he says, the word being slightly dragged out, probably because of his high.
Seth stands up and starts walking around, possibly getting ready to leave. He still has to get some work done in this town after all. It seems like he doesn't notice how my attention stays on him and how I watch him like a hawk, which is apparently enough to make me speak up.
"How long have you been doing this?" I ask.
His head turns so he can look at me, yet the person I'm looking at isn't entirely Seth. "Does it matter?" He says with a small shrug.
My eyes slightly widen at his indifference, which is also well noticed by the way he ignores my reaction. He's busy putting his shoes back on and it seems to be more of a struggle for him than it should be, but he manages.
Our conversation being dropped and the way he doesn't even look at me, whether it's because he's high or now, irritates me to the point where I can't hold back my words. "Fuck off, you don't get to be selfish."
"I like you better when you loosen up, January. Don't worry your pretty little head about it, alright?" He replies and leaves the room with a rather cheerful expression.
For a few seconds, I simply blink at the door, taking in the fact that this is all real. This is very bad. With nothing left to do, I lean back in my chair. Again, I can't think of any time when I thought Seth was high, but I suppose he's smart enough to time his doses to when he's alone and neither of us girls can find him like this. Only this time, he messed up.
Well, he messed up much before the moment he started using.
I am left alone with my mess of thoughts and what happened, what I found out, feels like a massive dark cloud hanging over my head. I want to make this turn of events stop, but I can't. All my emotions gather up to the point where the water starts boiling in a bottle that's standing not very far away from me. When I realize it, I start inhaling deeply and steadily, not doubting that's it's happening thanks to me and soon, the water becomes still again.
The candles that I use to practice my magic catch my eyes and I consider using them to release some steam, yet sitting in this room alone and drowning in my thoughts isn't what I currently want. With my knife and gun hidden beneath my clothes, I walk outside and lock the door behind me. Our car is turning around the corner with Seth in the driver's seat and I sigh. Truthfully, I don't have much to do at the moment and I simply sit down on one of the benches that are set around the motel's parking lot. A woman who's standing with her car door open is looking at me and I choose to ignore her eyes. My breaths are steady as I try to keep away the negative thoughts and emotions. For now, I push Seth and the drugs away from my thoughts so I can stay calm.
"American?" A voice asks and draws my attention to the same woman who was looking at me earlier. I realize she's talking to me.
She looks around fifty to me with great skin, a healthy body figure and almost no wrinkles. Her brown hair is rather curly and reaches her shoulders as she slightly smiles at me. I immediately feel suspicious about her talking to me, although she could be simply friendly.
"Yes," I reply.
She nods for a moment without breaking eye contact. "You're very strong. I could feel your energy even before you came out of the room," she says with an accent that I assume is local.
Not sure what she's talking about, I frown. It almost sounds like she's talking about my magic and I stare back at her. She chuckles and finally closes the door of her car. She walks closer to me and the car makes a locking sound.
"I'm like you. Can't you feel it? Like an energy coming from me?" She asks and even though a part of me wants to go back into my room, I realize she's right. I can obviously feel my magic, but I can feel something else but more... distant. "I'm Silvia," she adds.
"Jane," I nod at her, not trusting her enough to give her my real name, even if she's a witch as well.
Silvia takes a seat on the bench, her bag placed between us. I haven't met another real witch before, but it doesn't mean I'm going to make things easy on her.
"I'll believe if you can prove it," I say, choosing my words carefully, not wanting to confirm anything before I'm sure she's telling the truth.
Not a minute passes by when the streetlamps around the parking lot start flickering. This is something I can believe and I feel a bit of excitement in my stomach. Silvia looks at me like she's waiting for my approval. Suddenly, my hair starts moving as if a wind has started, only I don't feel any wind and Silvia smirks.
"Okay," I say finally.
"You have a lot of magic you're not using, I can feel it in you. It's a little unsettling, like you could... explode," the older woman says as her expression turns to an uneasy one.
It takes me time to respond to her words. I'm not sure how much I should tell her, even though finally being around like someone like me is exciting. "I'm pretty new to all of this," I admit.
Silvia hums, understanding. "I could help you if you'd like. I'm staying here for a week, my room is right there," she says and points to one of the rooms behind her.
"Why would you want to do that?" I ask.
Spending the last two months with only Seth and Kate has pulled its toll on me in terms of trusting other people, yet I don't regret asking the question.
Silvia doesn't seem to mind answering it. "You're the one who was missing a while ago. I saw you on TV," she says and I freeze. She reaches into the pocket of her handbag and pulls out a card that she gives me. "People know me both around here and the States. I do readings for mostly rich people. I can't actually see the future, but they all believe that I do when I show them one of the things that I showed you."
She then stands up and raises her eyebrows in a silent question. The help offer is tempting, especially after all this time of struggling with my magic on my own. I move my gaze to the card in my hands and study it. It's designed black and purple and has an image of a table that has tarot cards and a crystal ball on it. Most of all, it seems like a real business card, no matter how unusual her profession is.
"I don't have money to give—"
Silvia raises a hand in dismiss. "I'm not going to charge you money for this."
"Also, you don't tell anyone that you saw me. You don't ask about what I'm doing here, who I'm with or anything like that," I continue.
"You're very secretive," she notes. She stays quiet for a few seconds and I can already imagine her considering backing up. "Whatever you want, as long as you don't get me involved in any trouble. Nor does that man who left your room — he doesn't look very friendly."
Seth doesn't worry me at the moment and for now, I think that I won't mention this to him. That is whenever we could have a normal conversation again.
"Deal," I say, standing up and put out my hand for her to shake.
We shake hands before she guides me to her motel room. It's smaller than our room since there is only one bed and it's much tidier, almost making it look like no one lives here. I clench my left hand to stop myself from reaching for my gun.
"You can sit wherever you want," Silvia says while locking the door. I take a seat on one out of the two chairs and she pours both of us a glass of water before sitting in front of me. "How about you tell me about your magic? Maybe you could also show me."
I decide to answer the question, but take a moment to think how I can tell Silvia about me and magic without mentioning anything that has to do with the Titty Twister, what happened there or the Geckos.
"Weird things started to happen to me several months ago, for example, I got burned from touching a cup of coffee thirty minutes after I made it, a light bulb exploded and both happened when I was angry. One day I was trying to reach for my phone, but I didn't want to get up and it wasn't close enough, until it moved," I explain and Silvia smiles sympathetically. "Then, I got into a situation and I made a glass crack, I almost got burnt from something that wasn't supposed to be hot and I made some things explode. I've been practicing since but it's hard."
"I can imagine. If you have no one to guide you, you probably don't entirely know what you're capable of..." Silvia says thoughtfully. "It sounds like you specialize with fire, which isn't too common. Not many witches specialize in one of the elements."
Frowning, I ask, "What's the difference between specifying in an element and not?"
"It means people like me can do magic that is... general. You could say it relays on energy; move things as you mentioned, turn something on and off. Of course, the more magic you use, the more you can do. But for normal witches, it would be much more difficult to create fire, for example, out of thin air like you might be able to do."
Finally learning information about people like me makes me listen tentatively. This doesn't mean I trust Silvia, but she hasn't said anything that I can suspect not to be true yet. She has no reason to lie to me about the things she told me so far, and it feels good to finally learn something.
"It's all a question of practice and knowledge, to be honest," the short-haired brunette adds. She stands up and starts walking around the room, searching for something. "That's the key to having immense abilities."
"I don't know about immense abilities," I say in slight amusement and push a strand of hair behind my ear. "I just want to know how to live with this."
In return, I get a pointed look from Silvia as she puts a closed bag of potato chips in front of me. "If you wanted to just live with it, you wouldn't need help to know more about being a witch, you would ignore it. Besides, if you exploded something, it means you need or needed to know how to protect yourself," she says.
Instead of arguing, which is pointless because she's right, I say, "So, what do you want me to do?"
Silvia puts her hand on the closed snack and explains, "This is your guinea pig. Show me what you can do."
My attention moves from her to the snack and I start concentrating. I slowly squeeze my fingers into a fist as the package begins to fill with air and shake. Thinking about Seth helps since it angers me and by that gives me more power. With a pop sound, the package opens, the air that gathered in it coming out and slightly flattening the bag. Then, I carefully take out three potato chips and set them in front of me to use the same trick on them as I do with the candles when I practice — light them on fire. It takes a few more seconds, but the chips light up and I let them burn for about ten seconds, while Silvia watches with great interest.
Finally, I move my hand above the three potato chips with my palm turned towards them and the fire disappears. I title my head up as I take a curious look at Silvia, searching for a sign of approval or disapproval. Her brown eyes meet mine and a second later, her lips curl into a small smile.
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WE'RE NOT IN SEASON 3 YET JUST FYI. We're getting there, but some things have to happen before that.
Honestly, Silvia is a random addition and there are a few more original characters coming up in the future. Also, not only drama is waiting for Jeth but it's only the beginning of a wild ride, I'll tell you that.