The Bound Witch by Ivy Asher
5
Strong, wet arms pull me into the warm spray of the shower, but I’m still reeling too much to care. Rogan grabs the soap and stars to rub sudsy circles over my skin as I stare at the white subway tile, trying to figure out why the number thirteen is rocking my world so much. I was dead. I came back. These are facts that should shake my foundations. Yet the idea of being gone for almost two weeks is what suddenly tips everything on the this is too much scale?
“How?” I ask meekly as Rogan continues to clean me up.
“I don’t know,” he replies stoically. “You died in my arms, and I just held you, hoping if I did it long enough, that you’d come back. I didn’t know if you even could, but I...I couldn’t let go. Elon’s heart had started, but he wasn’t conscious. The Animamancers were happy to take the credit for bringing him back, and I wasn’t about to fill anyone in otherwise.”
His hands brush gently over my breasts and then start to circle lower. I should feel turned on by the attention, but I’m too shocked to care or to want to stop him and either take over or take things further.
“The first time Elon and I died, we think we were gone for about ten hours. We were told our hearts started again around hour six, and then it took another four or so for us to fully wake up. The second time for Elon was much faster. Only a couple of hours, we estimate, from the time he died to when he was fully conscious again. So I just held you and waited.”
He shakes his head, his stare far away and pained. His soapy hands move to my hips, and I watch him methodically scrub every inch of me while he’s lost to the torment of what happened thirteen days ago.
“I probably shouldn’t have put up such a fight when they tried to take you from me. My parents have eyes everywhere, and I was drawing too much attention to us, but the whole scene was madness anyway. I thought my irrational stubbornness would go unnoticed amongst all the other horrors that were being uncovered in that place.”
Rogan’s eyes lift to mine with those words, and swimming in them is guilt and dismay.
“All the bodies. All the mancers now nothing more than piles of tainted ash. The state you and Elon were in when we finally broke through the doors.” He drops his eyes and, with a small shake of his head, resumes his soapy strokes.
“Elon woke up, and when he saw you...well, it bought us more time. They had set up a med tent outside the church while the Order was processing the scene. That’s where we stayed as Elon answered questions. We made other excuses to stick around, but when hour six came and went, and you were still lying on a cot with no heartbeat... Well, as much as we didn’t want to accept it, we had to consider the possibility that you might not come back.”
I reach down and brush wet locks of hair from Rogan’s forehead. He washes between my thighs, but neither one of us are focused on anything else but what he’s saying. Anguish mars his features, and I try to imagine what it would have felt like to try to guard his dead body, hoping for a miracle but equally worried about what happens if he gets one. If my heart had started beating in that med tent, it wouldn’t have just been his mother’s spies witnessing it.
“The Order took you away after the interrogation was over. We tried to argue that we were claiming you on behalf of your family, but we’re renounced witches, and the Order wasn’t about to honor anything we wanted,” he tells me, a growl of frustration tinging his tone. “So Marx stepped in.”
I’m surprised to hear this development. Yeah, I figured Marx and other familiar faces from the Order would be hanging around, but Marx isn’t in the loop, and I’m surprised he would have gotten involved. I turn to rinse off as Rogan completes his cathartic scrub down and stands up. The knob in the shower squeaks as I turn it to shut the water off, and I get out, grabbing my towel from earlier and handing a fresh one to Rogan from the shelf above the toilet.
“Marx knows now,” Rogan states almost hesitantly, and my head snaps up from where I’m drying myself off to find Rogan watching me.
“Holy shit,” I exclaim, shocked and at a loss for what to think or feel about that. “How did he take it?”
Rogan rubs the back of his head with the towel and sighs. “He thought we were kidding or that maybe we’d cracked up and lost it from everything that had happened. Elon told him everything from start to finish, and let’s just say he stared out the window for a concerningly long time.”
“Shit,” I commiserate, and Rogan nods.
“Yeah, he didn’t take it nearly as well as you did.”
“Do you trust him?” I press, suddenly uneasy.
“I do. I wouldn’t have told him if we didn’t need help watching over you until we were sure you weren’t coming back, but that has more to do with not wanting to pull him into this mess than it does about trust.”
We get dressed in contemplative silence, which is why I hear a familiar creak, one that sends my instincts screaming you are not alone. The hair on my arms slowly rises, and I throw my palm out to Rogan, indicating that he should stop moving. He does, watching me closely as I strain to listen for any more floor squeaks that will give me a better idea of how many we might be facing.
I want to send my magic pulsing out to detect who or what’s going on, but Rogan shakes his head and points to the window. I mouth doesn’t open at him, and his brow furrows with frustration. Another floorboard squeaks sharply, and this time the sound is followed by an almost inaudible shh.
Confusion filters through my dread because I would know that quiet admonition anywhere. She’s only spent a good portion of her life shushing me and her rambunctious son. But why is my Aunt Hillen creeping around her own house, and if she is, where the hell is Tad? My fear quickly transfers from me and Rogan to my aunt and my cousin. Shit, what if something happened when they were on their way back here?
Without another second of thought, I shove my magic out into the house, terrified that someone else might be with Hillen, someone like an Order member, but all I sense is her. Rogan reaches for me as I pull the door open and run out, but he isn’t fast enough to stop me. Frantically I round the corner that leads into the hall where I find a shaking Hillen holding a loaf of bread still in the pan over her head. She screams, which makes me scream, and then she chucks the bread at me with all her might. I flinch, but a hand reaches past me and catches the home-baked missile before it can break my nose.
Hillen’s eyes look over my shoulder and narrow with rage. I balk, completely stunned to see my aunt look at anyone with such brutal vehemence, but especially Rogan.
“What are you doing in my house?” she snarls at him. “Was I not clear enough before that you aren’t welcome here?”
“Hillen,” I admonish, taken aback by the venom in her words.
My aunt’s furious stare snaps to me, and as though she’s seeing me for the first time, her eyes widen with astonishment, and the blood drains from her face.
“Leni?” she chokes out feebly, reaching a hand out for the wall to steady herself as she takes me in. “Honey, is that you?”
I reach for her, and sorrow rips through her features as I fold her up in a tight hug.
Where is Tad?
“It’s me, Aunt Hill, it’s me. I’m so sorry,” I try to reassure her as she quakes in my arms, the sobs slowly building and spilling out of her. “Don’t cry, I’m here,” I coo as I direct us back toward the living room and the large light blue sofa there.
“He said you were dead,” she keens into my shoulder, and I squeeze her even tighter against me. “Said it was his fault, that he didn’t protect you,” she stammers.
My eyes flash to Rogan, who meets my stare with one filled with contrition before he drops his gaze to the floor, like the onus is too heavy right now for him to bear.
“He was wrong,” I tell my aunt, my tone firm as though I’m making this clear not only to her but to Rogan as well. “I did die, but Rogan saved me. He made it so I could come back.”
I see questions fill Hillen’s teary stare, and seeing her hurt so much makes my eyes sting and my throat grow tight.
Out of nowhere, the front door slams open, and all of us jump. Tad hurries in, grabbing for the knob. “Shit, sorry, it got really windy all of a sudden.”
The declaration is innocent, but I find myself looking over at Rogan, wondering if the sudden wind is natural or mancer made. Like he has the very same concern, he casually moves to the window and peeks out of the closed curtain. I feel his magic flare and start to search as he stares out into the empty street.
So, this is what it feels like to be hunted.
I knew from the moment I was back that I would be eventually, but the reality of it hits me like a charging elephant. I’m not safe, which means I’m also putting Tad and Hillen in danger. My heart picks up, and I try to swallow down the cutting truth. I shouldn’t have come here, but I had nowhere else to go.
Rogan spins to me, the look on his face imploring me to calm down. “We’re okay,” he reassures, but I hear the unspoken for now in it all the same.
“What are you doing here?” Tad lobs at Rogan, his curious eyes moving to mine. “Did you suddenly remember his number?”
“Where the hell were you?” Hillen snaps at Tad, and I swear my attention shifts around the living room like I’m watching an intense tennis match. “I had to take a cab, Thaddeus!” she screeches at him.
“Elon is here,” Rogan announces, and I swear I get whiplash from how quickly I swivel my focus back to him. “I told him to come here after he searched your shop and your apartment.”
Hillen and Tad are quietly arguing, but everything around me goes still and fuzzy as Rogan moves to open the door.
Elon approaches the threshold, his green eyes pensive and anxious as he takes in his younger brother. He looks so much better than the last time I saw him. His cheeks aren’t as hollow, and his stare is missing the haunted glaze it always had back in the church. He’s clean, his scruffy beard gone, and the olive long-sleeve T-shirt he’s wearing hugs his muscles, as do his faded black jeans. He looks healthy, and recovered, and here.
“No sign of anyone at her shop or apartment. Have you heard anything?” Elon asks Rogan as he steps into the house.
I give my aunt a quick squeeze, and then I’m pushing up off of the couch. The movement catches Elon’s eye just as his worried gaze moves from Rogan to the other occupants in the living room.
“Oh, thank fuck,” Elon proclaims, and then he’s opening his arms so I can crash into him and practically strangle him in a hug. “I thought she had you. I thought for sure she’d gotten to you somehow,” he confesses, and the relief that fills those words is palpable.
“You’re back,” I croak out, emotion making it almost impossible to speak.
Geez, coming back from the dead is brutal.
First Tad, then Rogan, and now Hillen and Elon. I should have spread these reunions out; all this crying is going to give me the worst damn headache.
“I’m so sorry,” I start to chant to Elon as he squeezes me tighter. “I’m so fucking sorry,” I repeat, not sure exactly what my sorrow and apology encompasses.
Is it just that I couldn’t stop Jamie, that she killed him because I didn’t solve the problem of blood magic fast enough? Or maybe it’s because he was taken in the first place, that he endured so much in that church before I showed up and failed to save the day. Fuck, it could be for all the shitty things that have happened to him long before I was ever in the picture. All I know is I wish I could take all the suffering away, and I’m so damn sorry that I’ll never be able to.
“Stop that crap,” Elon tells me gently. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“I should have figured it out sooner, maybe if I—”
“What? Had gotten out? Had died first? Maybe if you had what? She was crazy and way more powerful than she should have been. Nothing you could have said or done would have changed that.”
I sigh reluctantly, accepting that he’s probably right. Doesn’t make me feel any less shitty, but I suppose torture and death will do that to you.
Elon pulls back, holding my shoulders as he looks me over. “I can’t believe you’re actually here. When Marx called about the missing bodies, we thought the worst, but here you are.”
“What missing bodies? Lennox, who is this, and for the love of the Maiden, will someone please tell me what is going on?” Hillen demands, her hands cupping her cheeks and her eyes wide with wonder and unshed tears.
I give her a wide smile. “I’ll trade all my secrets for a Sloppy Joe,” I tell her, love and appreciation spilling out of my words.
She wipes her eyes, and quickly affection replaces bewilderment. “You got it, kid,” she agrees warmly, pulling me from Elon’s grasp into a strong bear hug before making her way toward the kitchen.
“Make mine an Untidy Joseph, please,” Elon calls after her, and the smile that takes over my face is beaming.
Man, it’s good to be back.