Alone
EVELYN
"Take her and run." I heard yelling; the power behind the words scared me more than the words themselves. My father wouldn’t have issued the command without reason, and I strained to hear what else was happening.
From behind the door of my bedroom, I could hear a woman scream, the sound not too far away from my room, followed almost immediately by my father calling out my mother’s name, his frantic tone marred with pain, and I quickly turned around and crawled back into bed, somehow hoping that in doing so I could put an end to the nightmare that was surrounding me.
The sound of wood splintering made me whimper, and it wasn’t long before I found myself being pulled from my bed by rough hands.
“Daddy!” I called out, fear flooding my senses as a hand clamped over my mouth.
“Stay quiet, Evie, I need to get you out of here.” Only one person called me Evie: my father’s second-in-command, and I instantly stopped fighting; James wouldn’t hurt me.
James crushed me into his body, and I felt us being pulled from the room. Closing my eyes as we quickly moved from one place to the next, I opened them the moment we were pushed out, James’s breathing too heavy for what he had just done.
“Are you OK?” I asked him cautiously, but the only response I got was for him to tighten his hold on me and walk up to the door we had just teleported outside of, one of his large hands coming up to knock sharply, my eyes widening at the sight of blood on it.
A slight, older woman came to open the door, her own eyes wide as James shoved me into her waiting arms.
“I can heal you.” She muttered quietly, wrapping a bony but strong arm around me.
“No. You can’t,” James told her, his voice ragged. I watched her nod sadly. “Sorry, Evie, this is as far as I go.” I felt his hand brush away a stray tear that had fallen down my face. “I’m going to take as many as I can down with me, though. I promise you that.”
He turned to the woman still cradling me in her arms and stared at her for a long moment before stepping back from us.
“Keep her safe.” He whispered before teleporting away, and knowing I would never see him or my parents again, I screamed.
I jolted awake, sweat coating my skin as I slowly came back to myself. I hadn’t dreamt of that night so vividly in years. Rubbing my chest in an effort to settle my magic, I untangled myself from the bed sheets that always seemed to find their way to wrapping themselves around me in the night and got out of bed.
There was no way I was going back to sleep now, so why bother fighting the day?! Twenty minutes later, I was wrapped in a fluffy towel and padding over to my small kitchenette with one goal in mind: pressing the on button on my most expensive appliance, the coffee machine.
I loved coffee and had spent a small fortune getting a setup worthy of a small coffee shop installed in my apartment. Maybe it was overkill, but this was my sanctuary, and sometimes I wouldn’t leave for weeks at a time; having a few small luxuries to keep me from losing my mind completely seemed necessary.
Carrying my drink to the small coffee table in the centre of the room, I made my way back to the kitchenette and unlocked the small drawer under my sink, my stomach dropping slightly when the glass bottle I picked up rattled hollowly. I was running low on the tablets Natalie had left me, and it wouldn’t be long now before I would be forced to leave this place and return home; there was only so long I could go without releasing my magic, and once I did, I would no longer be able to hide what I was.
Sighing heavily, I took out a tablet and forced myself to swallow it. That, too, was becoming harder with each passing day, and I wondered if the magic I held within me was tired of hiding away. Not that I could blame it any, but what could I do? I couldn’t release it here, not the way it needed, not without an anchor, and that was now lost to me.
Natalie’s death had hit me hard; not only was my oldest friend gone, but so was the only person left alive who had been capable of helping me keep my magic under control. Unfortunately, supernatural long life or not, her people were not indestructible, so when the asshole who had run a red light had ploughed into her car at ninety miles an hour, she hadn’t stood a chance. The only comfort I had was knowing the driver behind the other wheel hadn’t survived either; otherwise, I wasn’t sure I could have held on to the little control I did wield over my magic.
Losing Natalie had broken me, and I was feeling guilty; if she hadn’t been looking after me, she wouldn’t have had any reason to be here in this town to be hit by a car. Of course, if she’d been here, she would have waved her arm dismissively at me, and muttered something about not liking the idea of mushrooms everywhere anyway. Even after nearly two hundred years together, I still had no idea what she meant. Still, it was clearly on her mind because she used to mutter about the mushrooms a lot!
Wiping my cheek, still unable to think of her without tears, I made my way over to my single chair and sank into the soft material, pulling my coffee cup from the table as I went. Natalie wouldn’t want me to mourn her like this; her people were incredibly pragmatic when it came to death and loss; you lived, and then you died; it was nature…
Of course, it was also nature if you were one of the unending too.
Which was what I was… unending… cursed was the word I sometimes chose to call myself. There was no other word perfect for it; I was forced to live a never-ending life alone, well, not completely alone, but alone in the way that mattered to a being with a physical body, and what else would you call that if not cursed?!
Maybe doomed? Yeah, that was a good word too! I laughed out loud at my thoughts and took a drink of coffee, enjoying the feel of the hot, bitter liquid on my tongue as I tried to rein myself in; I honestly think I was finally losing my mind… it had taken me long enough… The sound of my phone ringing jolted me out of my odd thoughts, and I picked it up with a slight frown, wondering who was calling me so early.
Jess. I groaned internally and swiped to answer before I realised what I had done.
“You answered! I was going to leave a message.” Jess’s cheery voice rang in my ears, and I felt a little guilty about how much I had been avoiding her over the last few months.
“What’s up?” I answered, trying to make an effort.
“I’m in town for a few days. Meet me for coffee.” She didn’t ask. “In an hour. You know where.” She giggled and put the phone down on me, and I rolled my eyes.
I shouldn’t go. I had told myself I was distancing myself from the few human friends I had for their own good, but it was mostly down to the fact that I wasn’t much for company anymore; I was spiralling into the darkness, and I didn’t want to ruin the friendship we had built up over the years.
Slowly getting up, I drained the rest of my cup and put it in the sink before I moved to the bedroom and started pulling clothes out of my wardrobe. Deciding that if I was going to leave soon, I wanted to be able to say I left on good terms with her, so coffee it was
