by Jenica Saren
"And you couldn't have just left me somewhere to dry? You know, with my clothes and dignity intact?" I snapped.
"Um, the thing is that you're in a very unique situation and we don't know if that situation allows you to get hypothermia or not, so..." he trailed off as my gaze snapped to his. "Look, you might inherently be the enemy here, but we're not total monsters. We're not going to let a girl freeze to death."
That actually made me laugh out loud, but it was an ironic sound rather than a humorous one. "Oh, but it's surely no issue to murder a fourteen-year-old girl in the woods, is it?" I hissed. I wasn't entirely sure where my bitterness and sudden anger was coming from, but I knew that it was how I felt, regardless.
Zeph had nothing to say to that, his expression going carefully blank. "Well, your old clothes are pretty messed up, which I can't believe, by the way. You know, since they weren't even real two days ago. But we have some... Ah, ladies clothes around unless you need to go to the store or something."
My clothes were messed up? "How did my clothes get messed up?" I asked warily.
"There... Was an incident with the dryer," he said blandly.
"An incident? What did it do, eat my clothes?" I asked with another humourless laugh.
To my surprise, he actually nodded, leaving me to stare on at him blankly. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or be angry at the situation. Hell, I wasn't even sure I wanted to know where the "ladies clothes" came from. Grown, badass witch hunter men that couldn't do laundry? No wonder the Syntyche coven found men unnecessary to our way of living.
"Give me the clothes, then," I finally said after a few seconds of staring. There was no way in hell I was getting out of bed with nothing but that t-shirt on. Some girls may have had no issue with it, but I was a little too sheltered to feel that comfortable around people I didn't know. Whit would do it.
With a short nod in my direction, Zeph turned and walked out of the room, leaving the door open behind him. All I could do was sit there and twiddle my thumbs as I stared around the bedroom. I wondered who it belonged to. Certainly not Jadwin, since I'd woken up in his room once already.
Clean, white walls surrounded me with various framed pictures and paintings that all appeared to be abstract designs. The bedding was a black, white, and red series of geometrical patterns. The room itself was mostly bare of furniture, except for a small, black, leather couch in the corner and a bare desk.
It was tidy and mostly devoid of character, except for the random abstract photos and the bed set. I could think of one other person's room it definitely wouldn't be, so that narrowed it down to two. As I debated, Zeph came back around the corner with an arm full of various articles of women's clothing. I could have sworn I saw more than one lacy thong poking out of the daunting pile.
He hesitantly approached the bed and dumped the mountain at my feet, then shuffled back to the door nervously. Okay, so maybe I had been a little too harsh and maybe I jumped the gun too quick. Of course, I was still mad and nothing made the situation right to me, but it still happened and they didn't do anything except try to keep me from getting sick.
How could I stay angry at that? Especially when their first instinct on any given day was to put me out of commission since I was a witch and they were witch hunters and all. It took a great deal of selflessness to help your enemy, even when the enemy was an angsty young woman who wouldn't intentionally hurt a fly. Okay, maybe a fly, because they were annoying, but not anything substantial.
"Hey," I called out to him as he turned to leave the room again. I reached out and fingered a pretty purple tank top and avoided meeting his gaze. "Thanks for not letting me freeze to death."
He made a weird sound that caused me to peek up at him. He was smiling a crooked, mischievous smile. "No problem, Ghost Girl." That was all he said before he saluted me with two fingers and left the room, closing the door quietly as he went.
I'd never had too much experience with people of the opposite gender, much less a group of them that likely wanted to see me dead for real. The interactions I'd had with all of them were contradictory and it left me reeling. On the one hand, they instinctively knew that they couldn't let me live, it was in their blood as witch hunters. On the other hand, none of them were actively trying to kill me for good and actually, genuinely seemed to want to help me.
It was a conundrum I didn't think I would ever find myself faced with, one that left my mind spinning and trying tirelessly to make sense of it. Of course, until I knew more, there was no sense to be made, only choices. My choices currently left me with the option to run and hide, and hope they didn't find and kill me, or work with them and then hope they didn't kill me afterwards.
Realistically, there was a very slim, impossible chance that they would let me free after killing my banshee self, because I certainly had my doubts that they were interested in letting me have my body back. When they burned my body and salted the ashes, I would be gone for good. There were few witches powerful enough to continue on inside the veil after they'd been burned, most never made it that far. I wasn't in any rush to figure out what happened to those souls.
Sighing, I flipped through the laundry at the foot of the bed, searching for something that didn't clearly scream that it came from a one night stand's walk of shame. Or fame, if it was with any of the four guys in the apartment. If I hadn't been saving myself for love, I'd have been all over that, too.
As I picked up a lacy bra that was entirely too large for me, a curious thought struck me. Would sex be possible in this body? And if it were, would it count as losing my virginity? Or would it count twice? The questions bombarded my brain like rapid-fire missiles. I wasn't sure if I wanted to risk finding out just yet.
I got up out of the bed and found a pair of black skinny jeans with tears all over and started wriggling into them. I nearly fell over and had to grip the edge of the bed to keep my balance. It wasn't just my normal clumsiness at this point, it was also the fact that I'd entirely forgotten what it felt like to be weighted down by gravity. A quick lesson in never skipping leg day.
Trying to squeeze my legs into the pants, I realised just how futile it was. I was slender, naturally slim to the point that I was on the receiving end of a lot of burger jokes. But even my skinny ass couldn't squeeze into the deathtrap-like pants that just wouldn't give. Seconds after bending down to take them off again, the door swung open behind me and I whirled around in shock, toppling over backwards onto the bed.
Standing in the now open doorway was Gavyn, his face slowly turning an alarming shade of red as he took in my precarious situation far too slowly.
"Um, Gavyn?" I called, trying not to turn an equal shade of pink. "Would you mind, um, turning around?"
He seemed to snap out of it then, slapping a hand over his eyes and spinning around so fast that his forehead clipped the edge of the open door, sending him into a fit of cursing. "Sorry! I'm so sorry!"
I wanted to laugh, but it felt inappropriate. Instead, I practically launched the jeans across the bedroom in my haste to put something else on and eventually had to settle on a black skirt that was adorned with multiple chains and clasps. It would have to do.
Once it was on, I settled up on the bed and tried to ensure that the skirt lay flat, even though it came just above my knees. "Okay, you're good," I told him.
Slowly, he turned around and peeked through his fingers before letting his hand drop and breathing out a sigh of relief. "I'm so sorry," he said again, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "I didn't realise you were up and changing."
"See what I was talking about?" I asked in response to his confused expression. "You guys don't communicate. It's not healthy."
And none of you are healthy for me.
"It seems you're correct on that front," he laughed nervously. He moved to come sit beside me on the bed, which set my mind at ease a little.
"Whose room am I in?" I asked him.
"Zeph's," he answered immediately. I was about to ask why when he beat
me to the punch. "He's an insomniac, so it was the smartest choice."
Glancing around the room, it sort of made sense. Whitney went through a period of time when she got on birth control that she was suffering from horrible insomnia. She ended up emptying her room of almost everything but the bare essentials in an effort to reduce the clutter in her head. The patterns were also as good as counting sheep, so that made sense, as well.
"Oh," I replied. "What are you doing in here, then?" He had just barged into the room as if it were his own, and he knew I'd been in there, so what had he been intending to do?
He raised the hand that he hadn't covered his eyes with, revealing a thermometer and stethoscope. "I was just coming to check on you and make sure you weren't sick," he explained kindly, his eyes warm and bright, and so hypnotising. "You slept so long that we were all getting a little concerned."
"We?" I repeated. "As in, all of you?"
Gavyn nodded. "Yes, all of us. Despite how it seems-"
"Yeah, yeah, I know. You're not monsters," I said as I rolled my eyes. "Monsters wear all kinds of faces, you know." It was a fact worth pointing out.
"So do decent people," he countered with a raised brow.
Touche.
We sat in silence for a while before I reached around him and started picking up shirts out of the pile. None of the bras would fit, so I was just going to have to wing it. Not that I had much to cover up anyway. So I just resorted to sifting through the clothes and looking for something that wasn't too gaudy, too revealing, or too big in the chest. Whatever women had left these probably had a lot of back problems.
"How about this one?" Gavyn asked, pulling a black top that was designed to look like a corset. Obviously, it had been worn by another large-chested woman, or perhaps the same, but it had adjustable ties at the back that could help make up for that fact.
"Looks good," I said with a nod. "I'll need a sweater or something with it so that I don't look like I should be fighting for corner rights, though."
The look he gave me was utterly priceless, full of bemusement and disgust at the same time. "Maybe a different top, then..."
"No, the top is fine!" I reassured him. "I just need a sweater or jacket, maybe a cardigan?" The harsh truth was that I was a lot more frilly than the clothes I was wearing, and my light complexion was bound to give off some major goth vibes if I left the apartment.
Nodding, Gavyn started rifling through the pile with me, sometimes holding something up only for me to shoot it down. Eventually, he came up with a black cardigan that had long points at the front on either side, extra long sleeves, and a low back that would cover my ass if I bent over too far.
"That works!" I said as I snagged it from him. "Okay, now turn around so I can put this on."
I was ashamed, as a woman, to say that it took me almost a solid ten minutes to figure out how the damn corset top worked. It didn't have any metal or plastic in it like a regular corset, and unless you pulled on the strings at the back, it wasn't super body-hugging. Perk. Once it was on, though, I breathed out a sigh of relief and fell back onto the bed.
"Done. Done dressing and done with life. So tired," I mumbled.
"You just slept for just over two days and you're tired again already? From putting on a shirt?" Gavyn asked incredulously.
"Hey," I said, jabbing a finger in his direction. "I dare you to try and put this thing on by yourself. It's a nightmare."
He laughed and rose from the bed, stretching out his muscles. Under the tight, smooth black shirt he wore, I could have sworn I'd seen some incredible back muscles going on. He turned to me and I looked away as quick as I could. "Come on, we have a lead on your banshee."
Oh! That was news I wanted to wake up to. Not that one part... "I slept for two days?" I asked as I rose from the bed and steadied myself.
"Just over, actually," he corrected with a chuckle. "The transition was likely hard on your body, especially breathing again."
"But it's not a real body," I pointed out as I started to follow him from the room. It was only two doors down from where I knew Jadwin's was.
Gavyn looked over his shoulder at me. "It's as real as it gets, at least for a short while."
"Okay, I can live with that. Ha! See what I did there?" I asked excitedly, resisting the urge to bounce on my toes while walking. That was a recipe for disaster all on its own.
I could practically sense him rolling his eyes, which made me giggle. "The death jokes are going to keep on coming aren't they?" he asked in a faux bored voice.
"Just when you think they're dead, BOOM! I've revived them," I chuckled loudly.
"So your jokes are rotting zombies, then, is that it?"
"Shut up, you're ruining it."
"Apologies, Boo," he teased.
He used it ironically, so there was really nothing I could say. Not that I would anyway, because some part of me really liked the sound of it. That sad, masochistic side of me.
We turned into the main dining area, where everyone else was already seated, munching on a bowl of chips and some salsa. Yum!
"So, where do we start?" I asked, cutting right to the chase.
Hansen sighed and looked at me. It felt like it had been forever since I'd seen him. "Well, your body is currently at the location we have for the Syntyche coven," he said. A chill of fear skittered up and down my spine, making the blood run cold in my veins. "Is that your coven?"
There were several things wrong with everything he said, but one thing, in particular, stood out to me:
My body was still there. Marcia had lied.
The Part Where I Realized Marcia Was Evil
At the moment, I was faced with two very massive issues that couldn't be ignored, two issues that were life or death. And I couldn't do shit about either one of them.
The first and most important, at the moment was that these witch hunters not only knew what coven I was part of, but also where it was. That spelt out danger in more than one way. They were fucking witch hunters! Them possessing the knowledge of my family's whereabouts was terrifying, knowing that all of their lives were at risk.
The second, and probably scariest, was that Marcia, the Syntyche High Priestess, had lied about searching everywhere for my body. Sure, my body could have just been hiding away somewhere, the magick trapped inside maybe triggering some sort of self-defence reaction, but my intuition told me that there was more to the story than just my assumptions.
Marcia would have been the first to find the banshee that was my body. She would have been the first to realise what had happened from the signs of the ritual in the basement. It wasn't adding up and it was making my head hurt.
"What do I do?" I whispered to no one in particular, dropping into a chair and planting my face in my hands.
Someone cleared their throat. "We, are going to get to the bottom of this," Hansen said. He sounded so sure. "We're going to find your body and try to get you back in before the banshee does any serious damage. If we can't get you back in, we only really have one choice."
In my mind, it seemed as though there was only one choice anyway, and it wasn't up to me. "It sounds impossible," I admitted. "If Marcia is up to no good, then how are we supposed to combat that? And what if the damage is already done?"
"With any luck and a little help from fate," Zeph said, playing on my namesake. "We will get there before anyone gets hurt. Look on the bright side, Ghost Girl."
"I'm a ghost thing, remember? Dead-not-dead? And my body is out there potentially crushing souls," I reminded him. "I can't see how there is any bright side to the situation."
Someone snorted indignantly. "You met us, though, didn't you?" Gavyn asked kindly.
"Yeah, and you're just going to kill me at the first chance you get," I mumbled.
"If we were going to kill you, you wouldn't be here now, with a physical form and sitting at our table with us discussing a game plan," Jadwin said roughly. That caused my head to lift, my eyes meeting his across the table. "For whateve
r dumbass reason, none of us actually want to see you as a pile of ashes, so knock off the mopey shit."
For what felt like several long minutes, all I could do was stare back into his blue eyes, unsure of what to say in response to that rudely delivered sweet sentiment. "You sure do have a way with words," I said eventually.
"He's pretty damn eloquent when he wants to be," Hansen joked. Hansen joked? What was I missing? Were they trying to lift my spirits? But why?
The guys snickered, except for Jadwin, who was staring back at me still, his expression unreadable, but not unkind. He was an enigma to me. In fact, the whole situation felt unreal.
"So, what do you suggest we do, Mystery Guy?" I finally asked, speaking to the big wall of muscle in front of me. I swear, his eyes never blinked the entire time.
"Why do you keep calling me, that?" he asked me in return, not responding to my question.
Gavyn cleared his throat behind me, but my gaze didn't waver. "I can answer that," he confessed. "Apparently, we don't communicate well and she had to wait an extraordinarily long amount of time to learn each of our names."
Zeph barked out a laugh. "I wonder what she called us before. Obviously, Jad had a nickname."
"Guy Number One, Guy Number Two, and Guy Number Three," I responded automatically. "And, before you ask, it was just the way you were all sitting at breakfast that morning, from left to right."
That seemed to kill the conversation for a moment or two, but my mind was heavy with the dire situation that I'd placed myself in.
Hansen finally spoke up, leaning toward me over the table. "Whose name did you learn first?" he asked, sounding genuinely curious. His voice was smoky and warm, and I loved it. It sent little goosebumps up and down the skin on my arms and neck. Without a bra, I was terrified of what else it did.
"Zeph's," I said, pointing in his general direction since I was still staring at Jadwin. As fun as some others may have found it, I had no interest in playing mind games with these guys, especially when they could change their minds and try to snuff me out at any point in time. Also, honesty really was the best policy.