“Let me see that for a second.”
He gets on my bed and releases the rose from his mouth. The rose seems to be dead, but some parts of its red color is still bright. As soon as I pick the rose up, an intense pain surges through my right arm.
I jerk my head away. My eyebrows scrunch up. I feel like someone has taken a knife and is shaving the skin off of my arm.
“Jared! What do we do?” Dawn screams.
I fall on to the ground. My arm is numb from the pain. I bite my lips, bruising them. My fingers crunch together into a fist.
The heated pain leaves from my arm and then a swift feeling of cold replaces it. I glance at my arm and see leafy lines swirling around the mid-section of my arm. The lines crawl upward toward my middle finger, marking that one finger only. I just received a silver tattoo on my right arm.
“Maybe…I shouldn’t have given you that rose.”
I look at him. “Yeah…thanks!” I lift up my arm and see frost developing. “Ow.”
“What the hell was all of that?” Dawn says, kicking the rose away from me.
“I have no clue,” I say, looking at the rose gleam.
“I’m so sorry, Liza,” Jare says.
“It’s okay. I guess you can say I’m marked now.”
Dawn looks at the rose with interest. I can tell she wants to touch it just to see what’ll happen. “I wonder if it will mark me too.”
Irritated, I glare at Dawn. She’s basically asking to kill herself. “I wouldn’t touch it, Dawn. You’re not a witch and I don’t know what could happen to you.”
“Oh, stop being that way.” She walks to the rose and reaches for it.
“Dawn, don’t!”
Dawn twirls the rose in her hand. Nothing happens. “See? What could possibly go wrong?”
I blink at Jared, confused by all that has happened. First the encounter with David and Miss Canary and my mother’s new boyfriend. Now this. Stuff is becoming slightly weird around here, and I’ve missed several classes at school.
“Are you going to find out why your mom needs the rose so badly?” Dawn says, sitting on my bed.
“No. If what Miss Canary said is true, she’s far too deep in whatever she’s doing.”
She also said that she was becoming corrupt. Jared is always by her side for most things, so I know for a fact he knows more about Ravamere. The only way for me to help my mother get through what she’s battling with is for me to stop her from going to such an evil place.
The letter ‘J’ on Jared’s necklace dings. I bite my bottom lip and stand in front of him.
“I need you to tell me how I can get to Ravamere, Jared.”
He immediately hisses and his fur springs up in shock that I’d say such a thing. He leaps up onto my window’s shelf, looking around outside to see if there’s any danger coming. He turns around, placing his paw on the edge of the shelf.
“Are you insane? Why would you speak of such an evil place? Do you know the power that name possesses?” He jumps off from the shelf, landing in front of me. “Why would you even think about going to a place like that?” His eyes dart between Dawn and I. “I’ve told you countless times, you are a new witch to this world. You can corrupt more easily than an experienced witch.”
“I understand that, Jared, but we went to Witcher’s Place and talked to Miss Canary. She believes that Mom is traveling to Ravamere.” I pace around the room. “I think her new boyfriend is influencing her. I have to stop Mom from going to Rav—I mean, that place.”
“Nonsense. Your mom is fine. She’s just going through some things.”
“No, she’s not! Have you seen the way she’s been acting lately? It’s different from the beginning, when I thought she was truly psychotic. She’s changed and I know you see it too.” Then I remember something I read in the book. “There’s something in my grimoire that talks about this.”
I forgot what the grimoire said. I walk out of my room and into the living. I kick the books on the ground out of my way. I know my grimoire is here somewhere. That boyfriend of hers was looking at it. I cross my arms, ball my hands into a fist, and lay my chin on the knuckle of my right hand. I see its purple cover and its silver glowing bind. I reach down for it, picking the book up and flipping through its old pages. I know there’s something in this book about using witches. I pass the mystic page, and then see a page ripped.
“It all makes sense!” I say. My ears perk up when I hear Dawn and Jared come down the stairs. My lips part slowly. “He’s a Verel.”
I flip through the pages some more, hearing them ruffle, and seeing that mom’s boyfriend ripped out the Verel page specifically. My lips part. I remember when the grimoire stated that they use female witches, luring them into their evil ways so they can eventually corrupt them. He’s been influencing Mom to go to Ravamere for his own desires.
“What the hell is a Verel?” Dawn says. I close the book and turn to look at her. She’s cleaning up the mess in our home. She shakes her head, her face sad because of all that has happened.
“It’s a group of male witches who corrupt female witches,” Jared answers for me.
“The Verel brotherhood,” I continue. “Mom’s so-called boyfriend ripped the Verel page right out of my grimoire. I remember him reading the book while she trashed the place.”
Dawn stops cleaning to look up at me.
“He has to be a member of the Verel. It’s the only reason why she’s been going to a corrupt place.” Jared’s ears flop back and his whiskers lower. He gazes off at the bookcase behind me. “Mom is slowly becoming corrupt because of this man.”
Miss Canary was right. She’s far too deep. I can see the pain in her eyes, the worry, and the anger. She’s getting out of control, and soon I’ll lose my mom for good to an evil witch.
“We need to get to Rav—the place she’s being going to,” I correct myself.
Jared hops on the couch’s arm. “I’m not telling you where it’s located. It’s far too dangerous.”
“Jared, how else am I supposed to save Mom?”
He looks over his shoulder at the window and then back at me. “I’ll handle it.”
“You can’t possibly save her by yourself.”
He begins to walk away, but turns around and says, “You don’t know what I’m capable of doing. I’m trying to keep you safe.”
“From what, Jared? What?”
“Maybe from yourself,” he mutters.
“What?”
Shaking his head, he leaps onto the window’s shelf and slips out of the window.
From myself?
“I don’t feel good about any of this, Liz. I mean, from what it sounds like, your mom is slowly dying.” Everything around me gets quiet.
My heart slows down. I glance at the book in my hands. I just feel like I’ve missed something, maybe about enchanted roses? I look at my new tattoos as its silver colors beams from the lights in my room. They look similar to mom’s tattoos.
I open the book and finger through its pages. I haven’t read this book entirely, like I should’ve, but at least I got all of the information I needed about the Verel. There’s a page with the title of Witch Betrothal on it.
Objects are key to a witch’s betrothal. It seals the connection between the two lovers. Mystics also have a ceremony between their kind around betrothals. All in which an ancient power holds the two lovers glued together forever.
What could this mean?
“Do you think it’s really forever?” I ask Dawn. She looks at me, pursing her lips. I flip the page, and on the back of the page there’s a scribble of words. I squint my eyes, lifting the book closer to my face:
Sometimes you need to sacrifice things you love in order to break the betrothal. You can break the seal by destroying the object that holds the connection together.
“That’s some creepy shit. Betrothals…that’s like an engagement, right?”
“Yeah, but it says that an object creates the betrothal, and you can’t break the
agreement unless you destroy whatever is keeping the betrothal alive,” I mutter under my breath, closing the book. I shake my head in confusion. “I don’t know. I don’t plan on getting engaged anytime soon,” I say.
I remember David and how he’s out on the loose. I may encounter him again. I open the book once more to check if I need to know any more about mystics. Dawn wanders off, cleaning the place. I don’t know where Jared is, and I really hope he’s okay. I’m sure I could’ve helped with Mom, and now since the Verel is involved I definitely have to go out and find him. Jared might be a witch, but he’s a cat in my eyes. I see Dawn holding the rose in her hands, “I think maybe we should lock this up somewhere…you know just in case we have anymore weirdos coming to look for it,” Dawn says. I nod my head as she walks into her room, I follow, seeing her lock it up in her drawer. She twists the key, making sure her drawer is locked. Dawn then places the key into her purse.
I turn to the shifter page in my grimoire and read what it has to say:
However, they are still human, and some features may be animalistic. Shifters can change their appearance freely. If bitten or scratched by a corrupted shifter, the transformation will take place, turning whoever was bitten or scratched into a shifter of the same animal and causing them to have the same abilities of said animal.
David wasn’t a mystic before he was turned. It was obvious he was resisting attacking me. He was afraid of hurting me. I just knew it. I could tell. A snake shifter must have gotten to him and not killed him immediately. That’s why he went missing after seeing Stacy.
Stacy.
“Oh my God,” I mutter when I start putting the pieces together. He’s Stacy’s boyfriend, and her eyes were yellow. Stacy must be a shifter trying to disguise herself amongst the crowd. Since it’s harder for them to blend in, she too went missing. My heart beats harder and I swallow a thick lump in my throat. I turn to look at my phone.
It buzzes. I leap across the room to answer it.
“Hello?”
I hear nothing but breathing from the other end. The phone clicks as they hang up. Suddenly, my doorbell rings. I walk to the front door. “I got it, Dawn.”
“All right!”
I open the door.
Stacy Meyer is standing on the other side.
Chapter 16
Stacy stands outside of my house with her arms crossed over her chest. She rolls her eyes, annoyed, as a car passes behind her. The sky is a cold black as the wind blows her blonde hair from her pointy nose. The freckles underneath her cheeks glare at me. I am confused as to how she found out where I lived and wonder why she would be here around this time of night.
She is quiet. I wait for her to say something to me. This is beyond awkward. She looks upward, in the cracks of my door, and then her attention slowly falls to the ends of my door, next to my feet. Stacy is looking for something in the doorway, but what?
She purses her lips. “Aren’t you gonna let me in?”
Her face is pale and she seems weak and not as energized as she usually is. I can tell she’s been thinking about her lost boyfriend. I watch to see if her eyes will change color in front of me, but they don’t.
I feel like I’m going crazy. I step to the side, curious about what she has to say to me. Anyone who lurks in the night has a secret. The protective charm my mom put around the doorway must have broken because Stacy enters without being shocked. Am I wrong for thinking she’s a shifter? I shut my door tight.
“You smell like a cat. Do you have one?”
Stacy sniffs the air, then covers herself in a lady-like fashion. She’s wearing a beige trench coat with white boots, a purse around her arm. She walks toward the middle of my condo slowly, checking out the place carefully.
“Why are you here? And how did you know where I lived?”
Dawn walks down the stairs and glances at our guest.
“Hey, freak.” Stacy laughs.
“What is she doing here?” Dawn says.
“That’s what I want to know.” I narrow my eyes at the blonde girl in our house. I eye the knives in the kitchen just in case she happens to be what I think.
“You two have been missing school lately so I wanted to see what was up.” She flicks her hair behind her shoulders. Why would another student care about Dawn and I?
“Ever since David disappeared, things have been weird around campus and this little neighborhood.”
She looks up at me slowly. “Have you seen him?”
I remember when David almost managed to bite off a chunk of my neck not too long ago. He fled from the scene and that was that. I know it was him and I’ll never forget the image of him being a mystic. David isn’t corrupt. He looked like he was just turned and was scared.
His girlfriend is looking for him, but she isn’t too worried. I don’t know how, but I can just tell that she isn’t worried, not really.
I mean, I would be aggressively looking for something I turned by accident too. I know she’s one of them because of all the times I saw her eyes change a different color. She didn’t think I noticed, but I remember what I read about a shifter’s eyes. This mystic can’t fool this witch
I cross my arms over my chest. The main thing I’m curious about is the stench I’m not smelling.
Right now, Stacy is looking for answers and she’s jumping into situations not fit for her. It doesn’t help when humans aren’t aware of mystics around them either. Not saying she’s a human herself…
“No, I haven’t,” I say. I lie because telling her the truth now might break her into pieces or make her upset enough to attack. I don’t know how she’ll react because I know, deep down, she’s worried about her boyfriend. She doesn’t want to show it, but I know.
When she breaks, I don’t know what she’s capable of doing. I don’t know Stacy well, nor do I want to. The type of person she is isn’t someone I usually befriend. I don’t fish around for trouble. I just mind my own business.
This is a person I don’t want to meddle around with. Dawn crosses her arms. She’s obviously uncomfortable with her being here. I glance at my pink-haired sidekick and back at Stacy.
“I’ve answered your question. Now answer mine.”
“I did already. I just wanted to see why you guys haven’t been on campus.”
“And you care because?” Dawn says.
“Because I’m not this bitch everyone thinks I’m supposed to be! I don’t want to disappear too. People are missing from our university. You two would know this if you haven’t been skipping classes.” She throws her hands up and calms down shortly after, only to look at me. “Isn’t your last name Rose?”
“You know where I live and my last name? Yeah, you’re not a creep at all.”
“My boyfriend is part of a student organization. You would think I did my research on you.”
“So what if my last name’s Rose? What’s it to you?”
She looks around the place, continuing her search.
“Why don’t you have any roses around this place? It could help with the smell.”
Dawn has the only rose I’ve owned in her room, but I don’t see any point in mentioning that to Stacy right away. She feels the energy between us and laughs it off.
“Why is everyone so stiff in here? I think you two should go out clubbing with me.” Her tongue slips out accidentally, but she quickly closes her mouth. It’s the same type of action David did with his tongue. She rubs her eyes and sits down on the couch in our living room.
Definitely a shifter.
“It’s the weekend and you two are stuck here with nothing to do, so I feel like taking us out. Don’t worry, it’s my dangerous treat.” She picks at her nails and digs into her purse.
“I don’t think—” Dawn mutters.
“I’m not taking no for an answer.” Stacy shoots her glare up at Dawn.
“You can’t make us go,” I say.
“I’ll just stay here, then. If you want me out, you’re gonna have to go with me. Don’t be so
difficult.” She puckers her lips.
Or I could just kill her now, but something’s telling me I should listen.
***
Eventually, Dawn and I decide the only way to get rid of her is to actually go out with her. Stacy is taking us to some club in downtown Richmond.
“It’s called Station 4. It’s an old firehouse place with, like, three levels,” Stacy says as she fixes her hair and pats her nose with powder. “I know Dawn isn’t the only one between the two of you with a decent style. Eliza, show me your closet.”
Stacy walks into my room. She pulls out black leggings I had no idea were in my closet. She’s looking around as she does this. Probably looking for the rose every other mystic is out to steal.
I tie my hair up into a thick ponytail, fine with going to the club in what I’m already wearing—blue jeans and a sublime t-shirt. Stacy pulls my ponytail out, shoves some clothes in my hands, and pushes me into my bathroom. I come out in a tight white and black club dress, possibly from Forever 21. Dawn rolls her eyes and Stacy leaves the room.
“The plan is to ditch her as soon as we get in the club,” I mutter.
“Got it,” Dawn says, turning on her phone. “Do you have your broomstick and whatever you need for mystics?” She looks around. “Where’s Jared?”
That’s what I want to know. He’s supposed to be helping me with these type of things. I glance at the window in my room. It’s open, so he must’ve left for a stroll around the neighborhood.
I release a deep sigh as we walk out of the room. I see Stacy standing in front of the door with her purse on her shoulder. She smiles at me as she looks up from her phone.
“You guys are gonna love Station 4.” She looks between the two awkward girls standing in front of her. “Don’t look so dead…” She scrunched up her lips and rolled her eyes.
***
I see a flickering sign in front of me. On the sign, in red letters, is the title ‘Station 4.’
“I was right.” Stacy smiles as she eyes my attire. “The freaks come out at night,” she says, motioning to two guys and a girl all holding hands as they enter the dark grey doors to the club.
Mystical (The Mystical Trilogy Book 1) Page 15