Acqua (Daughters of Nyx Book 1)

by Lainy Lane

  I walked over to the dark couch on the other side of the room and plopped down on it as I worked to sort through the thoughts that swam through my head like piranhas on speed. The memories were flooding through and threatening to knock my sanity off of the grid entirely. The couple of times I’d seen my deadbeat father rushed into my mind, images that I’d blocked out completely for so long. The night I put my mother out of her misery and left. The multiple times she had hit me for whatever reason. My heart rate sped with every flashback that went through me. My nerves flashed with an energy that usually only occurred during an intense spell. Rage filled my entire body for a few moments. As soon as my body began to tremble from it all, Phoenix was next to me with his arm wrapped around my shoulder.

  “Acqua?” he asked more sincere than I’d ever heard him sound before.

  “Yeah,” I breathed out.

  “You ok, babe? Your rage spell woke me up.” He rubbed his hands over his face in an attempt to wake a bit more.

  I steadied my breathing out as I focused on trying to calm myself again. “Sorry,” I mumbled under my breath. I’d had many of these spells, the flashbacks that spun every emotion regarding the terrible memories turning into a catastrophic oblivion. I’d never been able to pull out of it so quickly and painlessly.

  “Don’t apologize, I was worried. I don’t think it’s okay for anyone to feel that much hate.” His eyes burned into me and caused my heart to catch in my throat for a moment.

  He was far too good at making me feel all of the things I’d always sworn I was incapable of. I still had trouble deciding if that was him or if it was from the blood bond we had managed to form. Regardless of the reason behind it, I was still not entirely okay with having these emotions. I had begun to accept them more every day, but I couldn’t fathom ever being one hundred percent okay with it all.

  “So, this is why your revenge is so important to you?”

  He had seen it all. The images that played in my memories, the things of the past that haunted me in my sleep. Ever since the bond formed, he had seen everything. Things that not even Ethereal and Ember knew about, but I couldn’t hide it from him. I couldn’t hide anything from him. I nodded my head in agreement unable to speak at the moment.

  “Well, you’re about to get it, Acqua. In just a few hours, you guys will be on your way to act out your plan. I would never keep you from that. Personally, after seeing some of the crap they’ve put you through, I wish you’d just allow me to find them and kill them myself.” His hands balled up into fists.

  I chuckled a bit at that image. “That would be too good for my parents, Phoenix. That’s the idea behind our plan. It won’t just be a quick little ordeal. We intend to make them suffer and have to think about what they did to deserve it all.” My smile turned evil as I pictured the torture my parents would face at our hands.

  His face flashed in fear momentarily before it morphed back to his usual calm confidence. “Can you try to get a little sleep though, please? I will feel much better about you guys going out on this venture tonight if you’ve managed at least a few hours of sleep.” His eyes pleaded with me.

  I sighed. I had already been trying to sleep. It wasn’t like I didn’t want to, I was unable to.

  “Look, it’s bad enough that you won’t let me come with you, the least you could do is humor me with this.” His voice implored his case, and I couldn’t fight him.

  “Fine,” I surrendered and stood up to head back to the bed with him on my side. My thoughts still teased at me and reminded me of all the reasons this night was necessary.

  Phoenix cuddled his body against my back and wrapped his arms around me as we lay in bed. I twitched with every new memory flashing through my head, and each time he squeezed me tighter for a moment. At some point in it all, I had miraculously managed to find Mr. Sandman and fell asleep in his arms.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I paced around the room with my heart stammering to the same quick beat that my feet sounded off on the floor. This was it. Redemption was finally coming, and I was going to get what I had been searching for the past few years. Justice would finally come to pass, and my parents would pay for all the hell they had put me through growing up. The magic coursing through my blood made me more than confident that tonight would be a success. I was pretty sure, judging by the way it felt flowing through my blood, that we wouldn’t even have to try very hard to bring our plan into action.

  Tonight was what I called destiny. The Blue Moon falling on the very month that we had already planned to take action on my parents. The ability to make the night of the Blue Moon the evening I finally forced Karma signified to me that what we were doing was right. Nyx was on our side tonight. She wanted me to have this piece of vengeance. Phoenix hadn’t said much to me since we had woken up for the night. I felt confident I wouldn’t have gotten any sleep if it hadn’t been for the comfort his presence brought me. For the first time, I found myself thanking Nyx for allowing us to form the blood bond. A piece of me wondered since our bond was unnatural and forbidden if it was a kind of blasphemy to thank her for it. That was a matter I could concern myself with later. For now, I had more important things to bring into focus.

  I sat on the floor in the middle of my room readying myself to perform the spell that would allow me to locate my parents. I had my candles spread out in their respectful compass positions. A brown candle with a golden sun tied around in twine sat to the North to represent Earth. A yellow candle with a blue wind gust charm lay to the East to represent Air. A red candle with a blue flame charm sat to the South to represent Fire. A blue candle with a white wave charm lay to the West to represent Water. I sat in the middle of the circle I’d formed from the candles. I faced the blue candle and had my little midnight blue cauldron in front of me. I closed my eyes and focused on the element of my control. Water answered instantly, and I felt my element coursing through my body in response to my call.

  “Let the water show the location of Phillip and Louise. Let the water show the location of Phillip and Louise. Let the water show the location of Phillip and Louise. Let the water show the location of Phillip and Louise,” I chanted the location spell softly.

  I opened my eyes and looked down into the small cauldron in front of me. The water that filled it swirled into a small cyclone before it rested back into the interior of the cauldron. Just underneath the surface, a picture formed. It was my house. Correction, it was my old house, where I had spent the miserable years under my mother’s watch. In that house sat my parents. On the living room couch, watching TV. My father had his arm wrapped around my mother’s shoulder, and they were both smiling.

  My heart clenched up as the picture unfolded in the cauldron. What were they doing together exactly? My father had left when I was still a small child, and he had certainly shown no signs of ever coming back before I’d gone. Maybe I was what had kept them apart. They sure seemed happy enough at the moment. I would’ve thought it impossible, but my hate for the two of them grew even more. The tiny smidgen of remorse that had been trying to creep through my better senses and change my mind about the actions of the night disappeared in an instant.

  I looked up to find Phoenix staring at me with a sense of wonder on his face. It was at that moment that I noticed the tears streaming down my face. That must be what had called him over to me. He must have felt my pain. I sniffled and brushed my tears off of my face.

  “I don’t need your pity,” I spat out, “I am perfectly fine.”

  I needed to keep my emotions in full check if I was going to remain successful at tonight’s escapade. Regardless of the magic of the Blue Moon, I couldn’t allow myself to feel anything other than the hate and disgust my parent’s deserved.

  “Hey, jump off the defensive train, would you?” His offense was apparent in his voice and written on his face. “I was here for support.”

  “I know, I’m sorry,” I stuttered out the words without allowing myself to look at him.

  I looked b
ack down into the cauldron. The picture was gone, but the image remained seared into my brain, so I could still see it despite it no longer being there. I closed my eyes against the sight. Phoenix walked over to me and kneeled down in front of me on the other side of the water candle. His eyes exhibited concern and sincerity, and I struggled against the desire to be sympathetic.

  “Are you sure you can handle this, Acqua?” His hand reached out to me, and despite the pain that nipped inside of me, I pulled away. His entire face tensed up as he watched me. “Look, I don’t know what you need for this to work tonight, I know nothing of magic. What I need is for you to promise me that you can handle this. I may not have much knowledge of a witch’s magic, but I do know enough to know that emotions can send it to an uncontrollable being of its own accord. I need you to assure me that you are, at least, in enough control to not lose it altogether and end up getting yourself hurt tonight.”

  The feelings were stirring inside of me again. They wanted to come up and take control. The blood bond made everything inside me want to calm down and allow him to take me in his arms. My body wanted me to relax in his embrace and let him calm my rage. I couldn’t allow myself to let go of it. I couldn’t allow anything to control me tonight other than the hurt and pain from my past. I had to be in full control of what I felt. Which meant that tonight I needed to feel the things that I usually blocked out. The things that Phoenix always managed to take away from me had to be present tonight. I nodded my head, still refusing to look up at him.

  “I love you,” he muttered as he stood up again. “I know I can’t come with you even though you know I wish I could. I don’t know what you need tonight, but I’m assuming I’m not it.” I could feel the pain in his words seeping into me as he spoke them. “I respect you enough to realize that and leave you to your thing tonight as long as you can promise me you aren’t always going to keep me shut out from you.”

  I had to give him something. He had made that crystal clear. However, finding the balance between providing him what he needed and keeping my mindset where it needed to be, seemed an impossible task. Balancing dark and light was tricky business. One would always outweigh the other. At that moment, I needed the dark to exceed the light, but not so much so that I couldn’t show a sliver of compassion to Phoenix and give him the reassurance he needed before I left.

  Biting down my better judgment, I stood and stepped out of the circle I’d created, so our bodies were only inches apart. “I am not shutting you out.” I fought with the weak emotions that wanted to bubble up as I attempted to give him the reassurance he needed. “I’m sorry, and I know you don’t deserve any of this, but I have to be in a certain place tonight. A dark place, and I can’t risk letting anything take me out of that place until this is all over, said, and done with.”

  “And then tomorrow?” His voice was timid.

  “Tomorrow will be back to normal, well our semblance of normal. I promise!” I gave him a small smile in hopes it would make my comment more reassuring.

  His face softened, but his eyes were still concerned. “That’s my girl.” He grazed one finger on my cheek before he walked away.

  I steadied my breathing and let the remnants of light feelings he had stirred up to settle back down again. I allowed the memories of my past and the reasons I needed tonight to happen to take over and set the resentment and rage back on fire before I walked out to get the girls so we could go on our long-awaited adventure. Memories never left you entirely, especially the bad ones. These were the ones I’d held onto, that had formed me into the icy being I’d allowed myself to become. The horrible things my parents had done, despite the fact that I didn’t deserve them. All of those horrendous situations were what had made me into who I was. That was what made them hard to let go of; they were part of me. Some of what they’d turned me into was horrible. It left me with hate and regret. Some of what those events had turned me into was good. It left me with more compassion for the few people that I let into my walls. If it weren’t for those things happening, I wouldn’t have built the walls to begin with and I wouldn’t be so incapable of loving. I wouldn’t be in the situation I was in with Phoenix. I struggled with separating the good from the bad, and it confused me as to whether or not I should still have this much anger for my parents. My conscience told me I was wrong, but my mind refused to listen.

  ****

  Ember had made a pot of fiery tea to put us in the appropriate mindset for the night. Herbs directly affected everything about a witch. Teas were our best bet when it came to needing to feel a certain way. Pick the right tea and everything you did could go exactly the way you planned. Pick the wrong tea, and you could have a significant catastrophe on your hands. We all sat in silence as we sipped on the spicy cinnamon flavored tea. I emptied my cup first, blaming it on the anxiousness to get this whole situation over. I put my cup in the sink and turned to Ember and Ethereal.

  “Ready?” I asked as my voice broke.

  “You sure you don’t need another cup?” Ethereal’s honey voice asked.

  I shook my head. I knew if we put this off any longer I would end up going insane. “Let’s get this show on the road.” I offered the best smile I could allow myself.

  Ethereal and Ember both looked at each other nervously before looking back to me. They dumped the remainder of their tea into the sink and stood at my sides ready to go.

  “We’ll be back in a bit!” I called out to Phoenix who was still sulking about having to stay home alone while we went out and ‘had all the fun', as he referred to it.

  I had expected my heart to start racing as soon as we left the house and set out on our mission. To my surprise, it felt as if it wasn’t beating at all. I had to wonder what kind of sign that was regarding the fate of the night. We stepped out to the cemetery, set on our mission to find my parents and my nerves pulsed oddly inside of my veins. The items that we needed were held tightly in my fists. The smoky quartz stone was poking against my palm and I allowed myself to relish the tinge of pain. In my other hand was the one piece of my past I had allowed myself to keep for all these years. It was a small piece of the door that had snapped off in my hand when I raged away from the house and left that life behind entirely. I was sure that I had splinters in my hand as hard as I was holding it in a feeble attempt to ease my tension.

  I sat the cluster of the light brown stones on the ground and we formed our triangle around it. I pulled the piece of wood from my palm and ignored the small bits of it that remained embedded in my hand. Now was not the time to focus on such a trivial matter. I could feel the quartz grounding me and binding our magic together. The shard of wood would act as our connection to our destination. I took one last look at the mausoleum we called home, that we now stood in front of, before I focused every fiber of my concentration on our teleportation. It was something none of us had attempted before, but with the power of the Blue Moon coursing through the earth, I felt confident we could manage it nonetheless.

  I focused on the fragment of wood as I held it in front of me and concentrated my mind on the house where it had once belonged. The place that had brought me nothing but misery would finally bring me vengeance tonight. As the roots of the smoky quartz filled me with a calm sense of purpose, I saw the picture of the house appear in front of me. It was a tiny brown shack with its little misshapen bushes surrounding the front of it. The shutters were black and withered away from the structure of the house, two of them had fallen off entirely, but remained on the ground below their place of origin. I felt the surroundings of the neighborhood fill my senses as if I was there and opened my eyes to signify that we were all set to Ember and Ethereal.

  We joined hands and let our magic morph into one being. The scene around us began to fade away. Just as the blurred edges of everything started to leave my line of sight, a movement caught my eye, and I turned my head to focus on it. A group of people marched straight toward us. I was too deep in the spell and to put a stop to it and just as my mind pieced tog
ether who they were, we all disappeared from the scene entirely.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “They found us!” I shouted as soon as we surfaced in front of my parent’s house.

  Ethereal and Ember both looked at me as if I had completely lost it. If I was completely honest with myself, that was a grave possibility. But regardless of the doubts racing through my head about what I’d seen, I couldn’t take the chance of not going back to see for sure. As soon as the thought of not checking back in to see if it was indeed Phoenix’s clan, I felt his fear hit me like a ton of bricks slamming into my chest. The fear confirmed it was them and they were there.

  “His clan, they showed up just as we were transporting. We have to go back!” I screamed in an uncontrollable panic as I felt Phoenix’s emotions mix with my body and it seemed I was going to split in half.

  “Acqua, we’re here now! We might as well finish what we started. Surely Phoenix can handle himself,” Ember scolded as she looked around nervously. Thanks to my screaming there was a group of onlookers gathering around us. “Especially since you’ve been kind enough to have us spotted now.” She rolled her eyes.

  “What if they hurt him?” My eyes were stinging, and I knew I couldn’t contain myself much longer.

  I resolved to return on my own if I had to, despite knowing that Ember and Ethereal couldn’t get back without me. I’d come back for them once I knew Phoenix was ok.

  “He’s a freaking vampire. He can take care of himself. Besides it’s his clan, he’s probably the one that led them there anyway.” Ember’s voice rose as she spoke.

  “How dare you!” I accused and pointed my finger directly at her. “Why would you even say that?”

  Ember shrugged. “Whose idea was it for us to go ahead and leave the house to do this tonight instead of sticking to our original plan?”