Page 10 of Anomalies

A dark spot spreads across the front of the Rogue’s pants, and Phoenix chuckles, a sinister stare in his mismatched eyes when I look back.

“I don’t know anything!” the Rogue screams, pulling my attention.

“Sixty seconds,” I warn.

“HELP!” he roars, spit flying from his gaping mouth. “HELP!”

I’ve already told him that screaming was useless. “You’re running out of time.”

His yellow eyes bulge, and his veins protrude from his forehead as he fights to bite his tongue. I pull out a sharpened dagger and press the blade into the pale skin along his neck, grimacing at the lasting smell of urine.

“Talk,” I tell him, then I watch it begin—the agony.

He sucks in a sharp breath, a deafening bellow shaking the loose rocks scattered around the small space as his body falls victim to the poison. His pulse hammers at the base of his neck, and he pales until he’s nearly translucent, thrashing in his restraints.

“Hey!” I dig the blade in until blood beads along the edge, just enough to get him to look at me. “All it would take is two swipes on either side of your throat and you’d bleed out in seconds.”

He lets out another wail, his arms and legs flailing helplessly, but his rotten mouth stays shut.

“Cal, we gotta go,” Easton calls from his watch post. “Now.”

“Fuck.” I let the knife hang loosely between my thighs.

“You—” The Rogue stutters, and I snap the dagger right back up, all the blood draining from his face as he begins to sway against the chains. “Y-you…”

“Go on, then.” I press the blade in, ignoring Easton’s pleas as they get more frantic. “What about me?”

“Y-you,” he stutters again, a deep bellow of pain ripping from his chest, then his lips curl back in a snarl. “You look just like your daddy⁠—”

My wrist flicks. Blood spews. And his body falls with a deafening thud.

We walk in silence as dawn breaks over the horizon, casting the near cloudless sky in warm shades of orange and red. My boots are getting harder to lift, the sand clinging to them like thick cement.

“There’s a storm coming,” I tell my coven, who trudges with heavy steps behind me.

Throwing words through the previous silence feels like throwing a boulder into still water, but dad taught me a red sky at sunrise was a bad omen from the sea, and that felt worth sharing with the group.

The group that hates my guts right now, seeing as none of them reply.

This is our third failed attempt at finding our people. We all managed to survive, and none of us lost any limbs, but our hands are empty. Again.

“Boss,” Devon calls from behind me, “Where are you going?”

I whip my head up, stopping dead in my tracks. Where am I going?

I’d walked this path plenty of times before, yet I’ve veered off somehow, leading my coven along the coast instead of following our usual path through the center of Griseo. I half turn in the sand, spinning to get my surroundings.

I turn again, disoriented, and then I feel a tug. Strong enough that I whip back around, facing the large dune closest to the swelling tide.

I take off walking around it without explanation, following that tug, and five sets of footsteps skeptically follow. Maybe I’ve finally lost my mind, I’m sure that’s what they’re all thinking.

The rope around my chest pulls taught, and as soon as I catch a glimpse of the waves that lap the shore, I freeze, and the rest of my coven halts beside me.

“Chiaros, what is that?” Hunter asks, blonde brows furrowed at what looks like a tangled mass of seaweed.

My boots sink into the sand as I approach. No, it’s a mass of dark waves and curls; long tendrils strewn across the sand. Tangled within it is a pale face; closed eyes with dark lashes, full colorless lips parted slightly, and lifeless freckles splattered across high cheekbones.

“Is she dead?” Pax steps up beside me, and I shrug, sinking my knees into the sand and pressing two fingers against the cold skin at her neck⁠—