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A surprised laugh shot out of him, and I grinned at the sound. "Sorry, Nurse Clawdia."
A flush spread across my body. His cheeky grin and deep, unapologetic voice had a strange effect on me, an effect I didn't want to think about whilst in a jail and looking like death warmed up. Shaking my head, I thought back to the original conversation before I got distracted.
“I drifted,” I repeated.
“Yes.”
I looked up at him again. “I don’t know what that means.”
He grimaced. “It means we almost lost you but managed to bring you back to us.”
Hope surged through me, and I exclaimed, “So Winnie is alive? Mary didn’t kill her?” Silence. My heart sank. “No. I’m alive. She must be okay. I would be dead otherwise. That's the rule.”
“No, Clawdicat. She didn’t make it. I’m so sorry,” he whispered.
My breathing stuttered. I felt like a knife had been plunged into my heart. The sympathy in Charlie’s gaze made it hard to deny her loss. I swallowed as tears welled in my eyes. “But … I don’t understand.”
And I didn’t. Winnie was my witch. We were bound together until she died. I didn’t know how I could still be alive if she was dead. How could I forgive her if she was dead? How could I go home? She was my whole world.
Nothing is ever going to be the same.
As a tear slid down my cheek, Zaide caught it with his finger, and Charlie squeezed me tight.
"I know she was going to do a bad thing, but she didn't deserve that," I cried.
“No, she didn’t, Clawdicat. She loved you a lot.” Charlie suggested, “Maybe she'll come back as someone's familiar. She deserves a second chance."
While that was a nice idea and, if true, she would be the most knowledgeable familiar ever, the fact of the matter was that she shouldn’t be dead. Anger that had been bubbling inside me for weeks spilled to the surface. "Mary should have died. I want to see Mary suffer as Winnie did."
Charlie pulled back from me and turned my face toward him, his expression serious. "Hold on now, Dr. Doom. You can't go around killing people. And it's not like you to wish death on anyone. I know you're angry, you have every right to be, but she's not worth the cost of your soul." He looked at Zaide, who was unusually quiet and still held my hand while drawing invisible patterns across my skin. "Tell her, Zaide."
Zaide didn't look up. Charlie sighed and looked back down at me. "No murdering."
"She killed Winnie. She almost killed me," I muttered. "How am I alive?"
Charlie sighed. “It’s a long story.”
I hiccupped a sob, and Charlie gave me another squeeze.
How could they have gotten around the laws of magic, of familiars, to save me?
It was a thought the logical side of my head asked, yet the emotional side cried out,They saved me. On purpose. Because they care for me.
Many times, in my past life, I had prayed for someone to save me, and I never had been. But Charlie and Zaide found a way to fight death off and keep me with them. Overwhelmed with love and gratitude, I nuzzled into Charlie’s chest.
The calming sound of his heartbeat and the feel of his chest rising and falling against my cheek warmed my heart even as the feel of his breath tickled my neck and shoulder. I squeezed the hand Zaide held, and when I had regained control of myself, I looked back at him, wishing he would hug me too. I stared at him as he continued to draw on my hand and tried to calm the anxiety in my gut that told me something wasn’t right with him. With us.
Stopping the thought in its tracks, I turned back to Charlie and asked, “Where are we?”
Charlie shrugged and gave me a cheeky grin. “We’re in a dungeon-themed hotel in Hawaii.”
I huffed a laugh and blinked the last tears from my swollen eyes. “That would be nice.”
Charlie’s expression softened until he was staring at me with an intense and serious stare. He brushed the tears from my face, his thumb sweeping back and forth across my cheekbone even after drying my face. He sighed. “We’re stuck in this fucking cave-cage after being dragged here by the witches.”
“How? When? Why?”
“When Daithi and I ran into the forest, Mary killed Winnie and you were dying. Zaide couldn’t do anything to save you. He prayed to his gods and suddenly appeared in front of them. And I’m not going to pretend that I understand how that happened, but that’s what he said, and since he’s all magicky and you’re alive, I believe him. Anyway, they told him they would save you by allowing him to have a completed bond without …”
