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I scrunch my face up. "Gross, no."
"Exactly, which is why I needed this picture." She drops it into the bowl, sprinkling what looks to be black pepper and cinnamon on top of it.
"Why do you need all this stuff?" I ask.
She ignores my question. "Give me your finger."
I lift my hand, and she wraps her fingers around my wrist, pulling me toward her. She grabs a needle from the blanket, pressing the tip into my pointer finger.
"Hey, what the hell!" I try to pull my hand back, but she holds her grip tight as she pulls me forward, dropping my hand over the bowl and squeezes the skin on the tip of my finger until a dollop of blood falls directly on Malik's face.
"Maybe one more," she whispers, squeezing once more until a bigger drop than the first falls into the bowl. She releases my hand and grabs her phone, scrolling through while we all sit there silently.
"Okay. I've got it." She grabs a lighter from the blanket, going around and lighting each of the five black candles. For a second, I expect the flames to be black, too. But they aren't. The same gold ember lights from the flame.
Then we sit. The four of us in a circle, in dim lighting with lowly lit candles between us. We still have our uniforms on from school, and we look like some fucked-up horror movie about to go wrong.
"Everyone grab each other's hands," she states.
We do as she says.
"Okay, now repeat after me…"
Viscous beast, with teeth like knives,
May you suffer like the most tortured lives.
For those that you rip in two,
May they finally come back to haunt you.
Ripping flesh, bleed you dry,
May the entire world hear your cries.
We close our eyes, and I squeeze their hands tightly as the words leave my lips, praying for him to feel an ounce of the pain that he's inflicted on others. I want him to quit being the soulless human that he's made himself to be.
Once our chant is finished, I open my eyes, expecting the flames to grow or wind to blow through my hair. Nothing happens, and I look around, confused.
"Is that it?" I ask.
We all drop our hands.
"I guess only time will tell. But hey, there is something else I wanted to try." Hazel starts picking the things up from the floor, leaving the candles and blanket. She looks around at each of us, her hair falling into her face. “I’ve wanted to try it for a while, but we never had enough people.”
Dropping the stuff into the box, she pops her hands on her hips and stares at me. “Vera, can I tell you something?”
My eyes widen, and I want to cringe, but I keep my face blank as I stare at her. “Uh, sure?”
An excitement grows in her eyes. “Ever since I met you, I’ve felt this… power within you. Have you ever tried any magic at your old house? Or has anything weird ever happened to you?”
I frown. “You feel apowerin me? What does that even fucking mean?” I take a step back, not wanting any kind ofanythingto be in me.
I just want to be normal, dammit.
She sighs. “Have you? Ever felt anything?”
I shake my head.
