Page 51 of The Blood Witch
Wind sneaks in from the still open doors of the church to tease the piles of leaves and ash that cover the floor of the dais. I’m not sure where Jamie went after she killed Brianne—and then I did my best to kill her—but she never came back. At first, I was relieved by this, but as the early hours brought with them a cruel morning chill, my shivering body started to wish that she’d show up just to shut the damn doors.
I figured out an incantation that helps me warm my bones—a nifty little spell my ancestors recorded in the grimoire that I remembered earlier—but the problem is that I have to constantly feed magic into that spell, so things like sleep are impossible because I can’t shut my brain off enough to allow it to happen while also staying warm. Any time I did manage to doze off, I’d wake up shivering in no time.
I huff out a frustrated breath and once again try to relax enough to get some semblance of rest. I know I’m going to need it with what’s going down today under the light of the harvest moon. That is unless a rescue party shows up before then, although, unlike Bonnie Tyler, I’mnotholding out for a hero. I do my best to get lost in my thoughts, to conjure a daydream where I’m in a hammock, bathing in the sun as ocean waves lap against a sandy shore. The water is clear, clean enough to drink...aaaaand now I’m reminded of how thirsty I am and have been all night.
I groan and throw an arm over my eyes in an effort to block out the sun and convince my brain it’s suddenly nighttime and now the perfect time for us to get some sleep. Unfortunately, it’s been light outside for a while, not in a blue sky and beautiful sort of way, it’s just bright enough to be annoyingly gloomy outside. However, none of that light has really breached the dark shadow that is the inside of this church. Certainly not enough to warm anything up anyway. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the sun’s rays are afraid of crossing the threshold and pissing off Jamie. Or maybe it’s fear of the demon that owns her that’s chasing away the warm tendrils of light that I’m so desperate for.
Elon lets out his own huff of frustration, probably because he’s tired of my constant grumbling and rolling around the stone floor as though one piece of rock will be more comfortable than another piece of rock.
“The stone floor not to your liking?” he observes cheekily, his voice gravelly and dry, the sound rubbing against me like sandpaper.
“Oh the floor’s just fine,” I counter wryly. “You don’t happen to have a sleeping bag over there or a change of warmer clothes that I don’t know about? Ooooh, how about one of those fancy Purple mattresses that I always see ads for? I mean,soldif it really does give you the best night of sleep in your life,” I ramble, moving to lie on my side, the crook of my arm pillowing my head.
“Nope,” Elon chuckles and wipes at his face with tired, dirty hands. I hear the hair of his somewhat scraggly beard scrape against his palms, and for some reason it makes me cringe. Who knew I hated that sound as much as nails on a chalkboard.
Oh the things you learn in forced captivity.
“I heard you snoring up a storm last night,” I accuse playfully, even though inside I’m jealous as fuck. “Thought a bear stumbled in here and decided to hibernate, but nope, just you,” I tease with just a splash of annoyance in my tone.
I really shouldn’t be annoyed, I know that Elon’s been through a lot, and that’s definitely taken its toll. Really, it’s no wonder his body shut down the way it did. I’m sure mine will do the same soon, you know, if I’m not dead after tonight.
Elon glares at me with feigned shock. “Please, I demand receipts,” he declares like he’s some overacting lawyer on a prime-time TV show.
“Oh right, let me just pop out my phone and press play on the recording I took of your nocturnal emissions,” I joke, and then we both cringe. “Wait, that’s not right,” I correct, racking my brain for the correct phrase. After a couple beats, it still doesn’t come to me. “Listen, I’m too tired to come up with an alternative phrase that doesn’t sound like I recorded you jacking off, so let’s both just pretend we know what I’m talking about,” I offer with a shrug, rubbing my tired eyes with the palms of my hands.
Elon laughs. “Fine, but it never happened if you don’t have video...of the snoring, not the jacking off,” he corrects, as though somehow I’d be confused as to exactly what he’s referring to. We both cringe again and then crack up. He lifts his hands in surrender and shakes his head. “Let’s just erase this whole conversation,” he suggests sheepishly.
“Done,” I agree all too quickly with a giggle, and then we both fall quiet for a beat. “So you snore a lot,” I start again, diving right into our convo-redo.
He laughs and lets out a loud gasp, as though he’s never heard a more atrocious accusation in his life. “Oh please, women are always blaming men for snoring. It was probably you, but you simply refuse to accept it, because culturally women are supposed to be all delicate and prissy,” he taunts, a cheeky grin stretched wide across his face.
“Um...you must not be hanging out with the right women, because the ones I know are badass and wild. Besides, what century are you living in? Women own their shit these days, we’re even allowed to admit we fart now,” I tell him with exaggerated excitement, as though this news is the best thing to happen to women since we started wearing pants and demanding equal rights.
I do a quick shiver as a gust of wind moves through the church. I adjust the magic I’m feeding into my magical internal space heater as Elon surveys my clothes...or the lack thereof.
“I’d offer you my pants, but I don’t think your shorts would fit me, and I, uh, I don’t have any underwear on,” he explains, as though he caught me eying his cargos and wondering how I could steal them from him.
Totally haven’t been doing that. Nope. Definitely haven’t been staring at Rogan’s brother, debating how I could get him out of his pants.
“Ew, you’re one of those creepy commando dudes?” I razz, my face scrunching up in distaste. “Real talk, I never got that whole thing. Like, I know it’s supposed to be sexy or whatever, but I’ve been a victim of chafing one too many times, and that shit hurts. How are you going to have your twig and berries just rubbing up against your jeans like that? Ouch.”
Elon shakes his head, and I swear his cheeks just turned four shades redder under his beard. “No, I wear underwear, but the first week here, I ripped them up and used pieces of them as toilet paper,” he explains, and the confession steals the levity from our lighthearted conversation and drops us right back into the reality of where we are.
“Ah,” I chirp in understanding, the heaviness of our atmosphere once again settling over me.
Giving up on the idea of rest, I sit up with a groan. I double-check that everything I’m working with is tucked away like it should be inside the now stretched out fabric of my shirt. The moon knows I’ve woken up far too many times at home with a boob poking out of an arm hole not to be cautious. Nothing worse than chatting away to a fellow captive and then realizing your nipple was mean mugging them the whole time.
There’s just no coming back from that tier of awkward.
“Alright, Elon,” I call out with a resigned sigh. “On a scale from one to ten, how bad is the bed head I’m working with?” I ask, fluffing my curls, as though the worst thing I have to worry about in this place is an unruly mane.
Really, I’m just trying to distract myself from the fact that my body has betrayed me by creating urine even though I haven’t given it anything to drink in over a day. The betrayer also seems to have forgotten the miserable fact that we only have a bucket at our disposal, which will then require the drip dry method for sanitation purposes. Because peeing in a bucket isn’t bad enough, but sitting there while your bits dry really just escalates things to another level of awesome. Maybe Elon was onto something with this whole underwear toilet paper thing.
Elon surveys my hair. “Well, you have this little…” He brings a hand up behind his head and splays his fingers. “Peacock situation happening in the back, but I think it’s working for you,” he teases, and I roll my eyes at him and then quickly start to finger comb said peacock situation into submission.
Elon stands up and nudges his bucket into the back corner of his cell. I look away just as soon as I hear the distinct sound of a zipper being unzipped. Liquid hits the bottom of the bucket, and it’s louder than I thought it’d be. I look over at my own bucket and grumpily come to terms with reality. I get up, my muscles and bones objecting to the change of position. Everything groans and pops like I’m the deck of a worn old pirate ship that’s seen far too many days riding the ocean waves.
I nudge my own bucket into the corner and debate if it’s worse to pee facing him to hide my ass or away from him to hide my cooter. I snort out a laugh at the wordcooterand decide sideways it is. I look over at Elon to make sure his back is still to me and, with a sigh, surrender to the call of nature.
