Page 1 of His Blazing Witch (The Silver City #3)

A scream in the middle of the night.

A sharp pain, ravaging my body. A torture I can’t handle any longer. I cry out, scream, beg for mercy. I beg her to leave me alone. But she doesn’t stop. The poison is spreading like darkness inside me. The darkness takes over me. Let me out. Let me escape this hell…

“Is she awake yet?”

“She struggled earlier, but we think she is hallucinating…”

“How is her dosage?”

“We keep administering larger doses, but it doesn’t have much effect…”

Someone sighs.

“This is a tough one… poor girl. Even if she wakes up…”

“Doctor, what should we do? It’s already a miracle she is alive, with what happened. It’s hard to imagine her waking up at this point…”

“Well, we can try a bit more. I do feel bad for her, but this is not my decision to make.”

“Understood, Doctor.”

I hear several steps and a few whispered comments.

I open my eyes.

Above me, a bland ceiling. I sit up, completely disoriented. No, I have no idea where I am. What is this… machines surrounded me in an empty room. Is this a hospital? It smells like medicine and cleaning products… I don’t like any of it. Moreover, some beeping is annoying me. I want to move, find a way to make it stop, but I’m bound by something.

What are those? Handcuffs? Why would my wrists be chained to the bed?! And my ankles too? I struggle, trying to get out of them.

“Ouch!”

My wrist… When I take a closer look, both my wrists are bandaged tightly. I’m injured? I bend over and grab some of it between my teeth, pulling it away so I can see what they are hiding. …What are those, cuts? They are so deep… Who did this to me?

“Oh my goodness!”

A woman dressed in a white blouse just walked in without warning. She is staring at me with big, frightened eyes.

“She… She’s awake. She… Doctor! Doctor!”

And just like that, she runs away, screaming like a mad woman. What the… I can’t waste time on her. I go back to my cuffs, trying to figure out how to get out of them. My wrists are thin, yet they are bound so tight, I can’t even move in them. I struggle again, and one of my cuts reopens, a thin red line staining the bandages.

Let’s just burn them.

Good idea! …But how am I supposed to do that? It’s not like I have a lighter or something here. So annoying. I want to try using force again, but before I can do anything, I hear running steps outside. In a few seconds, a handful of people appear at the door. It was high time!

A man and three women are all staring at me, their faces torn between surprise and something akin to fear. What is wrong with them? I growl.

“Untie me.”

My own imperious voice surprises me, but it seems right in this situation. Who are they to keep me chained like this? The man walks over, a bit hesitant. Is he a doctor? He is short and bald with small glasses and a dull face.

“Miss, are you alright? How… How do you feel?”

“Didn’t you hear me? Untie me now!”

He jumps when I yell, but I don’t care. He hesitates a bit but shakes his head.

“I’m sorry, we can’t do that for now. Can… Can I examine you? It seems you just woke up. Are you in pain anywhere?”

In pain? Now that he mentions it, aside from my wrist, my legs are… I wouldn’t call it painful, but they certainly don’t feel good. I would look at them if it wasn’t for these stupid cuffs!

“What happened to me? And who are you?”

He looks even more surprised now. I see the bald doctor exchange a glance with the women, hesitant. When he turns back to me, he is fidgety.

“Miss Garnett, you don’t… remember what happened to you?”

Miss Garnett? Who is that? And what am I supposed to remember?

I… I don’t remember anything. I try to think long and hard, about anything I could piece together, but it’s a complete black hole. I have no idea. Who I am, what I am doing here, or what happened.

“Miss Garnett, you look very disturbed. Do you want us to–”

“Don’t call me that!”

“But it’s your name. Miss Clarissa Garnett.”

He’s wrong. I know it. I shake my head.

“No. My name is Mara.”

“Ma- Mara? You must be confused. I can assure you, your name is–”

“MY NAME IS MARA!”

I yell at the top of my lungs and they all scream in fear. Not because of my voice, but because of this flame that just erupted in my hands. How fascinating…

“Oh my God! Someone call for help!”

“Fire! She… She… She just lit a fire!”

While they are all panicking, I’m absorbed by the little fire dancing on my hands. It’s so warm… It dances on my finger in shades of orange and red, and suddenly catches the cuffs that were restraining me. The smell of burning leather fills the room and I watch as the fire slowly consumes my restraints. Naturally, the bed sheets are caught on fire too. While they are eaten progressively by the flames, I can finally see my legs.

What is this… Red. They are a dark, disgusting, and pitiful red. The burn scars run from my feet and up half of my left thigh, while on my right, it went as far as my waist. My flesh was devoured deep enough to leave traces of blood in some places. There is something repulsive about it, yet I can’t stop staring. Those two remnants are my actual legs… Are they even of any use in this state? Surprisingly, I can move them just fine. They still hurt a bit, though.

One of the women suddenly returns to the room with something silverish, and she runs to me. I don’t react, but she unfolds a cover and puts it over the fire to smother it. Within seconds, the flames die out. They are all acting crazy and yelling about smoke or water, but no one has answered me. So I look for the man and ask again.

“What happened to me?”

“You… Did you just do this? The fire?” he mumbles.

“Not that, my legs!”

Why does he have to be so slow to answer?! Who cares about the fire?! He wipes some sweat from his shiny forehead and looks at the nurses again, completely helpless. Finally, a woman behind him answers.

“You were severely burnt, Miss Gar-… Mara. The firefighters came too late, they found you already unconscious and in… this state.”

She is not hinting at my legs, but my overall body. What… Now that my hand is free, I pull up the odd clothing I’m wearing, some sort of blouse.

I was wrong… The burns are not only on my legs. New red flesh flaps appear once you look under my breasts. A large area on my left side up to my breast, and my shoulder and arm is also in the same wretched state. How did that happen… I look at my hands, but the fire doesn’t burn me… and neither did the one from earlier. I stare at my fingers, but nothing else happens.

“Miss… Mara?”

The nurse took a step closer. She is the one that looks the least afraid of me.

“We need to examine you… Can we? Then you can ask us questions, alright?”

“Why did you handcuff me?”

She hesitates, but after a few seconds, answers with a very serious face.

“It was for your safety. We were afraid you would try to harm yourself.”

“Injure myself? Why in the world would I do something like that?”

“But you did, miss. Those scars, and the cuts on your wrists… You did all that to yourself.”