Page 51

Leli

Day Seven

I am pacing the living room, waiting for Striker to get off the phone with the witches. They were supposed to be reporting to me, but Striker swooped in and took that from me. He said I was bugging them by asking for updates. He’s not wrong, though. I was asking them multiple times a day, then stressing when they didn’t have anything else to tell me.

“Leli. Sit down,” Volis says.

“Leave me alone,” I say as I continue to pace.

“Leli,” he says as he steps in front of me. “You know he is always on for a while with them. Chill out. If it was bad, we’d know by now.”

“I just want her to come home already,” I say quietly.

“I know you do. So do we, but you’re just stressing yourself out more. If you have a mental breakdown, you’ll go even more crazy,” he says with a smirk.

“You asshole,” I gasp and go to slap his arm. He catches my wrist and pulls me into a hug. “I’m just scared.”

“I know, Leli. I’m scared too,” he admits softly. His hug is comforting, despite the storm of worries swirling in my head. I hear Striker come into the room. When I turn, he is still on the phone.

“I’ll be a while longer. They are picking up a massive spike in her energy right now. They are trying to locate her because using that much could be dangerous,” he says before talking into his phone as he walks back into the other room.

“Fuck,” I say. I can’t focus on anything when I suddenly break out in a cold sweat. My heart is pounding in my chest, and I can’t get it to calm down. Volis tries to grab my arm, but I pull away from him. My chest feels like it’s tightening, and it causes me to not be able to take more than a shallow breath.

Like a carefully crafted house of cards, everything suddenly collapses, and I go from hugging my brother to hyperventilating in a matter of seconds. My hands are nearly numb, but the tips of my fingers are tingling. I try to shake out what feels like TV static in my hands, but it won’t go away. Soon, my entire body has the same fuzzy, static-like sensation engulfing me. My vision is tunneling as the panic continues to constrict my airway when I feel hands on my shoulders.

“Leli, you need to breathe,” Volis says softly.

“She’s… She can’t use that much energy. It’ll kill her,” I manage to choke out. I try to pull away from him, but he wraps his arms around me. When he squeezes me in a hug, I quickly fall into a full-blown panic. I try to shove my brother away from me, but he won’t let go.

“ Let go of me, ” I scream at him. Volis lets go of me, so I turn to get away from everyone before the flood of tears takes over. As soon as I turn, though, I run straight into Vash. Instead of hugging me, Vash scoops me up into his arms. He ignores my struggles and demands for him to put me down as he carries me somewhere. I can hear others talking, but my brain cannot focus on anything but the all-consuming fear that my sister is dying because we can’t find her. Maybe I didn’t focus enough on finding her and blindly assumed she could figure it out? For all I know she could be dead right now while I have been stuck in my self-absorbed pity party. Striker said it could be dangerous, and if they’ve already picked up on the energy, she’s already killed herself. A shred of logic tries to slip through and tell me that maybe, just maybe, she has a handle on her powers. As soon as I think it, it is immediately replaced by thoughts of how her body burned, how red her body was when she was killing the first witch that raped her. She nearly killed herself. What would happen if she tried to do that twice?

“Leli,” Vash says as he lays me on the bed. I go to sit up, but he pushes me back down. “Stay.”

“I don’t want to lie down. I want to find my sister,” I say tearfully. “I’ve sat around not doing anything to help her, thinking she could do it herself. Now she is probably dead because I didn’t find her. I saved her once; I could have done it again. I got distracted. Distracted by you… By this country… By everything. I should have saved her. I promised my dad I would keep her safe. She’s not safe. I…” Vash cuts me off by covering my mouth with his hand. I try to swat him away, but he growls, and I stop.

“I will tie you to this bed and have Volis come put a mute button spell on you, or whatever,” Vash says simply. “Breathe.”

I sniff back tears and accept that I am done rambling. Vash uncovers my mouth, and tears are still streaming down my face before falling to the blanket. As I try to take slow and even breaths, it forces hiccups out of me. Over time, I calm down.

“I’m sorry,” I say as embarrassment sets in.

“Don’t be,” he says, cupping my cheek. He is sitting beside me on the bed, looking down at me.

“Is this the part where you fuck me until I’m unconscious?” I ask, and he laughs.

“No, baby. That’s when you need a distraction, or if I need to force you to relax. It’s not for a full-blown panic attack,” he says with a soft smile.

“Damn,” I frown. “You’re going to make me talk about my feelings, aren’t you?”

“Considering that’s the first time I’ve seen you cry? Yes, I’m making you talk about your feelings,” he says matter-of-factly. He moves down some before bringing my feet into his lap.

“What are you doing? Is this a new fetish?” I ask, and he shakes his head at me.

“I’m going to rub your feet,” he says. “Is that okay, or would you rather go back to spiraling?” he asks as he presses his thumbs into the arch of my foot. I groan and relax into the bed. “That’s what I thought. What happened?”

“If she uses too much energy, it will kill her,” I say quietly. “I assumed this entire time that she could figure this out and we just needed to give her time. I should have had everyone looking for her. I could have done more.”

“You are talking as if she is dead,” Vash says. “From what I heard, they are trying to locate her because she is actively using that much. He should have left off the part about that level being dangerous, considering that wasn’t relevant to his update.”

“ How was it not… ” I start to say loudly but stop myself and take a deep breath.

“Good girl,” Vash praises. “It’s not relevant because we all know that she will get a hold on her powers and be able to control how much is let out at a time. We are confident in that because you showed us that Lilith is more than capable of handling this.”

“She’s strong,” I admit.

“So is her sister,” Vash says with a loving smile.

“I don’t know why I panicked,” I sigh.

“Because you’ve been on the verge of it all week. We all saw it coming.”

“Who was talking when you picked me up?” I ask.

“Maz,” he says. “He was just telling me to get you away from everyone because when you came out of it, you’d take it harder than if it was just me.”

“I hate crying in front of people,” I say.

“I know you do,” he says as he continues to massage my feet.

“I don’t think I’ve ever panicked like that,” I say as I close my eyes, trying to relax on the bed.

“I don’t think any of them have seen you cry before. At least not like that,” he says.

“I wasn’t crying until I got up here,” I say.

“No, baby. You started crying almost immediately. You also hit Volis,” he explains.

“Oh…” I say quietly. “I hate feeling helpless.”

“You feel helpless because you have emotions?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Sounds dumb when you put it like that,” I say, and he laughs.

The door swings open, and Striker comes in. I jump up from the bed right as he gets to me. I go to say something, but he wraps me in a hug and squeezes me. “I’m sorry I scared you,” he says before kissing my head. “Get your shoes on. We need to go.”

“What? Where? What did they say?” I ask as Vash hands me my shoes to put on.

“We have places to start,” he says with a smile. “They’re in Estroria, still. Whatever she is doing is massive. It’s been going on long enough that it would have killed her by now.”

“What if it stops? What if she just stops using it?” I ask.

“That’s why we need to hurry,” he says with concern in his voice. He turns and walks out of the room, and I follow closely behind him.

“Does that mean she could still die? What is she even doing? It shouldn’t take that long to kill someone,” I say. Striker abruptly stops, and I run into him when he turns and cups my face.

“Leli, honey. You are my little sister, and I love you so fucking much… But you need to chill out before you throw yourself into another panic attack, okay? Take a deep breath and let’s just get there,” he says softly.

“I’m sorry,” I say quietly as tears suddenly surface.

“Fuck,” he says as he hugs me. “Don’t apologize. I know you can’t help it.”

“Stop being mushy and let’s go, Bolt,” I say as I pull away and wipe my face. He narrows his eyes at me for a second before he turns back, and we run outside to meet everyone else. When I open the back door to the SUV, Thuly runs up and jumps in. “I guess you’re coming with us.”

“He seems excited to go for a ride,” Dad says.

Once everyone is in, we drive toward Estroria.