I look at the child I was, her shoulders drop as she falls to the floor trying to figure out how to fix her mother. In my mind I had thought I could, I'd been five. I found new words that day. Death, destruction, despair and most of all, I learned what it felt like to hate.
I watch as she struggles to pick everything up, slipping and sliding on the blood around the corpse. She hears a noise, the door. She throws up the protective shield, the one she should have thrown up to save them had she been stronger, faster. Smarter.
Marie screamed her voice was shrill as she took in the horrors of the room. I winced, as my child self-turned, covered in my mother's blood. I didn’t let her into the protection of the spell and she wasn’t stronger than the child I had been.
Alden came in behind her, his own gasp grated on my nerves.
"Synthia, are you hurt?" Marie asked her voice low and clear.
"My mother is broken. Father is sleeping," the five year old said, as if it was true but she knew better. She knew by then that they were dead. She can feel the loss of them inside of herself, where once there had been love, was now an empty void of death in its place.
"Did she do this?" Alden's whisper made my skin crawl. This is the work of evil, even the child knew that much. In the end she will blame herself, because father had been a warrior, and he’d died to protect her.
"They were looking for something, was it me?" The child asked with eyes too old for a five year old.
"Alden, enough. She's in shock," Marie whispered as if the child wouldn’t hear.
I pulled back, shoving the memories of what happens next away…my hands ripping into my memories as if I could shred them. I won't relive the next part—taking their souls. At five I was stronger than any other Witch. History would record the next details of what transpired. I'd be a lab rat for Alden for years after the deaths of my parents because of it.
"Enough, we risk damaging her mind if you continue," Ryder says softly his voice penetrating the illusion.
The room turns white again, my body shaking with violent spasms. I ground my teeth together, wanting to kill them for seeing what happened.
"Interesting, they were looking for something," the Fae behind me said.
Dristan cleared his throat. "I don’t recognize any of them, they look—"
"Enough," Ryder interrupted sharply and glared at him.
I blinked, bringing the room back into focus as I fought for air and stood before I found my balance. My chest heaved from the pain of reliving the worst day in my life. My eyes flickered to Ryder's golden gaze. He looked almost puzzled and disturbed by what he had seen. I turned to push past his men, but I was boxed in as if they knew I would leave. I hated what I found in their eyes. Pity.
"Move," I snarled, wanting to get the fuck out of here, to go home and curl into a ball until the feeling of hate and hopelessness passes. It normally takes days.
"She was a victim," Zahruk said softly.
"I am. Not. A. Victim!" I growled low and clearly pronounced each word.
"No? Then what are you?" He asked, angered by my words.
"I'm a survivor."
Zahruk bowed his dark blonde head. I'd never allowed myself to be a victim from that day forth. I'd fought hard and was best in the class I graduated with from the Guild academy. Marie had been there every step helping me, cheering me on. Alden had blamed me, but with good reason.
I'd pulled their souls and refused to allow them to leave me. Fear was a bitch. It could make you do things you never thought yourself capable of. I'd pulled their souls before I had known what I was doing. It had been grief which had made me act hastily, mixed with young age and too much power. I'd ended up branded with two stars upon my shoulders as a reminder of my first failure in life.
"She's damaged," another inside the room said as if I wasn’t standing right there.
You have no idea, damaged makes me look normal.
"She is, but can she do the job we need her to?" Dristan asked.
I hated that they had ripped these memories from my mind. And yet this time when they had replayed it, my father's words had not been so silent when it had happened my mind wouldn’t grasp what he'd said.
"Fuck you, fuck your job Ryder. I'm out of here," I growled and turned with every intention of walking out.
"Call the Guild, get Alden on the phone," Ryder said smoothly.
I exhaled and closed my eyes slowly, fighting for composure. "I'm damaged, others can use glamour," I offered him a solution to his problem.
"I don’t want others, I need the best and you came highly recommended by Marie."
I blinked and turned looking at him over my shoulder. "Marie is dead," I snapped angrily.
"She is, but she was a friend of my fathers," Ryder supplied.
"Find someone else," I barked, wanting out of the room, I felt as if the walls were closing in around me.
"Call the Guild," he snapped at the Fae closest to the desk that sat against the back barren wall of the room.
"You just fucked with my head! What do you expect me to do? Kiss your fucking boots, Fairy? Wrong. Fucking. Girl!"