Arianna Rose: The Gathering (Part 3) (16 page)

Her entire body began to tremble and her fingertips tingled.  The forest was suddenly silent, save for the roar of her lifeblood racing
through her veins.  She knew her eyes glowed red, and that a dangerous swell of power waited just beneath her skin, pulsing harshly, hissing like fiery serpents.

“Uh oh,” Jess called out playfully
as she glanced in Arianna’s direction.

“Uh, George,
I need a little help here,” Scott said and nodded at Arianna.

“I have her immobilized,” he said flatly.

“Well, then do something else,” Scott ordered him.

George materialized from the shadows and raised his hands at her. 
When he did, she felt her fingertips go numb.  The world, which seconds earlier was awash in a blood red hue, returned to normal.  Arianna felt as if her power had seeped from her, as if she’d been drained of it.  Her feet were still anchored to the earth beneath them.

“What the hell are you doing to me?” she shouted.

“I wouldn’t bother,” Scott said to her, acid lacing his words.  “George has this really cool power as it turns out.  He can freeze anyone else’s powers.  We never go out without him,” he laughed, a vile, cruel laugh. 

“Please,” she begged.  “Scott, please stop this.”

Scott glanced at her briefly and smirked.  “I’m immune to pretty girls who beg,” he scoffed.  “But nice try, anyway.”

Arianna felt her stomach roil angrily, as if somersaulting over a slithering beast inside her belly that moved unendingly.  But that was it.  The energy that would have heedlessly rushed from her core
and stopped him had been immobilized.  She was forced to watch in disgust as Scott moved Sarah like a marionette on strings guided by his malevolent hands.  Blood and dirt streaked Sarah’s face as she cried and begged Scott to stop. 

“Please stop!” Sarah sobbed as she looked in fright at Gina who lay still in a garnet puddle. 

But Scott simply sneered at her, ignoring her pleas, and made her swing her branch again at the person closest to her.  Steve, the boy with the dreadlocks, was nearest and trembled so violently, his twisted strands of hair looked as if they’d come to life.  He tried to move, to run from Sarah, but Chris was too busy laughing and talking with Jess and held his arms, unmoving, in front of him. When Chris saw Sarah approaching, he realized it was too late to commandeer Steve to defend himself.

“Like a cow awaiting slaughter,” Scott muttered as he
angled his arm back as far as it would go.  His stance was that of a baseball player intending to send a pitch sailing over the farthest fence of the playing field.  Then, with lightning-fast speed, he whipped it forward in a wide arc.  Sarah’s arms did the same, only holding the thick branch. 

Arianna shrieked, “No!” but, it was too late.

Steve’s eyes widened in fright before the branch crashed against his temple.  The impact of the hit sent blood spraying in every direction, as well as one of his eyeballs, before he collapsed to the ground. 

“Dammit Scott, you got me again!” Chris complained.  “I knew that dreadlocked asshole would be slow as shit!”

“Oh my god!  Oh no!  You sick son of a bitch!” Arianna screamed

Red colored the leaves around Steve’s head.  He gurgled and convulsed several times before life escaped him. 

Ire coursed through Arianna’s veins like fire, raging and blazing, urging her body to act.  But she was being held by George. 

George
.  The name raised every hair on her body like quills.  She would have her moment with him if it were the last thing she ever did, but only after Scott were punished for what he’d done. 

Her thoughts of vengeance
, though comforting, were fleeting.  The carnage around her was overwhelming, but had yet to end.  Sarah and Jeff remained.  And Scott had already begun to send Sarah after Jeff. 

“Ugh!  My guy is so boring!” Jess complained and set Jeff’s fists into motion. 

Jeff wept and he looked at his fists in disgust.  Jess brushed her wrists forward and his feet moved without coordination right to Sarah.

“W-what’re you doing?  Don’t!  No don’t!” Jeff cried as Jess inched him closer to Sarah’s deadly branch.

“I’m bored already,” Jess sighed. 

“No!” Jeff called seconds before Scott cocked his arms back and swung again, making Sarah’s arms do the same. 

“No!” Jeff cried again.  But his cries were interrupted by a sickly thud.

He tumbled to the ground, crimson staining his neon hat.  He tried to scramble to his feet, wounded, but still alive, when Scott sent Sarah to where he scrambled.  He had her swing her branch high over her head then bring it down hard, again and again, until
specks of blood and matter covered her face and Jeff’s skull had been caved in.

Arianna felt as if she were going to be sick, the massacre more than her mind and stomach could handle.

“See, I told you I’d win this one,” Scott said and smiled humorlessly.

“No!” Arianna screamed at all of them.  “What have you done?  Why did you do this?”

Sarah still stood with the bloody branch in her hand, her own blood smeared across her face, trembling and crying. 

“You fucking scumbag!” Arianna cursed at Scott.  ‘This isn’t who we are!”

“Oh relax!  They’re just useless humans,” Scott spat as he pulled an object wrapped in a napkin from his pocket.  He tossed it on the ground in front of Sarah, made her pick it up and unwrap it.  When the napkin fell to the ground, Arianna realized that a knife had been wrapped in it.  Her heart sank to her feet as she worried what he was going to have Sarah do with that knife. 

She was forced to watch in shock and disgust as Sarah raised the knife with a trembling hand.

“No, no, no!  Please no!” Sarah bawled uncontrollably.

“Scott no!” Arianna screamed again.

Scott simply smirked as he dragged his hand up his wrist to his elbow.  Sarah did the same, causing a red ravine to appear in its wake as she slit her own forearm from her wrist to her elbow.

Arianna’s legs buckled and she fell to her knees clutching her belly as the urge to retch overcame her.  She gagged and heaved as her stomach clenched violently, but nothing came up. 
Her mind swam.  The atrocities Scott and the others had committed were unconscionable. 

“See, when the cops come, all they’ll find is
good old Sarah’s DNA, and they’ll just think she went haywire and killed these three herself,” Scott said offhandedly.

“Yeah, no harm done,” Jess
shrugged, then to just Scott she added, “What a drama queen, falling to the ground and what not.”

“We were just having some fun,” Chris chimed in.

“Come on, Arianna, get up, enough with the whole I’m-so-shocked act.  You’re with us,
one of us
.  There’s no need for it,” Scott tried to persuade her.  But she ignored him, refused to even look up at him.

“Let her go, George,” Scott ordered.  “She’s not a threat now.”

As soon as she felt the oppressive weight of George’s power lift, she brought her legs beneath her and stood.  Though he no longer held her powers, her fingertips did not tingle and she did not feel a raging inferno burning beneath her skin.  All she felt was the need to flee, to get as far away from Scott and the rest of them as fast as possible. 

“We’re going to get out of here, Arianna,” Scott said.  “Let’s go, come on.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.  I’m not one of you.  I’m nothing like you!” Arianna said, her voice unsteady.

She had no intention of being near them, much less riding in a car with them for forty-five minutes.
  Instead, she turned from them, faster than she dreamed possible, and began to run.  With her head down, she watched her feet take turns hitting the ground.  She knew she should have felt her shoes slapping against the leaf-littered earth, but felt nothing. 

In the distance, Scott called to her
several times before giving up.  “Let her cool off,” she heard him finally say.  “We’ll see her tomorrow.”

S
he tried to tune out the sound of his voice, sickened by it, and concentrated on the beat of her heart, felt its energy swell and flare through her veins.  The rhythm her heart produced did not lull her, though.  It was not strong enough to keep the nightmare she’d just witnessed from playing out again in her mind’s eye. 

Fury and fright surged inside her.  They
propelled her forward, faster.  Tears streamed from her eyes.  She balled her fists tightly as she pumped her arms in sync with her legs.  So tight was her grip that her fingernails bit into the tender skin of her palms.  But she did not care.  Her pain did not matter.  People had been killed; innocent kids whose only crime had been allowing the likes of Scott and the others to crash their party.  And Scott believed her to be one of them.  He was wrong.  She was nothing like him, or any of them.  She needed to get the hell away from them, all of them. 

They were witches and warlocks, a fact that offered no comfort whatsoever, especially after seeing what they did for fun.  She did not know what to do.  She was the Sola, the most powerful witch on Earth, yet she did not know what to do about a murderous group of her
kind.  She realized she needed help.  She needed Desmond.

Her legs slowed, deep in the woods, far from the sight and smell of burning leaves and headlights.  She reached out with her senses and could not even hear the sound of cars passing. 

Once she felt confident that she had not been followed, she called out to Desmond.

“Desmond,” she said softly and waited.  She waited for the air before her to
ripple like a glare coming off of a scalding hot road in the summer sun just as it did the last time he had appeared before her.  But nothing happened.  He did not appear.

“Desmond!” she shouted again.

A clenching sensation began to settle in her chest and her throat constricted around the lump that had formed there.

“Desmond!” she tried again, but her voice was little more than a strangled whisper.  “Desmond,
please
.  I need you,” she begged then began to cry softly.

She sank to her knees once again and clutched her midsection
, waiting for him to appear as he had in the past.  But he did not. 

Arianna
realized she was completely alone. 

Chapter 11

Blue-black cold nipped at Desmond’
s feet despite the heat of his shield and the sun overhead.  Though he was aware of it, the searing cold creeping up his legs bothered him far less than it should have.  He’d walked for nearly a mile, coping with it, his thoughts clearer than they had been in some time.  He no longer felt as though his mind swam in dizzying laps.  He no longer felt lost.  By turning his back on his father and leaving, he had effectively split from rules and rulers.  His life was finally his own.  He was free.

He knew that freedom was not
without consequence, that it would come at a price.  But whatever the price, he took comfort in knowing that included in his freedom was Arianna, the chance to be with her as he wished to be with her; if she’d have him.  He suspected she’d need a lot of convincing, but he did not mind.  Proving his love for her would be the easiest task he’d ever undertaken, and the most enjoyable one. 

He could hardly wait to get to her, but knew he had many miles to travel before his eyes rested on her beautiful face.  So he decided to rely on his mind’s eye for the time being.

He concentrated on her features, on the feel of her skin briefly before she appeared, and his memory transported him back in time to the first instance he had sifted with her.  He’d taken her to a field filled with flowers.  The air had been pleasantly warm and a gentle breeze had blown. 

He remembered her face, the awe etched in her features, as she’d stared at t
he vibrantly colored blooms.  They’d begun to sway as one in the breeze that had brushed through the meadow and her dark eyes had danced with curiosity.  She had been attacked in an alleyway behind a nightclub, had just harmed the two dangerous men responsible for the attack with her powers, moments before he’d sifted with her.  Yet, she’d not numbed herself to the power of nature, to its beauty.  He’d always loved her, but until that moment, he’d never realized how deeply that love had run.  In that instant, he’d felt as though a pure white light had been glowing inside of her and that a mesmerizing sensation radiated from it, pulling him in, drawing him closer to it,
to her
. 

Her soul was not dark as the prophecy stated.  It glowed
radiantly despite all she’d been through, all she’d seen, all she’d done.  She’d risen above it, above a life that had not been of her choosing.  Her life had not been easy.  Her struggles had been numerous.  But she’d managed to maintain an undeniable brilliance.  She’d cared for her mother, championed those weaker than her instinctively.  She’d been hardened, but not to the point of detachment, coldness.  And that had emerged in the meadow; the innocence she’d retained had become visible.  Her eyes had softened to liquid onyx as she’d watched the flowers in wonder and he’d fallen in love more deeply than he’d ever dreamed possible.  From that moment on, he was certain he’d found his compass, and knew he’d follow her to the ends of the Earth.