The girl he bought - Part 2

The cutting began when she was twelve. Hiding behind the curtains, she would slip the penknife from her jeans pocket and press it. Once. Twice. Each time harder than the last. And the tears would fall hot and fast. They would sting the cuts just like she knew they would. It was a habit. 

Gradually people came to realise that the lines weren’t accidents. She had to change her playground. That was the reason why she never wore short skirts. People would see. People would talk. But it took her years to figure out that no matter what she did or where she went, people would find out about her past. People would still talk. Ann-Laurie’s daughter. The one that was sold to a man three times her age in exchange for drugs. She cursed her looks and broke the mirrors. But after they sent her for psychiatric help, she found another way to vent her pain without drawing attention. Nobody knew any better. 

She tortured herself with the images, those rough hands on her, that weight that dragged her down, body and soul. She knew she’d be tainted forever from his actions. From the action of her bitch of a mother. She cursed her in her heart, and when she wearied of that blood-red anger pulsing through her filthy blood, she gave up and let the tears come as they had the first time he took her. 

Bought. The embarrassment of it all, the shame, and to think it was all over the papers. Small town, everyone knew. Ann-Laurie’s daughter. She would never be able to run away from it all. Someone would inevitably come from somewhere in her dark past and ruin it all for her. They’d meet her in the diner, the mall, the street, all while she would be holding on to the pieces of a life that seemed too good to be true, and they’d shatter it all. 

Just. 

Like. 

That. 

She had lost more than five boyfriends that way and countless friends, changed jobs and cities and still it hounded her. There just had to be one accursed nosy neighbour who knew. And the threatening clouds would always come. She breathed a sigh as she watched Matt sleep. Eventually he would find out all of the truth. They always do.

~Rei Shiori

The girl he bought - Part 1

There was a fragile kind of beauty about her, Matt decided as he watched her tip-toeing around his prone form draped across the battered leather couch they owned. Her hair, wet with rain that pattered continually outside their three room apartment and clanging noisily around in the gutters was a deep, warm amber hue that changed as she moved, the tendrils of it sticking to the sharp planes of her cheekbones that people sometimes said were signs of anorexia. 

He was supposed to be asleep or so she thought. He continued to watch her from beneath half closed eyelids that hid those hazel brown eyes she said were the colour of her first pet cat’s eyes. He wasn’t sure if she was complimenting him considering that the cat itself was the most precious thing in her life till it conked off five years back. That was when she met him. That was also when he realized that she was beautiful. Despite the scars that ran along the insides of her thighs and the brutal marks that scored her lower back. He could feel every one of them each time he helped her undress in the dark. The smoothness of her shoulder blades as he slipped off her favourite coat and thin work shirt. The sigh of his hands, his rougher skin rasping against the softness of hers. Till he reached that hollow. The ridges of the scars bit into his palms and he would wince. Thankfully in the dark. It did not disgust him the way it did her exes. With the touch of the scars, there came a quiet sorrow, almost mourning. For innocence lost. And he would draw the folds of her shirt away from her back as if they remnants of her past still bled crimson into the gossamer fabric. 

They would go to bed, together, as they did for five years now. And he would make a pillow of her hair. Breathing in the scent of her. The smell of the diner’s across the street tinged with the shampoo she used earlier that morning. Always that sweet musky scent that relaxed his muscles till he fell asleep, dreaming of looking into her eyes across the diner’s red check tablecloth and seeing her drowning in her dreams. He would clutch her tighter to him and she would mumble quietly in her sleep. By morning, everything would be forgotten. Except the scars.

~Rei Shiori

The Otherlands - Part 6

Her fingers were red from the cold. It had been a long time since she had actually felt the chill biting her fingers and oddly, she relished it.

It seemed like just minutes ago she had been standing before her own hearth, tending her assassin and glaring at Ren. For some reason, Ren had lost control over himself after several heartbeats, his body jerking wildly before collapsing on the floor. Not wanting to be charged for killing a Timekeeper, the great Isolde's son no less, she had gone to his side to check for a pulse. At that very moment, his eyes flashed open and she knew nothing more till she appeared here. Lost in the middle of some god-forsaken wilderness where apparently nobody knew the pleasure of a warm fire.

Her toes were turning numb from the cold but she made no move to light any fire. There were places where magic, no matter elemental or not, would backfire if used. There were also places where magic drew unsavoury attention. She would not risk it.

Her bones creaked in protest as she took a step forward in the ash-strewn ground. Her footprints were covered up as soon as she left the spot. It scared her. Although she would never admit it. Never.Her fear has cost her too much that one time.

~Rei Shiori

The Puppet Master - Part III

Continuation from.....
Part I - Link: The Puppet Master - Part I
Part II - Link: The Puppet Master - Part II

“Isa.”

Mel hissed the word as it left her lips in a cloud of icy cold mist to combine with the slash she made with her dagger in the foggy air. The rune took the form of smoke that solidified momentarily into ice crystals. The rune winked before dispersing into something akin to diamond dust. The cocky grin temporarily wiped itself off the puppeteer’s face. The grin began to look more like a rictus of anger as he struggled against her rune. It would not be enough to hold one such as he, she knew that much, but at least it would buy her some time to fend off the girl.

Ghostly in her powder blue dress, the elder sister weaved with a jerky gait across the cobblestones that were slick with slime and sewage. Mel cursed as the girl lunged, nearly catching her neck in a death grip and that was when her foot slipped. Careless. She had not been watching her steps.

“Nauthiz!”

Mel felt the burn of the word in her throat before her scream even ended. The back of the girl’s dress burst into flames as the rune took effect. Ashes spiralled in a sudden gust of cold air as what was left of the sending fluttered away on the blessed breeze.

The puppeteer seemed a lot fainter than before, the edges of his cloak bleeding into the darker shadows behind him. Mel struggled to her feet, cursing under her breath as she cleaned the blade of her dagger on her skirts, one eye still trained on him.

A flash of light caught her eye before she realized what he had done. The rune thurisaz had the power to break her power over him, that much she knew, but in the mouth of a puppet master like him, it had the power to summon a storm. Mel always knew when it was time to leave a party. She gathered her sodden skirts and ran.

Lightning flashed across the sky as he made his way back out the other end of the alley. She was impressive, the young witch, Melisande. Not only had she calmed two of his sendings that had originally been sent to assassinate her, but she had even killed another two freshly made ones. Freshly made sendings were the ones who retained most of their living body’s agility and speed since they had only recently crossed the threshold of life and death.

He had been rather disappointed with the two girls however. The madam was not going to be pleased that her two new acquisitions whom she had planned to train into the best night ladies in all of Lower London had just been scattered into the foggy night as ashes and dust. He hummed a wordless melody to himself as he crossed the street and vanished into a blackthorn bush.

~Rei Shiori

Ripple Effect 10 ( a Beginning continuation )

"Aren’t you going to give Dom an answer, Ari?" Vela’s question pulled her back from her memories.

"Yes." her voice was merely a whisper and Dominic rewarded her with the same smile that he had given her all those years ago. A smile that came straight from his heart and one that showed in his eyes. A smile that he had shown to few, and of whom she was one of the lucky ones. Arianna blushed, noting the looks that passed between their friends.

"Thank you. Now that you’ve agreed, it solves my dilemma as well.  Grandmother is always setting me up with girls from noble households hoping that I would take a liking to them. It’s become quite a nuisance to be honest. At least this year I can take a break from the awkward meetings." he said with a more solemn expression.

Just then, Adrian joined them bearing good news. "I’ve got a hold of our stalker. His name is Michael Arrakis, a werewolf from Aquarius. I doubt he came alone to Scorpio so I had them look into where he has taken up residence and came up with another two names. It seems he came to Scorpio three months ago with two of his friends; Julian Alioth, a hybrid and Lara Antares, a shifter. All three of them are currently staying at Arrakis’s mansion in Scorpio. Their background check turned out to be spotless and nothing indicates that they would be interested in our merry band for any nefarious reason." he said while taking a seat opposite Arianna, next to Velaria.

Dominic spoke up first, "Wait, you mean Arrakis as in ArrakisSecurites? The ones who act as bodyguards for the Council?"

"Not only the Council, any Nocturner who can afford the price can obtain their services. Plus, they have the same business in the human world, protecting celebrities like Charlize Theron and Johnny Depp. The Alioth’s manage a chain of luxury hotel while the Antares family focuses mainly on wildlife conservation. Both of them are also big contenders in the human world."

"I thought they’re based in Aquarius, what are they doing here?" Dominic voiced.

"Oh, it seems we were a bit paranoid after all. His brother just opened a club a few months back so he’s here to see how it’s doing, and as far as I can deduce, both Lara and Julian are here for recreational purposes." Adrian shared as he ticked off the facts on his fingers.

"At least we have one less thing to worry about. And soon, we’ll know what Maxwell wants." Arianna let out a sigh of relief. 

~by S.Dawn & R.Shiori