Chapter Seven
A tall glass of water was pushed into my hands and I immediately opened them, taking hold of the glass.
“What’s this?” I asked in a rough voice. I hadn’t quite gotten my emotions under control yet and I was unable to hide such things.
Why was he giving me a glass of water? I hadn’t said anything about being thirsty. Come to think of it, I could use a drink of water. I lifted the glass to my mouth, but he plucked it out of my hands before I could take a drink.
I gaped at him.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked in a high voice. “I was going to drink that. Why ever would you give me a glass of water if you didn’t want me to drink it?”
I was baffled. I guess baffled was a whole lot better than sad and upset. Right? Sure thing.
“I want you to drink the water,” he said bizarrely. “Just not yet. Right now, I simply want you to hold onto it until I tell you otherwise.”
“Ookkaayy,” I told him.
Whatever. I should stop expecting them to be normal instead of weird. They always reverted back to being weird.
“Did you know that water is pure?” He asked me.
I frowned. I had never really thought of water as something outside of drinking, bathing and possibly swimming in. But pure? Perhaps when it came in the form of rain water or in a sealed plastic bottle.
“Magically,” he said, “you can imprint it with whatever you want.”
I had no freaking idea what he was on about with this water nonsense. One minute we were talking about poisoning a scary old broad and the next thing we know we are talking about water like it’s something special. What in the actual fuck? Somehow, I didn’t think he would approve of the commentary going on inside my head. Not that I was willing to share it, mind you.
Julian wrapped his hands around mine on the glass. “I want you to keep your hands cupped around this glass for the next two minutes. Can you do that for me, Ariel?”
I nodded. Sure, I could easily do that. I had been holding on to the sucker for far longer than two minutes, it felt like.
“I’m going to need you to do more than just hold onto it,” he told me in a serious voice.
Goodness. He wanted me to not drink it until he told me it was okay to do so. Then he wanted me to simply hold on to it for the next two minutes. Now, I needed to do something else with it? If he wanted me to dump it over my head, there might be a chance I was going to punch him somewhere he would be feeling it for quite some time to come.
“What?” I asked in disbelief.
Julian sighed heavily. “Just listen,” he said. “During those two minutes, I’m going to need you to close your eyes but still focus on the glass of water in your hands and think of nothing but one thing. And the thing I need you to be thinking about is healing. Specifically, the healing of your face. I want you to visualize your cheek healing, the ragged pieces syncing back together. Do you think you can do that for me? Do you think you can think of this and nothing else for those two minutes? It’s an important question because if you lose focus none of it will matter. You have to be serious about this, Ariel. I know it might seem silly to you or a joke, but it’s very serious. I promise you that. Can you do this for me? I need to know, and I need an honest answer.”
I stared at him. He looked so serious, seemed so utterly focused on me. This was no joking matter to him.
If it were just me, I would not take this glass of water in my hands seriously. I wouldn’t think it could do anything for me. With him looking at me like that… I thought anything possible because his eyes told me so.
“I can do whatever you need me to do,” I told him in a soft voice. As long as he kept looking at me like that then we were good.
“Alright,” he said after a minute. “I believe you.”
He didn’t sound as sure as his words proclaimed him to be, but I let that go. Just this once I would be the bigger person.
“Whenever you’re ready, let me know.”
“I’m ready now,” I told him.
I probably wasn’t ready now.
Thinking about my face healing completely made me want to roll my eyes. What was done was done. Could we really go back from it? I didn’t think so, but I would do this for him and I would give it my all even if I thought it wouldn’t be successful.
“Keep your hands cupped loosely around the glass,” he told me. “Close your eyes and envision nothing but your face healing. Think of nothing else besides the water and what you wish to happen to the wound on your face.”
Following his orders, I loosely held onto the glass between both my hands and closed my eyes.
I blew out a deep breath and cleared my mind. It was easier said than done because there was a lot of garbage floating around inside of my head.
Two minutes flew by in what felt like the span of a heartbeat and I had taken the entire time to clear all of the garbage out of my head.
I hadn’t even gotten started on the thoughts of healing when warm fingertips ran over the backs of my knuckles on my right hand.
“I’m not ready,” I murmured. “I just finally cleared my mind and am ready to focus on healing my face. I thought it would be smart to clear everything from my mind first so I can focus solely on what you want me to. It took longer than I thought it would. I’m sorry about your two-minute time frame. Can I have two more minutes, please?”
“You can have as much time as you need,” he said, and I felt him move away from me. “It’s not the time frame that matters. You were actually really smart to take the time to clear your mind first before focusing on what I asked you to. Thank you for taking this seriously. I really appreciate it. Not all of the guys take what I do and my instructions seriously. Thank you.”
My lips tipped up in a small smile. I was glad I actually put in a decent effort to do what he wanted me to. It might seem dumb to me, but I would give it my best if it meant something to him.
I let it all go. The negative and the positive, I let it go all the same. None of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was my face and the ugly mark on the side of it.
Water is pure, I thought to myself.
Nah, that wasn’t going to work out for me from that angle.
Instead, I thought about what I’d seen on my cheek the last time I looked into the mirror. The stitches and the angry red line. I thought about what I had looked like before, mere days ago. I thought about the smooth, creamy unblemished skin on my face. I saw that jagged red line appearing on my cheek and envisioned it healing. I saw the line smooth out as the color faded from that dark red color to a light pink. Then, I saw the pink fade to white. The raised skin smoothed out and the only thing I saw in the mirror was a thin, white line curving around my cheek.
The glass was gently removed from my hands that had been wrapped tightly around it.
My eyes blinked open and I was greeted with the sight of Julian once again kneeling in front of me.
“Now,” he said in a quiet voice, “I want you to slowly sip the water until it’s all gone. All the while I want you to think ‘my face is healing, and I am full of energy.’ Over and over again until the glass is empty.”
He slid the glass back into my open hands and pushed himself back up to his feet.
I wasn’t thirsty anymore and had no real desire to drink an entire glass of water when I wasn’t thirsty, but we’d come this far. I might as well humor him and see this absurd thing through to the end.
I put the glass to my lips and did exactly as he’d instructed me to do. I sipped the water slowly while thinking about my face healing and being full of energy.
I feared the only thing that was filling up was my bladder and I would need to use the bathroom soon.
When the glass was blessedly empty, I sat forward in the chair my butt was in and plonked the glass down on the table. I was glad to have that experience behind me.
Usually, when we did something involving magic, I enjoyed it a whole lot more. Or, I lit something on fire and everyone else seemed to enjoy that experience.
This hadn’t been a whole lot of fun for me and I learned basically nothing save for the fact Julian thought water was pure and if you have magic, you can imprint water with whatever you wanted. Or so Julian had said. I still didn’t believe him. But, for whatever reason, I’d done exactly as he’d asked me to and I hadn’t even faked it.
I sat back in my chair and folded my arms over my now churning stomach. I watched in silence as Julian unscrewed the lids on both of the medium sized mason jars, the one half full with some white cream and the black one with the flecks of missing paint on it.
He picked up the sharp looking knife and stuck it in the jar with the white cream. He scooped out a healthy dose of white cream with the knife and plopped it down into the silver bowl on the table. He scrapped the knife off on the rim of the bowl. He then repeated this action once more before setting the knife down onto a white washcloth. He screwed the lid back on that mason jar before placing it back inside his black bag.
Julian picked up the jar with the missing black paint chips and poured a small amount of whatever was inside there into the silver bowl. It was a clear liquid with a foul stench that immediately filled the dining room the second he’d poured it into the bowl. It hadn’t smelled when he’d unscrewed the lid. It hadn’t smelled like anything until he’d poured it out. Shouldn’t it have smelled when he’d unscrewed the lid? I thought so, but I didn’t say anything out loud. He seemed so focused on his task that I didn’t want to disrupt him and break his concentration.
I lifted a hand to my nose in an attempt to keep the smell at bay. It didn’t work. The stench would probably linger in Dash’s dining room for days.
“What’s in that?” I asked in horror.
Julian tilted his head to the side and grinned at me.
“It’s a secret,” he muttered as he turned back towards the table.
He picked up the knife off of the washcloth and dipped it in the silver bowl. He stirred the contents of the bowl with the knife.
I sat back in the chair and pulled my knees up to my chest. I watched him closely as I wrapped my arms around my legs. He was completely and utterly focused on the task before him.
I was fascinated with watching him work. Lines appeared on his forehead as he watched himself drag the knife around in circles inside the bowl. So focused on what he was doing, I swear, I could have gotten up and walked out of the room and he likely would not have noticed. I didn’t mind, I liked watching Julian work. I didn’t get to spend enough time with him, so I didn’t know him as well as I would have liked to. When life slowed down, and things were less strained and hectic, I was going to make a point to spend more time with the guys who I had yet to get to know very well. I wanted that very badly and one of those guys was Julian. The other one was Damien. Just talking to Damien still made me extremely nervous. He was a huge dick in the beginning, but I felt like he’d thawed a great deal towards me and we were making progress towards maybe becoming friends. All those DVD’s he’d bought for me were a step in the right direction. But I wasn’t sure I was ready to hang out with just him alone. I would need someone to be there for the very first time to act as a buffer incase he turned back into a dick.
Julian pulled the knife out of the bowl and wiped it off on the washcloth.
I watched in sick fascination as Julian put the knife to the pad of his thumb and pressed in. He sliced a thin line down his thumb. Red bloomed to life and my breath caught in my throat.
This is what Quinton had been talking about. This was blood magic. And it was happening right before my eyes. I hadn’t noticed any scars on Julian’s hands the way I had noticed with Quinton’s fingers. But, then again, I hadn’t really been paying attention to Julian the same way I did with Quinton.
I was paying attention now.
Boy, was I ever.
He placed the knife back down on to the washcloth. Stupidly, I hoped he didn’t stain Dash’s washcloth with his blood.
Julian held his thumb over the silver bowl and whispered words I couldn’t make out. Blood dripped down from his thumb, plopping into the concoction he’d created for me. He was going to rub his blood onto my face? I wasn’t sure I liked that idea very much and I also wasn’t sure I liked this blood magic very much. I was a firm believer that your blood should stay inside your body. What you shouldn’t do with it was smear it on someone else’s face.
“Uh, Julian,” I mumbled, at a loss for words.
His head slowly turned to the side and his eyes caught mine. My lips parted in surprise at what I saw on his face, in his eyes. His mouth was a harsh line. His eyes were big and bright, lit up by something on the inside that I couldn’t see. He looked intense, focused, and he didn’t look like he particularly enjoyed my interruption.
“Never you mind, I guess.” I mumbled as my eyes quickly skirted away from him, looking anywhere but back into his harsh face.
I had a feeling I just saw a whole new side to Julian that I hadn’t seen before, and it didn’t belong with his sweet side. What the hell? Where had this personality come from? And, could we maybe give it back?
This was the Julian who poisoned scary old ladies.
Julian unscrewed the lid on the smaller mason jar, the one with the white powder in it. He took out a pinch and sprinkled it on top of the smelly goop in the bowl.
He stuck his thumb into his mouth, sucking on it. When he pulled it out of his mouth, there was no more blood on it, he’d licked it clean.
Yes, this blood magic was not for me. This wasn’t going to work out for me.
I sat up straight in my chair, ready to bolt. Another dark look from Julian froze me in place and had me going absolutely nowhere. It was like he’d read my mind and knew I wanted to run away from him.
Well, okay then. It looked like we were doing this blood magic thing.
Julian picked up the box of matches. He slid the box open and pulled out a match. He struck the red tip on the side of the box, dragging it across. The match lit up immediately.
I could have done that for him without using the side of the box.
Julian dropped the burning match into the bowl. The whole thing burst into flame, burning bright and fast before going out just as quickly.
“What the hell was that?” I breathed out. I was mesmerized by the tiny plume of smoke rising out of that silver bowl. “That shouldn’t have caught fire like that. And, why did it go out right away?”
“That’s magic,” he said. “My magic.”
He reached into the bowl and plucked out the used match. He dropped the match onto the washcloth, next to the dirty knife.
Julian picked up the bowl with both hands and turned to face me. His eyes still glowed, probably even brighter than they had been before.
“I want you to tilt your head to the side,” he instructed me. “With your injured side tilted up. And I want you to close your eyes for me. It’s going to feel cold at first, but that will only last for a few seconds before heating up. The smell is a little on the rancid side, but you’ll get used to it. And, besides, we will only have to apply it to your face just this once. When I put it together, I made sure to use the right things so we would only have to put it on there once.”
I appreciated that I only had to put it on my face the one time because it really did smell horrible. And he hadn’t said for just how long I would have to wear it on my face this time? Minutes? Hours? I hoped no longer than a few minutes, but it would probably be longer because that was how my life worked out for me.
Julian’s blood and something that smelled rancid. On my face. For an undetermined amount of time.
Oh joy.
Next time I was demanding different babysitters. This one right here wasn’t really much fun.
I tilted my face to the side, like he’d wanted me to, with the unmarred side of my face aimed towards the floor and my fucked-up side aimed right at him. I wanted to be self-conscience about the ugly part of me that was so on display for him to see. I mean, I know he’d seen it, how could he not have? It’s not like I’d covered it with a bandage or anything. So, it had been on display for all to see. But this was different somehow, this was me shoving it right in his face to take a real long good look at it if he’d like to. That was almost too much for me to deal with. But, like all the things in my life that I didn’t want to do, I tilted my head, closed my eyes, and I did it anyways.
I was a survivor. Survivors were capable of anything. I knew a lot of people would look at my past and all I had gone through and see me as a victim. The definition of a victim was: A person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of crime, accident, or other event or action. The definition of survivor was: A person or thing that survives. And the definition of survive was: Continue to live or exist, especially in spite of danger or hardship. By definition, I could be considered both. I didn’t want to be both. I didn’t want to be a victim, I wanted to be a survivor and thought of myself as one. Survivors were the type of people who made it through the storm, scars and all, pain and all, and still they made it without breaking. And, what’s more, they didn’t let it hold them down. They went outside, they turned the lock, unlocking a door they really wanted to stay hidden behind. They unlocked that door and stepped out into the real world, leaving their safe world behind. They were brave, so incredibly brave to leave their safe place behind and go out into the world. They braved the world, they braved the darkness inside of them, and they went out and conquered. Yeah, going to the grocery store to buy food to make for dinner that night or the next week even, or meeting someone at a coffee shop to hang out with for an hour or so wouldn’t seem like a brave thing, a conquering thing to a normal person. But to a person who’d gone through any kind of Hell, and there were several different levels to Hell, so many different layers, being able to do those things and to carry on with your life showed an immense amount of strength that someone who hadn’t gone through any level of Hell wouldn’t understand.
To me, the difference between a victim and a survivor was whether you lived inside or outside of the shadow of whatever horror you’d lived though had cast on your life.
I didn’t see anything wrong with being either. One didn’t make you weaker and the other didn’t make you stronger. All people were different, as were their reactions and how they dealt with or handled things. We were all different and that was all a part of what made being a human a wonderful thing, the option to be who you wanted to be and live your life how you wanted to live it.
But, for me? I didn’t want to live in the shadow of what I had been through. I didn’t want to be a victim for the rest of my life. I wanted to be strong and I wanted to have the courage to live in the light despite what had been done to me.
I wanted to be a survivor and not a victim.
For myself, I needed to be strong.
So, I sat there with my fucked-up cheek on display for Julian to get up close and personal with and allowed myself to be vulnerable in front of him. I did it in silence like I did most things. But, the important thing was that I did it. I did it because I was strong enough to do so.
I was seventeen years old, and I had already gone through several different levels of Hell.
What was one more?