Page 2 of Sound
“I have a feeling you’ll see him again.” Another of those shivers rattles my bones. What is it with people and saying sentences like they’re premonitions or something? Geez, I can’t catch a break.
“Yes, I’m sure I will. In some movie or something.” I see Vi shrug a shoulder before I turn to watch the houses and trees pass by the window. “What would someone like him do with a girl as plain and unassuming as me?” The words are just a breath under my nose.
I hope the day will get better than it is right now.
1
Melody
My hand trembles when I lift the glass to my lips, the water sloshing around in it. Keeping my eyes on the floor, doing my best to ignore the penetrating stare Seraphina has glued on my face, my nostrils flare as I swallow a lump, and finally pull in enough air to inflate my lungs. Not letting me out of her sight until I’ve emptied the glass, the monster hasn’t moved an inch away from me. The cloudiness in the liquid gives away her subtle way of keeping me docile. God only knows what she has put in it.
Not that I care, per se.
Every day when she brings the glass of water to me, I drink it with no complaint because it will stop the pain. She is a master of inflicting pain without placing a finger on you. The last time I refused to drink what she offered it felt like the skin was slowly melting off my bones. She chants and does crazy magic that hurts like hell. Magic, a thing from fairytales, is actually real.
A shiver rakes my spine.
“I don’t have all day, girl. Get on with it.” Folding her skinny arms over her chest, she glares down her nose at me.
Swallowing thickly once more, I press the warm rim of the glass to my lips and gulp it as fast as I can. Water trickles down on the sides of my face, soaking my chin and neck. Staring with unseeing eyes at the wall before me, I drink it all until there is nothing left. Not even Seraphina’s gleeful chuckle can make me feel anything anymore.
I can’t remember how long I’ve been here. It may be days, even years. She separated me from my two best friends, tricking us with a call for an audition. Once we were there, with her trap set, we had no way out. Now, I have nowhere to run, no one to turn to that can help me.
I’ve been at her mercy since.
She keeps asking me to play my violin, either for herself where she sits with her eyes closed and arms spread wide, or for groups of people that leer at me with hungry gazes. It’s a never ending loop that leaves me barely standing on my feet after each performance. I call it a performance because she makes me dress up, do my make up, and look immaculate every time.
Even when she’s my only audience.
Each note brings the golden thread of light that connects her chest to mine. That cursed night when she tied me to her pops to the front of my mind and steals my breath away.
“Excellent, Melody.” Seraphina clapped louder, a wicked smile twisting her once-pretty face in a terrifying grimace. “I knew you had it in you.”
“Where is everyone?” Still searching the empty church, I took a few steps back. “Vi! Harmony!”
Seraphina chuckled, the sound like nails on a chalk- board grating on my nerves. “Keep calling. They might answer.”
“Where are my friends?” Snapping out of whatever is happening to my head, I glared at her. “What did you do to them?”
“Don’t concern yourself with them.” Cutting the air with her hand, she stalked towards me. “You, my dear, have bigger problems.”
“Where are my friends?” Pushing the words through clenched teeth, I gripped my violin tighter. It’d break my heart to damage my instrument, but I would break it across her head if she was within reach.
“They are around, with problems of their own.” Grinning like the cat that ate the canary, she moved closer.“You have no idea what you are, do you?”
“What are you talking about you, psycho?” Dread was like lead in my belly, the violin shaking in my sweaty trembling hand.
“You’ll learn with time. But now that I have you, you will not escape from me.” Seraphina lunged at me.
She was much faster than I expected. One second, she was a few yards away from the podium, the next she stood in front of me, her long nails digging in the skin of my neck where she gripped my throat. I struggled to free myself, but she pressed a spot that rendered me useless while making my hands hanging limply to my sides.
The violin dropped on the floor.
“Per me ego potestas penes universum mentis. Tuae aciem perstringere donum, ut serviant mihi,” Seraphina chanted in Latin, and I had no idea how I understood the gibberish she spoke. “By the power vested in me, I bind your gift to serve me.”
“What are you doing?”
Horrified, I watched when a bright, glowing cord, like a live electric wire, snaked out from her chest and attached to mine. I could feel it when it sank its claws deep inside my soul, the pain so excruciating stars danced in front of my eyes. Seraphina inched closer, her face only inches from mine. Her breath fanned my face. The last thing I remembered before everything turned black were her pupils turning vertical and her eyes glowing bright orange. An explosion shattered everything, and the darkness enveloped me.
