Page 24 of Blood Magic (Ariel Kimber 3)

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?

Chapter Eight

Something cold and wet brushed my cheek in a gentle caress. I desperately wanted to open my eyes so I could see what Julian was doing to my face even though I knew exactly what he was doing because he’d explained it to me. Repeatedly.

Julian was finally rubbing his magical juju concoction on my face. It smelled horrible, but I was glad to finally have it happening so I could be done with it.

And I wanted to be done with it.

I was over the whole damn thing.

Poor Julian was only trying to help me out but was only succeeding in making me annoyed with him. He didn’t deserve this kind of attitude from me.

Since Julian didn’t deserve me being a serious A-hole to him, I sat there in silence as he rubbed his freezing cold cream with his blood in it that smelled a lot like shit, all over the side of my face.

Neither of us spoke as he went to work on my face and it was over in less than two minutes. I would know, I had counted down the seconds inside my head.

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