Fiona paced back and forth as Queenie laid immobile in bed before her. The faint footsteps of two pairs of bare feet pulled her attention from the injured witch. Her eyes flicked up to lock onto Cordelia and Corey. The two moved frantically, the headmistress fighting to remain calm as Corey's eyes scanned the Supreme.
She was disheveled, her red dress and fuck me pumps caused the redhead to freeze, her breathing caught in her chest for a moment. Cordelia let go of her wrist. Corey's hand fell to grab a fistful of her oversized teeshirt, a dream… it was a dream. She forced herself to focus on the real issue at hand, turning to the bed to find Cordelia already working against the nightstand.
"What the fuck happened?" Corey gasped, looking between Fiona and Queenie frantically. She moved to the side of the bed, her hand hovering over the large wound in the girl's center. She watched as Queenie struggled to take in a full breath. She was afraid to touch the girl, to see the thing that had hurt her; a combination of reeling from her dream and concern for the girl's wellbeing.
"This girl was attacked near to death while you two slept." Fiona stomped out of the room as she spoke, her hands seeming to shake as she moved. Corey looked over to Cordelia who kneeled against the floor on the opposite side of the bed. She moved quickly, focused on making sure Queenie didn't die.
"By who?" The headmistress spat, her full focus on the mortar and pestle in front of her.
"Not who. By what," Fiona's voice was muffled as she dug through the other room, her words echoing off the walls and into the bedroom where the three other witches had gathered. "Some minion of hell or other."
"Summoned by who?" Corey stood with her feet planted as she spoke, the fear in her voice seeping through. Not Madison. Anyone but Madison. "Not one of our girls?" Fiona rolled her eyes as she returned to the room, a blanket draped over her arm as she staggered in her heels.
"Oh, Christ," she tossed the blanket at Corey, which caused the young witch to jump. "Our girls couldn't pull a rabbit out of a hat." Corey's shoulders fell. She draped the blanket over Queenie's legs as Fiona leaned forward to assess the witch's wounds. "This was dark art voodoo, flat out."
"Marie Laveau." Cordelia looked up, the realization etched into her face. The redhead furrowed her brows, her head shaking slightly in confusion.
"No doubt." Fiona remained focused, trying her hardest to stabilize Queenie's condition. Almost immediately, Cordelia went back to work.
"This is your fault. You went to see her." Corey moved back to Queenie's side, her hands hovering around the girl once again. "You deliberately provoked her."
"How would you know that?" Again, Fiona's voice was muffled by the walls of another room as she searched for anything that could help them heal the injured witch. Corey's focus remained towards Queenie. The bickering between mother and daughter, Supreme and Headmistress, became background noise to her.
"Because she told me."
"Yeah? And what were you doing over on that side of town?"
"It was a personal matter."
"Christ, Delia! Is that where you were sneaking off to this afternoon? To the voodoos for some half-assed fertility spell? Her Pochaut Medecine? Huh? How much did she take you for?"
"Nothing, thanks to you. I left there with nothing."
"Yeah, not even your dignity. Christ, you as much as announced that her magic was stronger than yours. Or mine!"
"Don't you try and put this on me. You went there first."
"I went there to show strength! And you undermined me by showing belly."
"Enough!" The wind blustered through the curtains as Corey bellowed. She wouldn't stand and watch while Fiona ripped into Cordelia any longer. "A witch, one of our own, is fucking dying in front of us and the two of you want to stand there and measure your dicks?" She scoffed as she shook her head. Her gaze moved between both witches before her, her shoulders rising and falling with heavy, angry breaths.
"You started a war with an immortal voodoo queen that we cannot win. Ten years of blood ended with Anna Leigh Leighton's signature on a map and all of that is now gone." She locked onto Fiona, the flicker of the flame in her eyes growing stronger.
"The coven is in danger because you care about nothing but yourself. It's been that way for as long as I've known you, Fiona." The supreme paled as the anger in Corey's voice became more evident. She opened her mouth to speak again but froze when she heard Cordelia's soft voice.
"Corinna?" It was a whimper, quiet and full of fear, let out by a trembling lip. She held a hand out over Queenie's face. "She— she's not breathing." Corey's shoulders fell, the fire in her eyes immediately snuffed out. Fiona pushed forward, tucking her hair behind her ears.
"Move," she spoke softly, squeezing her eyes shut. She leaned over Queenie, taking in a deep breath before exhaling against the witch's face. Corey looked between the Supreme and the Headmistress, wringing her hands together anxiously as she waited for Queenie to take a breath. When she didn't, Fiona looked over at her in panic.
"Let me," Corey spoke quickly, her hands landing on Queenie's shoulders. The Supreme took a step back, her thumb nail fitting between her teeth anxiously. Corey repeated Fiona's previous actions— a full, deep breath followed by a long exhale. She felt like the wind was slowly being knocked out of her the longer she waited for Queenie to take in a breath.
She could see it before she heard it, what had happened to the girl. Shadowed figure. Begging, beckoning. The Minotaur. Her hands flew from Queenie's shoulders as the witch let out a gasp. A sign that the life transfer— Vitalum Vitalis— had worked. She took a weary step back as Cordelia rushed to Queenie's side.
"I've got a heartbeat," the shocked laugh in the woman's voice was audible. "But maybe we should get her to a hospital." Before Corey could say anything, Fiona interjected.
"No, that is out of the question." The redhead could feel the Supreme's eyes lock onto her. "From now on, we handle everything internally. The last thing you want is to have the Council show up on your doorstep and question your competence." Corey scoffed, her eyes meeting Fiona's with a shake of her head. The Supreme turned on her heels and clicked out of the room before the girl could make any attempt to spit out her rebuttal.
Corey paced back and forth, her hands shaking as she called Madison's phone. It wasn't unusual for the blonde to not come home but— between her nightmare, the voicemail she'd left the night before, and Queenie having been attacked— she'd been panicking. She hadn't slept; not since she woke up covered in sweat, unable to breathe.
"Come on, Mads," Corey muttered. She focused on her cellphone, her free hand flying upward to clasp against the top of her head. "Just answer the god damn phone." She listened to the trill of the line for what felt like the millionth time as she looked up at her bedroom ceiling. She could feel her whole body tremble, having no control over her nerves.
"You've reached Madison Montgomery. I can't come to the phone right now— and, frankly, there's a high probability that I just don't want to. Leave a message; I'll either get back to you or I won't." Madison's chipper voice fluttered through the room. It set Corey's teeth on edge, how the blonde could sound so cheerful and happy when she was nowhere to be found.
"Fuck, this can't be happening." The redhead's empty chest rattled as the sound echoed off the stark-white walls around her. Her bottom lip trembled as her mind traveled to a dark place. The nagging thought that her nightmare was real crept up on her.
"Miss Corey?" Nan's voice was full of concern and urgency; it caught Corey off-guard. She jumped, her grip on her phone tightening as she turned around to find the younger girl standing in her doorway. "I—I can't hear her." The redhead's lip trembled.
"N-no…" Corey tried to hold her emotions in, to keep herself together, but she unraveled in an instant. "Don't you dare fuck with me right now, Nan." Her lip curled upward in a snarl. She knew the young witch could hear her thoughts. They didn't even have to say the blonde's name to know what one another was thinking. Madison was dead.
"You think so too!" Nan's eyes grew wide, the immediate realization of the situation taking over. "You think someone killed her!" Corey opened her mouth to speak but she couldn't find the strength. Her jaw trembled as the tears threatened to break the dam. She pursed her lips, taking in a deep breath through her nose.
"Call the Council, and don't talk about this to anyone else until they get here." The words that managed to escape her throat were hoarse, as if she hadn't had a sip of water in years. The young witch nodded feverishly and turned on her heels to take off in search of the nearest house phone.
As soon as Nan was out of sight, Corey flung her phone against the wall in anger. It bounced off, landing face down on the floor before skidding underneath her bed. Her knees buckled beneath her. Every emotion she'd kept bottled up poured out of her as her kneecaps connected with the solid wood floor. The sound of bone cracking against wood echoed as her hands covered her face.
She curled forward, her fingers grabbing and yanking at the hair against the back of her head as she let out a painful wail. Her arms shook as her head tilted backwards, her fists clenching so hard around the curls at the base of her neck that her knuckles turned to marble. She sobbed, her brow contorted into a frown as her lips turned downward.
She knew that she had been loud enough to wake the dead, but in the moment she didn't have a care in the world. She struggled to take in a breath as she sobbed, feeling her tears splash against her knees before she even realized she was crying. Her body rocked as she coughed out through her tears, her shoulders falling limp. She was a rag doll, clattering against herself in a mess of limbs.
She let her forehead rest against her knees as she sat back on her feet. Her eyes squeezed shut as her shoulders bobbed up and down. She felt empty, like her heart had been ripped out right in front of her face and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Her cries escaped her throat in hiccups, her empty ribcage tightening one notch of the belt at a time.
She rolled backwards, her hands sliding down until her arms wrapped around her center. She leaned back, her head bouncing hard as it connected with the edge of the black wooden trunk at the foot of her bed. She didn't care about having a bump on the head, she couldn't feel the physical pain caused by her surroundings. She was too busy being consumed by the ever growing pain inside of her.
Madison was dead, she knew that for a fact. Fiona had killed an innocent witch in her hunger for immortality and it was her fault— or, at least, she blamed herself. She knew, deep down, that Fiona would do anything to maintain her Supremacy. There had to be a reason for her rapidly growing powers, and yet she never stepped forward and made herself known as the next Supreme because she didn't want to.
Her hesitation killed Madison; her denial; her incompetence; her. How many other witches would die at Fiona's hand before she finally stepped forward and claimed the throne?