2027 cont.
Bianca broke from her reverie as the door was wrenched open behind her. Amanda immediately pushed herself away, scampering backwards across the floor until her back hit the wall.
"What the hell are you doing?" Wyatt's voice boomed. It seemed to vibrate and bounce off the walls as if he were using a megaphone. His quick strides gave Bianca no time to move as his hand roughly grabbed hold of her upper arm and yanked her to her feet. "That book was not to be touched without my consent. What are you doing with it?"
Bianca didn't answer him. She was scared to see how furious he was. She'd never seen him this angry, at least not since the day he'd thrown Chris around the attic. Amanda made a grab for the book and he turned towards her wrathfully, flicking his fingers and sending her sliding back empty-handed.
"You. Stay," he ordered, his grip tightening on Bianca. Amanda shrank back obediently, terrified he would do something else to her that could leave her in a much worse condition.
Hauling Bianca towards the door, he threw her out into the hallway and closed the solid surface behind him. Although she could have used the opportunity to shimmer away, she didn't. She knew he'd track her down. It was easier just to face him.
"What were you doing with the book? Are you trying to get someone else to carry out your little plan? Make her change it so I didn't know?" he questioned. She didn't speak, frightened for the way he was acting. He pushed her back against the wall and she changed expression to appear more defiant. "Answer me! I don't want to have to kill you, Bianca."
Bianca caught her bottom lip between her teeth, trying to prevent herself from crumbling under the threat, trying to stop herself from remembering the last time.
"I wanted her to find a way to make you stop treating me like shit," Bianca finally answered him, her words coming out careful and thoughtful. "I didn't do anything to deserve this."
"You gave a weapon to one of the prisoners. You're consulting a potentially dangerous girl whose mind powers go beyond the realm of thought. I can't believe that I ever fell for your seduction and lies. I knew all along what you were really like."
Bianca shook her head. "You don't know anything."
"On the contrary, I know everything. I know you were set high expectations to live up to your parents. I know you had access to one of the most powerful tomes ever written. And I know you watched your father die for the exact same things you're doing now."
Bianca choked out a sob, squeezing her eyes closed and lowering her head as tears began to run down her cheeks. Her shoulders shook as she tried to compose herself, as she struggled to say something, but her voice couldn't break through the pain. Wyatt remained silent, watching her contemplatively. He lifted a hand towards her and she swatted it away.
"You really know how to make someone feel like dirt," she said, looking up to him. "But you're wrong. You don't know everything. You can't even seem to fathom how much you hurt me by parading your little affair around. You promised you wouldn't hurt me. You said that you were never going to be like everybody else. But you are. She told me what you were doing. She told me you were faking everything to keep me happy so I wouldn't kick up a fuss. She told me… god you showed me, you don't want me anymore."
Wyatt felt a wealth of emotions but there was not one he could settle on. He didn't understand what she was talking about. He felt as if they were living in two completely different worlds and neither of them comprehended what they were discussing. It left him unable to react effectively, unable to speak what needed to be said. He could only start by finding out the identity of the person she was talking about.
"Who?" he uttered. "Who told you?
"Veronica," she revealed, concealing her face behind her hand.
Wyatt shifted his foot. A small squeak emitted from beneath his heel, breaking the silence. He wasn't quite as angry as he had been, his temper simmering over the causes of this predicament. He didn't need so much to look as feel there were prying eyes watching from somewhere. He reached out to Bianca and orbed them both away, taking refuge in her apartment where he was sure they'd be far enough removed from everybody else as to work this out for themselves.
Wyatt had made it quite clear he didn't want Veronica to follow him, but she wasn't about to miss the big showdown. It was about time that Bianca paid for everything she had done, that justice be served upon her for her treachery. Keeping a safe distance away, she watched as Wyatt hauled Bianca from the room into the hallway. The shouting was loud enough to echo across the entire floor, and everything would have been clearly exposed save for the fact it was still early and the entire place was almost absent of life.
She listened more astutely as the level of conversation began to die down. She could hear someone crying. Taking a quick glimpse she was joyous to see it was Bianca. She wasn't as unaffected as she pretended to be. But then something happened that Veronica didn't expect. Granted, Bianca fumbled her way through some kind of explanation which would have completely unravelled Veronica's plans if Wyatt understood a single thing she was talking about, but from here it seemed all gibberish and she knew Wyatt would have remained confused. She'd hoped he'd still be furious, possibly even believing her insane. But to Veronica's surprise Wyatt left behind his reign of terror to be sympathetic, and within minutes he took them both away. Her plan had been thwarted.
Disgruntled, Veronica made her way over to Amanda's room and peered through the window. The girl had pulled the book back towards her, flicking through the pages with keen interest. Her enthusiasm would be short-lived, Veronica decided, shimmering her way out to recruit Jax and the rest of her men. The mutiny would begin now.
She returned quickly. Wyatt and Bianca were still missing in action. It gave her enough time to personally deal out punishments. Her first obstacle, and current threat, was Amanda. She ordered her men to seize the girl and string her up. It wasn't in the usual style, a combination of powers and abilities seeing the girl dragged into the hallway by her heels, then telekinetically lifted and flipped upside down. Amanda shook her shaggy dirty blonde locks as they fell over her face, blowing the pieces until she could see clearly.
"Where's Wyatt?" she asked.
Veronica placed her hands on her hips, pacing back and forth in front of the girl. Amanda followed her with her eyes.
"He left me in charge," Veronica answered.
"Doubt it," Amanda said.
Veronica lifted her hand from her hip and manifested a dagger, slicing it cleanly across the girl's arm. Instinctively Amanda tried to pull away, clutching at the wound.
"I'm not as compassionate as Wyatt. Our kind doesn't suffer from emotional flaws."
Amanda looked at her studiously. She didn't entirely know what she meant. What exactly was she? Veronica lifted her chin in a defiant notion and Amanda saw the edge of a mark on her neck, disguised by her long dark hair. She tried to swing herself towards her, hitting her with her free hand. It barely did anything to Veronica, but the knock was enough of a jolt for her hair to fall away and the birthmark on her neck to be fully revealed. Amanda immediately identified it as the same one that was on Bianca's wrist.
"You're a Phoenix!" Amanda exclaimed. "But I guess I should have worked that one out from the bad-ass weapon and the couldn't-give-a-stuff attitude."
"Smart girl," Veronica said. "But you aren't smart enough to learn to keep your mouth shut."
Tightening her grip around the dagger's handle, Veronica brought the squared off metal encased in her fist snapping back through the air until she made contact with Amanda's face, smashing it into her cheekbone. Amanda's teeth closed over the inside of her cheek, and she swallowed hard as she tried to rid the taste of blood from her mouth.
"What were you looking for in the book? Why is it so important?" Veronica questioned.
Amanda's arm grew tired as the weight of gravity made her entire being feel heavier. She let go, hanging there as she listened to the Phoenix earnestly question her.
"I was looking for my ticket out of this god-forsaken place," Amanda answered. "It's the only thing I can use to avoid dealing with everyone's power trips."
The blood rushing to her head made her feel groggy and her awareness of Veronica's actions became rather limited. She did not see her pass off the dagger to curl her hand, nor particularly the motion of that fist coming towards her. She did, however, feel the pain that burned her face when the fist made contact with her cornea. There was a white flash as Veronica pulled her hand back, Amanda seeing a dark alley, needles and bloody bodies littering the ground. She both felt and saw a hand caress Veronica's cheek, and then nothing. She emerged from the memories she had seen through the touch to a hazy looking hallway. She couldn't make out the figures anymore, they were all distorted shadows. Her heart beat a little faster as she started to panic. Her head hurt severely, and it hurt much more than it had at any time before. Between the dark figures she saw white lights blink. She hoped it was Wyatt, but nobody came to save her.
"Wrong answer," Veronica said. "Tell me what you know about the Eye of Acrilya."
"Do you trust me?" Wyatt asked.
"No," Bianca murmured. She dropped down onto the couch, unable to support herself anymore.
Wyatt placed his hands on his hips and looked out the window. "I guess that's fair enough."
The unusualness of the reply caught Bianca's attention. She lowered her hand and looked up to him. Her cheeks were streaked from her tears, but she was crying no longer. She saw he was worried, anxious even, but that anger he'd once held had dissipated quite rapidly.
"I don't tend to trust people easily, and I know you don't either. Despite that we both seem to have eagerly taken aboard knowledge that someone else has given us. It makes me wonder how much faith we put into each other in the first place."
"What?" Bianca asked quietly, unsure as to what he was getting at. He looked back to her, his eyes softening.
"I didn't mean to upset you. I didn't intend on prying into your past in the first place. Veronica recommended I do so."
"Would you call me a coward for hiding? I didn't watch him die," Bianca explained. "I didn't even know it was the Phoenix who killed him. Michael told me. My father wasn't a traitor. He was trying to protect me."
"So was I," Wyatt said sniffing and running a hand under his nose.
"I don't see how fucking someone else does that," Bianca said bluntly.
At first Wyatt looked surprised at the insinuation, the sudden change in topic catching him completely off guard. Narrowing his eyes he tilted his head and looked at her studiously. He saw she was serious; she wasn't trying to throw him off the conversation.
"Are you suggesting that… Veronica and I…" Wyatt began, fumbling for the right words. "Did she tell you this?"
"She didn't have to. I saw you," Bianca said.
"When?" Wyatt interrogated.
"In the bathroom," Bianca said. Wyatt shook his head, irritating Bianca with his denial. "She was half undressed, Wyatt! She had your belt and… you didn't even try to hide it."
"That's because nothing happened. I was fixing her arm. We were using the belt as a tourniquet."
"Your bracelet was at her apartment."
"She was cleaning it," Wyatt explained. Bianca glared at him, the excuses sounding all but flimsy. "I'm starting to think she set me up."
"Well now you know what it's like to be framed," Bianca retorted.
"Let me explain something to you. I might look at other women, I might be tempted by them, I might even be distracted enough to neglect you, but I'm never going to abandon you to endorse in a fling or anything else of that nature. I value you too much to endanger our relationship like that," Wyatt said. She watched as he moved to sit in front of her, glancing off to the side pensively. "I didn't expect much to begin with. When my mother died I took it pretty hard. I was depressed for a year. I spent another two years abusing whatever I could. It was during that time I decided to deflect the anger from myself and direct it elsewhere. The corporations seemed a likely target after running my mother out of business. I thought if I couldn't exact her death, at least I could get vengeance on those who caused her to suffer in life. I wasn't sure what I was doing. I was hurt, I was angry, I wanted someone to pay. And then I heard about you, and it occurred to me that there was someone else out there like me, someone else who had been wronged and was living on the edge because of it. As I said, I didn't expect anything, but working with you, having you support me, my ideas, it made me feel like I was doing something right. You gave me purpose. You made me see that it wasn't about revenge, but caring for and remembering those that I loved."
Bianca swallowed the lump in her throat, seeing the emotion on his face and hearing it in his voice. She had never grasped exactly how important she had been to him. His abrupt honesty convinced her that he was telling the truth. She had been deceived, had misread everything and allowed her insecurities to exacerbate the situation. And it seemed Wyatt had been duped also. He was processing more than what had just happened recently, he was analysing his whole life.
"You only just realised that now, didn't you?" Bianca asked. He nodded. She smiled a little. "It's funny, you've spent so long reminding me how important you are to me and how you offered me salvation when I needed it… it never occurred to me I had any kind of effect on you."
"That's the reality," he said. Reaching up, he rubbed the back of his neck. "But I've just made it worse. This world is going to hell because of me. What I meant to do, what this started as, it's just spiralled out of control. I hate what I've become."
"Then stop," Bianca pleaded.
"I can't," he returned sorrowfully. "I don't know how."
"I know you think it's hard, but you're not alone. We've always wanted to help you, Wyatt. I've always wanted to help you." She leant towards him, taking his hand and lacing her fingers through his. "If we get rid of this eye, maybe it will help. Maybe things will be how they should be. Maybe you can stop."
"That's a lot of maybes," he said.
"I don't care, I want to try. I want to keep something I care about for a change."
Wyatt moved forward, his lips gently pressing against hers. She didn't pull away. She kissed him back with the kind of zeal that showed all had been forgiven. The atmosphere of the room was no longer tense but relaxed as they took a moment to absorb each other's presence in the silence.
"Amanda said the key to defeating it is in the Book of Shadows," Bianca said quietly. "But I don't know how, or where. You interrupted us before I could get anything else out of her."
"I left her with the book," Wyatt said agitatedly, remembering what he had done moments before his confrontation with Bianca. "We have to go back to her before she does anything."
Bianca nodded. "Hopefully she can tell us something else in the meantime."
Orbing back to the hallway, Bianca turned to see a body lying outside Amanda's doorway. The door was open, and it wasn't until Bianca reached her that she realised exactly whose body it was. She knelt down and lifted the girl onto her side. Strolling down the corridor towards them, Wyatt noticed that every door was open.
"There's no-one here," he observed.
Bianca looked up and around, seeing exactly what he had. "Seems like there is a revolt after all, only I wasn't the one leading it."
"I'm sorry. I should have believed you."
"If we change it, it's not going to matter," Bianca said. She pressed her fingers to the side of Amanda's neck. "There's no pulse."
Wyatt looked down at the battered body covered in bruises of varying shapes and sizes, her eyes red from whatever had haemorrhaged inside her head. Above those vacant eyes that seemed to reflect the violent and bloody torture that had brought her to this condition, Wyatt saw her eyelids had been pierced by the points of small straight blades, and her fingertips also appeared to be severed as if they had tried to strip the girl of her identity. If Wyatt had not known her already, he was sure he would not have recognised her.
"I don't think anyone could have survived an attack of that brutality," he said. "It's beyond even my measures to heal."
Bianca lowered Amanda gently back onto the floor, looking at the body mournfully. A tear slipped from her eye and as she brushed it away she saw the letter v had been carved across the girl's back, the Phoenix insignia a bloodied mark in the centre.
"The cruelty of the Phoenix strikes again," she said solemnly. "I don't think they ever intended on allowing you to lead them."
"Perhaps they're not as receptive as you."
"Don't you mean desperate?" Bianca inquired, arching a brow.
"I didn't say that."
"You were thinking it though."
"That wasn't why I approached you. I wasn't thinking tactically at that point in time, I was thinking emotionally," Wyatt explained.
"The Phoenix will do whatever they can to survive," Bianca said, recalling her reasons for visiting him in the first place. "Including me."
"Only you have one thing they don't have – compassion."
Bianca looked into his eyes and saw the comment was genuine. He understood that she cared. He understood that she was not like the rest of them. She supposed he had already known that from the beginning, but it eased her mind a little to hear him say it. She sighed despondently, averting her eyes once more.
"I don't want them to destroy you because of me," she said with a foreboding sense of guilt.
"It won't be because of you. It will be because they feel inhibited, because I'll prevent them from doing what they want to," he said confidently.
"You can't stop all of them, Wyatt. No matter how strong your powers are, you won't be able to defeat the entire Phoenix coven plus however many demons, witches and banshees you kept down here."
"I won't stand by and let them destroy everything I set out to achieve," Wyatt disputed. "Their attack will vilify me and me only. I'm not going to back down because of one death, even if it does set me back in my objective."
"Amanda wasn't just another one of your captives, she was trying to help us," Bianca scolded. "Don't be so insensitive."
"I'm not. I'm being realistic."
"You're talking about her as if she had no relevance and was just another number you could add to your kill rates."
"She was bratty and stubborn. She didn't provide me with anything useful."
Bianca looked at him crossly. "And the fact she brought us together, made us realise… are you calling our relationship useless?"
"No, of course not," Wyatt argued. "Don't turn this back on me. We know who's at fault here. I'm quite certain you want to invoke justice just as much as I do. We should be attempting to implement it instead of bickering with one another."
"I don't want to attack you," Bianca said apologetically. "What can we do? We don't know where they are."
"I know where to go to find out."
Bianca pushed herself up from the floor. She knew Wyatt would take off but she wasn't about to let him go alone. As he began to orb out she grabbed hold of him, the magic engulfing them both and transporting them to the edge of the city.