THE COMBINED POUNDING OF THEIR HEARTS was the only sound that filled the room as they laid together, tangled in the sheets. Madison hummed in content as the pads of their fingers pressed against one another. Light giggles erupted from deep within them, both girls struggling to swallow them down. Ophelia rested between their masses, curled up into a sleepy purring ball.
Corey slowly returned her hand to her side, rolling over until her bare chest pressed against the sheets beneath her. The cat stirred silently, a light coo the only protest to the sudden movement underneath her sleeping form. The redhead placed a hand on Madison's shoulder, her thumb smoothing circles into the blonde's cool skin as she let her cheek rest against her pillow.
The light from the window that reflected against Madison's eyes let out a faint gold glow as she pulled the corner of her lips up into a smirk. Her eyelids were heavy, fighting the exhaustion that followed the sheer overexertion that her body had not entirely been prepared for. Her tired eyes locked on the deep red scratches that scattered across Corey's back, each varying in length and color.
"Shit," she gasped, her face falling for a moment. She sat up in a hurry. The thin sheet that once modestly covered her sat crumpled against her hips as she leaned forward. "Oh, baby, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to." Her voice was soft, a tone and pitch the blonde reserved solely for her counterpart. Her lithe hands immediately feathered the freckled, scratched skin. Corey let out a chuckle at the blonde's sudden concern.
"Maddie, it's fine," she let her arm wrap around the blonde's waist and tugged her back down against her side. She nuzzled against Madison, her voice no more than a low grumble. "I can't even feel it." She had, in fact, felt the sharp pain across her shoulders the moment that Madison had dragged her nails across skin, but everything after that had remained numb. It wasn't until the blonde began fanning her hands around the scratches across her back that she had noticed the stinging sensation in any capacity.
The mattress shifted as the blonde plopped back down against her pillow with a pout. She was frustrated, her nose twitching as she swallowed back her protests. Goosebumps prickled across her skin at the warmth of Corey's touch. It sent a slight shutter down her spine as a dull rosy blush crept across her otherwise desaturated cheeks. She let her eyes begin to flutter closed, finally allowing sleep to take over in the calm comforting pause.
Corey fought with herself, her inner monologue pushing between letting Madison rest and warning her about what information Felix had brought with him. The nagging voice in her had finally won. She needed to tell the truth before the blonde fell asleep; before she figured out about the 'trusted source' on her own.
"I fired Felix," she was blunt about it, though it wasn't intentional. Madison's eyes flickered open, a furrowed brow accompanying her confusion. "I couldn't take it anymore. Between the things he called you and what he allowed to happen," her hand trailed upwards to loosely grab a lock of Madison's hair. She twirled it between her fingers as her tongue darted out to wet her bottom lip.
"What do you mean?" Madison rested her cold hand against Corey's face, her thumb nesting in the dip of the other girl's chin. The redhead closed her eyes, taking in a sharp, shaky breath. She swallowed hard as she looked at the blonde once more, her green eyes locking with the gold halos directly in front of her.
"You should know, before you turn your phone on," her shoulders shook as she inhaled deeply. It was an attempt to calm herself, though she was still more nervous than she could ever imagine. Even on stage, or cycling through tedious auditions, she was never as nervous as she was in this moment. Her heart raced, though Madison remained calm.
"Sam had far more evidence than he had originally let on…" her eyes scanned the blonde's face frantically as she spoke. She couldn't keep herself calm, and the way that Madison maintained her composure chilled her at her core. "He sold us out. Everyone knows."
Madison's eyes slowly scanned Corey's face, the confusion falling from her features. She should have been angry, or frantic. She should have shot up from her spot on the bed, collected her things, and left. Corey had played the situation out in her head again and again. Each scenario ended in Madison leaving, or emotionally crumbling, or telling her off and immediately finding her way back to Los Angeles without her. Yet now, having her worst fear become reality, she was eerily calm.
"Corinna, I don't care." She spoke simply, her tone unwavering. "I've had the time to mull it over, and I've realized that nothing is more important to me than you are." Madison's hand moved up to cup the redhead's cheek, her thumb rubbing small, reassuring circles into the girl's peachy skin.
"I don't care what anyone else thinks about me, or you, or us." Again, she spoke in the soft pitch and tone she reserved for Corey. It was her own way of proving to the redhead that she was telling the complete truth. "You have my whole heart. I don't think I could ever get it back, even if I wanted to."
The redhead furrowed her brow, blatantly wearing her confusion across her face. It wasn't the reaction that she had expected from the actress. Madison had been so adamant about her fears of other's opinions for so long that Corey couldn't bring herself to trust the blonde on these matters right away. She wondered, silently, if the other girl was holding the truth deep within. If she had been putting on a façade with the sole intention of not alarming the other girl. If she had only been saying what she knew Corey wanted to hear so that she could confide in herself or others about the situation and how it tolled on her at a later date.
Madison could feel that the other girl hadn't truly believed her words. She swallowed hard as she propped herself up with her elbow, careful not to injure herself as her scarred arm supported her weight. She let her tongue dart out as she thought hard for a moment. She wanted something more than her own words to enforce what she had already said.
Quickly, she flipped over and removed her cellphone from its charger before turning it back on. She watched the notifications flood her screen; a collection of missed calls, social media mentions, private message requests, text messages, and emails piled on top of one another. She ignored them as she rolled back towards Corey, choosing instead to select notepad and begin typing away.
"Maddie, what are you—" her voice was cut off by a single finger briefly pressed against her lips as Madison continued typing with one hand. Nails touching glass let out a frantic clack-clack-clack. Madison returned her freehand to her phone and Corey let her arm drape across the blonde's waist, loosely holding her in place as if she could fly away from her at any moment. She unintentionally held her breath as she watched the blonde produce a lengthy confession on the virtual yellow paper.
After a while, she deleted the note completely and instead selected the vintage camera icon of her Instagram application. She scrolled through her images and selected one of herself with her arms wrapped around Corey's waist— their adoring gazes mirrored one another as they seemed to ignore the existence of the rest of the world around them. Instead of her original intention, a heartfelt extensive confession of her relationship with the musician, she added a simple caption to the photo; Corey's own unreleased lyrics, now obvious to the world as being about Madison.
Maybe you ran with the wolves and refused to settle down.
Maybe I've stormed out of every single room in this town.
Threw out our cloaks and our daggers because it's morning now; it's brighter now.
Before Corey could protest, Madison selected the small blue 'post' text in the upper right hand corner. She put her phone away, the flooding of notifications once again immediate as she finally broke the unintentional silence on the situation at hand. She looked back at the redhead, a cocky grin on her lips as she settled back down against her pillow. Corey narrowed her eyes at the blonde for a moment, contemplating what words she would let fall from her lips.
"What?" Madison scoffed, almost defensive as an innocent shrug graced her shoulders. "It's not like it wasn't already public knowledge." She reached out and tucked a stray copper curl behind the other girl's ear. "Besides, I didn't technically confirm or deny anything." Corey let out a soft laugh, her head shaking as she let her hand trail up Madison's side.
"You are a work of art," she giggled. Corey's tongue darted out to wet her lips as she felt the ripple of the blonde's skin under her fingertips. "Should I use your old poetry in mine since you've decided on lyrics for an album that does not yet exist, per se?" She watched Madison's eyes become wide as they scanned her face, trying to decipher any crumb of sarcasm that could be clinging to her lips.
"Corey's eyes are like a jungle; she smiles, it's like the radio. She whispers songs into my window in words that nobody knows." Corey whispered the words, somehow memorized from only a small glance at a poem written three years prior.
"Oh, please, no," Madison gasped. Her heart began to beat faster as she panicked. She truly couldn't tell if the redhead was being serious or if she was playing around.
"Corey finds another way to be the highlight of my day. I'm taking pictures in my mind so I can save them for a rainy day. It's hard to make a conversation when she's taking my breath away." The laughter bubbled up through the whisper, Corey no longer able to hold her serious tone.
"You wouldn't dare!" Madison's hand playfully slapped against the other girl's shoulder, a squeal emitting from her own lips as she nudged the redhead. Corey threw her head back in a laugh, though her joyous outburst was interrupted by the rapping of knuckles against her wooden bedroom door. She furrowed her brow, her attention turning to the bedroom door as the knocking continued.
"Hey, Corey?" The familiar voice chirped from the opposite side of the door as it squealed open. "Delia would like to—" Zoe froze, gasping as her eyes landed on the two girls tangled around each other in the large bed in the center of the room. Madison rolled her eyes, dropping her head back with a groan to look up at the ceiling above her.
"Shit, sorry," immediately, the brunette's gaze locked on the floor under her feet. A light pink heat of embarrassment crept up her neck and across her cheeks. It left her standing in the doorway, red, with her hands shielding her face.
Madison rolled her eyes. She tossed the covers away from herself, covering Ophelia in them with a soft thud. Again, the cat cooed. She jumped down from the bed, sauntering into the bathroom without any intention to cover herself.
"I shouldn't have come in, that's my fault," Zoe continued. Corey sat up, holding the thin white bedsheet over her chest with one hand as she moved. She raised a single brow at the other girl, using her freehand to pull her hair out of her face. She tried her best to hold in her sigh as her shoulders slumped slightly.
"You were saying?" Corey asked, her head tilted to the side. She should have known that her afternoon would be interrupted, but part of her hoped that Cordelia was still too busy with Hank's infidelity to drag her back into the everyday work of the coven.
"Cordelia wants to talk to you." Zoe shuffled uncomfortably, shifting her weight as she continued to hide herself from the unintentional indecent exposure before her. Corey turned her head as she heard the shuffle of Madison's feet pattering against the wood floor. The blonde side-eyed Zoe, her head held high as she re-entered the tension filled bedroom.
"Jesus, you'd think she's a virgin with how uncomfortable she is around someone in the nude." Madison plopped back down on the bed, a huff leaving her lips as she reached for her pack of cigarettes. "Oh, wait," She pulled a single white stick to her lips, lighting it mentally in the process. "I forgot, someone has a killer vag." She made sure to not allow any embers to drift to her bare skin, adding burned flesh to her list of less desirable things that could happen.
"Madison!" Zoe scoffed, her foot stomping downward once in protest. Corey rolled her eyes as the blonde who snickered to herself.
"Lay off, Maddie. She didn't do anything other than enter the room." The redhead groaned, her attention returning to the brunette in front of her. "Tell Dee that I'll be down with her in a moment."
"Right," Zoe spoke with a nod, quickly exiting the bedroom and closing the door behind her. At the same time, the blonde protested.
"What?" Madison squeaked. She feigned hurt, one hand resting against her bare chest as the other brought her cigarette to her lips once more. "It's not like it's a lie." She shrugged, a playful smirk on her lips.
Cordelia stood with poise and purpose, her back turned to the musician. The headmistress poured herself a cup of tea. Corey sat down at the blonde's desk, her lips pursed as she looked around the room with wide eyes. The redhead watched Cordelia from her seat, her knee threatening to bob up and down with every second that the older woman kept her waiting.
"Don't think I haven't taken notice to the changes around here." She pulled the mug of tea towards her face, taking a seat behind her desk. "There is a power that radiates from you, Corinna." Cordelia took a single sip from her mug before placing it down and sitting up straight. Her back pressed firmly against her chair as she folded her hands in front of her. Corey watched cautiously as the woman continued to speak.
"You came here with two powers, Siren's Song and Pyrokinesis." Cordelia talked with one hand, waving it slightly as the words left her lips. "Since you have arrived here, you have accumulated a number of powers, each more rare than the last. Potioncraft, Spellcraft, Life-Force Detection, The Sight."
"What's the point of this conversation, Delia?" Corey asked, her brows turning downward as her eyes scanned the woman's face. She searched for any sign of the Headmistress breaking but she couldn't find a crack in the façade.
"There have been whispers among the academy walls that you had a group assist you in bringing Madison back from the dead." Cordelia deadpanned. Her head tilted slightly as she watched the panic fully set in. Of course the girls, particularly Nan, couldn't keep quiet about the redhead's work with Misty and Zoe. Corey's eyes widened, her jaw dropping open as she stammered, trying to find the words to say.
"That tells me all that I need to know." The blonde let her tongue run across her bottom lip, a sarcastic chuckle leaving her lips as she shook her head. "You are one hot-shit-witch." She allowed herself a moment of composure, taking her mug of tea in her hands once more.
After a silent pause, her eyes not leaving the redhead who watched her like a deer caught in a set of headlights, she continued once again. "Which means you've got a bull's-eye on your back, kiddo, and our biggest enemy is locked, loaded, and looking at you."
"Fiona," it was the only word that Corey managed to form fully, still trying to regain any sense of composure. She hadn't realized she had been so careless with her identity and growing powers, though she should have known that she would be found out sooner than she had hoped.
"My mother," Cordelia nodded, slouching in her chair slightly as she took another sip from the mug in her hands. "Fiona is fading, growing weaker, and that only makes her more dangerous. A wounded animal will rip you apart if it's cornered." Again, she took a calm sip from her mug, studying the witch that sat before her.
"If she comes to the conclusion that you are— in fact— her successor, she will slit your throat just like she did to Madison." Corey wanted to comment on Cordelia's sudden realization that she was telling the truth. She wanted to question why the Headmistress hadn't believed her initially. Instead, she swallowed her pride and nudged the conversation further.
"So what do we do?" She asked.
"It's simple," Cordelia shrugged. She leaned forward, her elbows resting against her desk once again. "We're going to kill my mother. Kill her once, kill her good, kill her dead."