"How are you able to do that?" Someone snarled from behind her.
"Shit." She scrambled to throw her tarot deck into her bag and run, but a hand grabbed her roughly and pulled her back into a hard chest. She turned partially, just enough to see the silver glint of a knife before she felt it against her cheek. Her shoulder pressed into her assailant's throat. She could feel their Adam's apple bob against her as they swallowed. Dread as cold as ice trickled down her back when he spoke again. It had been two years since she heard that voice, but it haunted enough of her nightmares to remember it clearly.
"No, no running." He breathed harshly in her ear. "How the hell did you make those cards float?"
The truth was, she did not know. It had started about six months ago, when she had sighed longingly at her backpack where her tarot cards had been, wishing harder than she knew, that they would fly to her so she did not have to get up off her bed. She had been inconsolable when they had, indeed, lifted up out of her book bag as if on the end of a fishing pole, and shot violently across the room towards her face and smacked the wall, narrowly missing her cheek.
She was only now coming to accept that she was a witch, or so she secretly claimed, and had kept it hidden from the world since, taking to practicing in the middle of the woods on the outside of town, in a small clearing protected by rocks and fallen trees.
"How did you find me?" She sobbed as she struggled, the pricking of the knife stilling her fight. Tears streamed off her cheeks onto her chest, falling harder when he scraped the knife down her neck and over the exposed skin of the top of her breast.
She had worn a loose, off shoulder peasant top under her hoodie, and with henna (originally she had used body paint but the henna, therefore the spell, lasted longer) had been painting herself with runes she had researched last year for one of her classes. He traced them with his sharp blade, chuckling wickedly as he drew blood across her heart, where she had ironically just finished a combination of runes meant for protection and survival. She had combined them into one in the beginning of her magical journey, and now were a standard in all her spell work.
Surely, he was going to kill her. Surely, there was nothing she could do. A wild thought raced through her mind, and she fought the hysterical giggle that bubbled at her lips.
What would Bonnie Bennett do?
She closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing, and gave it her best shot.
She imagined a tight rubber band around his head growing smaller and smaller, and concentrated as hard as she could.
"Nothing to say? How out of character, sweet No-what the fuck? Ah!"
To her utter surprise, it was working! He released her and she fell to her hands and knees. Not even wasting a glance back, she scrambled up from the forest floor and made a run through the small gap in the trees at the back of the clearing that would lead her back to her Jeep. It was a good distance, but she hoped she had given herself enough time. She hoped that she knew this terrain better than he did, but she did not know how long he had been following her before he made himself known.
He'd been loose for months.
Into the night she fled, dodging low branches and barely noticing as she ran through thistle bushes. Twigs and rocks tore at her bare feet. She would nurse her wounds later, if she made it out of this alive.
Her heart pounded so hard and loud it seemed to echo around her, thundering in time with her foot falls. The moon started to light her path better as the trees thinned, and she knew she was getting close. She could almost imagine the path coming up in front of her.
It wasn't until a hand tangled in her hair, hauling her to the ground, that she realized she hadn't been hearing her heartbeat, she had been hearing him catch up to her.
No, no, she was too close.
"Get off me!" She screamed, praying to all the gods and goddesses that cared to listen for help. The force of her voice as she shrieked sent fire down her throat. They wrestled. He tried to pin her arms down but she bucked and kicked, sure as shit that she was going to break something, but she would not go down without a fight. "Help!"
"Shut up! No one's coming this time, bitch." He reared back and socked her across her cheek, her head knocking painfully sideways into the hard ground. The impact was enough to stall her fighting for just a second, but that was all he needed. He grabbed both her hands and pinned them under his knees. She cried out.
"Fuck you, you psychopath!" She spit at him, her face aching. That son of a bitch.
"Tsk, tsk, might have to punish you for that dirty language." In the bright moonlight, she could see his face clearly. She shuddered, and whatever knowledge she might have on magic escaped her as she very clearly faced her death. "Unfortunately, I don't have any soap to rinse your mouth out. Just this." From behind him, he pulled out that wicked blade, and panic and realization set in.
He was actually going to kill her.
She thought of her sister, of her friends, and her parents. They would know what happened to her, but he would be long gone by then.
He sat back and laughed maliciously, before bringing the knife up high with both hands.
"I'm going to plunge this dagger into your heart. Seems kinda ceremonious. I'm doing that for you, by the way, with your little witch obsession."
Gods, she hated the sound of his voice.
"Just kill me already." She hissed, before finding a spot in the canopy above where she could see the sky. The ink stained sky was embedded with millions of stars, and they twinkled down at her, as if to say 'we'll see you soon', as she took her final breath. She would not die with fear in her heart. She would not give him that. He smirked.
"Gladly." And the blade came down.
She shot up in bed, heart racing and slick with sweat. She was in her room, an oscillating fan humming in the corner. She fumbled for her phone to check the time, and sighed. It was four in the morning, she might as well get up, it's what she usually did when she woke from a nightmare.
How weird. How very fucking weird.