Aiken stepped outside and found the witch seated on the narrow stone stair at the entrance, a lone figure in the dim glow of the streetlamp. She was staring at nothing, her beer untouched in the glass between her fingers.
"Can I join you?" Aiken's voice came without warning, and she flinched.
Her eyes slid toward him, cool and wary. "What do you want?"
"Nothing." He lifted a hand slightly, a glass of water floating into it from somewhere behind him. He caught it with casual ease and took a sip. "Just thought we could talk."
She rose instantly, as if the air had become heavy. "I don't want to talk to you," she said — not sharp, but with the steady weight of someone used to keeping people at arm's length.
"I know how it feels," Aiken replied. "To be feared. To be alone."
She froze mid-step. "How did you—"
"Your eyes," Aiken cut in. "I used to have the same look. When I was a kid." His tone didn't shift; it was as if he were telling what he had done this morning after waking up.
Something in her gaze softened, and she lowered herself back onto the stair. Slowly, she brought the beer to her lips. "You're from the Gemini Coven?"
"Yes." His answer came as naturally as breathing. "Since the day I was born, I was an outsider. The other children wouldn't come near me. The adults looked at me as if I were an abomination. And they weren't wrong."
He glanced at the water in his hand before continuing. "I was born without magic. But I could take it — pull it straight out of anyone around me. My parents, my older sister… it didn't matter. If I touched them, I could drain them dry."
Her brow knit slightly, but she said nothing.
"One time," he went on, "I nearly killed my mother. Not because I wanted to. I just… couldn't control it. Once the siphoning started, it was like breathing underwater — you fight to keep going until your body gives out."
He took another drink, eyes calm, almost detached. "After that, they didn't waste time. They threw me out."
He looked at her now, studying her expression in the low light. "What about you?"
"I..." She began.
...
A little girl — no older than seven — ran barefoot across the sprawling courtyard, laughter trailing behind her like sunlight.
"You can't catch me!" she cried, darting into the flower garden.
"Get her!" one of the boys shouted with a grin, his friends charging after her.
But then — it hit.
Her smile vanished. Her breath caught. A violent, crushing pain tore through her tiny body, every nerve screaming. A red hue bled into the air around her, curling like smoke, wrapping her in a suffocating shroud.
"Aahhhhhh!"
She dropped to her knees in the middle of the roses, clutching her head as if trying to hold her skull together. Petals browned and fell in an instant. Stems shriveled. Life itself drained from the flowers, withering to dust.
"W-what's that?" one of the children stammered, their play abruptly halted.
The adults were on them in moments, snatching their own children back, their eyes wide not with concern — but fear.
They felt it. The sheer pressure of the magic bleeding from the little girl was astronomical… wild… wrong. Even their own magic faltered, bending under the weight of hers.
"Aahhhhhh!"
The scream became a blast. A red explosion tore outward, tearing through the courtyard.
Adults, children — gone in an instant.
When the haze finally cleared, the little girl was trembling, eyes darting over the lifeless bodies. Her breathing was ragged, shallow.
"Did I… do this?" she whispered. Her voice cracked under the weight of horror.
...
The heavy click of a key turning echoed in the dim, stone-walled room.
"Stay there… you monster!" the voice spat.
The door slammed shut.
The little girl didn't move. She sat on the cold floor, her knees pulled to her chest. Her eyes were raw — not red from magic, but from tears that had long since stopped falling. She had cried so hard, so long, that her body could no longer produce a single drop. Her cheeks were pale, cracked, stained with dried salt.
The world beyond the door might as well have been another universe.
...
She was seventeen now. The innocence was gone, replaced by a beauty shadowed with weariness.
Her screams tore through the candlelit chamber.
Dozens of witches surrounded her, their faces stone, their hands outstretched. Her wrists and ankles were strapped to a table, her back arching in agony as the incantation rose in unison.
"Per sanguinem et animam, per vinculum aeternum, ligamus chaos in aeternum! Claudatur anima! Claudatur anima!"
Her body convulsed. The magic didn't just burn — it clawed into her soul, ripping, tearing. A piece of her was being wrenched away, sealed in a place where she could never reach it again.
Her scream cracked, broke, became something beyond human. The sound didn't just fill the room — it carved into the bones of those present, making even the stone beneath the table tremble.
And then, as abruptly as it began… silence.
The bindings remained. But the girl on the table lay still, eyes glazed, chest rising and falling in shallow, trembling breaths.
...
The silence between Aiken and the witch was thick, oppressive.
He hadn't expected this.
What he'd gone through… it was nothing in comparison. He had been found. Loved. Raised by Alan.
But her… she had been alone. Completely.
And now, sitting here beside her, he realized — her hostility wasn't just a shield. It was all she had left.
To be continued...
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How was this chapter? Liked it?
Enjoyed the witch's backstory (I am kinda tired of calling her the witch, I should make her introduce herself)?