Page 5 of Livewire Witch

I’ve been doing the same thing over the past few days, ever since we first arrived down here. And I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t have survived without it.

The demon lady cocks her head to the side, wrapping the meat in paper and then tapping the top with one clawed fingertip.

A couple of long moments later and then the rainwater starts to trickle down the walls, dripping into the containers.

Fresh-ish water.

I’ll keep on pulling on my magic for a few minutes, just until the containers fill up, since we’re also at a risk of flooding down here.

We don’t need to make this place any more dangerous than it already is.

The demon lady lets out an excited little squeak and jumps into action, laying out more containers as the trickle becomes stronger and her containers fill with water. Ten minutes later,I pull back my magic to stop the rain and help the demon lady to collect up her containers again. She hands a full one over to me, along with a newspaper-wrapped package of food that’s still steaming. She also passes on an unlabelled tin, which she presses into my hand with another toothy smile. I nod my thanks, which earns me a brief, sharp-toothed grin.

I then turn on my heel and begin the entire rigamarole of finding my way back to Seb and Fabian.

I FIND THE TWO OF THEMslumped against the wall where I left them. Fabian’s the first to notice me and his whole body goes on the alert as he springs up and gets between me and his little brother.

My heart sinks, even though it’s not the first time this has happened. Nowhere close.

“What do you want?” he rasps.

“Stand down, big guy,” I tell him as he towers over me, all broad-shouldered and stupidly tall.

I don’t touch him, even though my fingers itch with the need to.

“Fabian, it’s fine,” Seb says softly, shooting me a guilty half-smile. “This is Silver. She’s a friend.”

It’s like talking down a bristling dog that’s about to attach itself to your leg. You stay calm and show you’re no threat. Too bad the food is currently burning a hole in the skin on my arms, so I don’t really have time for patience right now.

I thrust one parcel at Seb and his smile widens into something that’s far too cheerful for the setting.

“And she’s brought us food.”

Fabian eyes the parcel and his brother before his eyes rest on me for a long moment. I smile and try to look harmlessas I gather some of the collection of flammable stuff I’ve been gathering in my wandering so that I can make us a fire.

I’m bone tired. But it gets damn cold down here and while the two of them can huddle together for warmth, it’ll only be another ten minutes before Fabian forgets who I am once again, and we have to go through the whole thing again.

The two of them fall on the parcel of food like they’re starving, cramming it into their mouths until their lips are greasy. I take a long sip of water and hand over the tin to Seb, which he opens with far more excitement than an unlabelled tin should ever garner.

“Holy shit, it’s peaches.” He scoops one up and sucks it down with a little, mumbled groan of pleasure. Seb then passes them over to me and I take a couple of pieces, slipping them into my mouth greedily and swallowing down the sweet fruit. I ignore how this little kindness almost brings tears to my eyes and hand the tin back to Seb to pass to his brother.

Once I’ve made us a little fire pit, I plop down onto the damp ground, pulling my jacket closer around me. I won’t risk starting the fire just yet. Seeing flames shoot out from my hands always causes Fabian to freak out and I can’t handle that right now.

If I’m honest, I’m not sure how much longer I can cope with this. It’s not the cold, or the damp, or even the bone whispers.

We can’t stay here forever.

We need to find the city boundaries down here. Although who knows how long that will take? Or we need to find a way back up to the city and hope for the best. But without hearing any news from Roscoe or Zeph, I just don’t know where is left that’s safe for us to go.

One way or another, we’re going to need to resurface at some point soon.

And who knows what reaction I’ll face once we do?

2

Roscoe

It’s been about a week since the world tipped on its head. I hit my head pretty hard, got concussed, and when I came to, it was like everything was messed up and nothing made sense anymore.

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