TRIGGERS ❦ Cutting, blood, torture
WORDCOUNT ❦ 1,846
SUMMARY ❦ Desmond’s memories. (This song is responsible for inspiring this and I recommend to listen to it while reading.)
The room was filled with applause at the end of his speech and when people came up to him, they would smile and offer their hands, proud to shake his. It made him feel like a farce to stand there.
“I’m so proud of you, son,” his father said, planting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing. His eyes were full of emotion, as if he couldn’t believe he’d raised him. “You are a man now, a good one.”
His mother pulled him into her tight embrace. “That’s my beautiful boy,” she said with the widest smile he’d ever seen on her face. “Always taking care of everyone… We are very proud of you, Desmond.”
His heart was so full, Desmond half expected it to burst. “Thank you.”
All eyes were on him, but he still found her across the room, leaning back into the wall and looking at him too. There was no smile on the girl’s face. Her eyes were accusing, arms crossed over her chest.
Gemma knew him better than anyone else, and she looked disappointed.
“You can’t be here.” The boy stood tall in front of him, blocking his way into the playground.
A six year old Desmond looked confused. “Why not?”
“I’m not cursed!” He balled up his small fists, but he knew he was too weak to fight them.
“Mom says all witches in your family are.”
“Yeah, you should go before we get cursed too,” a second boy jumped off the swing set to approach them.
His face was burning, red hot with anger. “I can be here as much as anyone else!”
“I said go!” He said and shoved Desmond, sending him stumbling and falling on his ass.
Gemma showed up from behind him and pulled out a knife on them. “Touch him again and I’ll hurt you.”
Desmond broke the lock with a spell, pulling the dusted old trunk open and looking through its contents. Hidden away in the attic, he found himself in the possession of a never seen before Grimoire.
Aidrian Browne. The name was familiar, one of his disgraced ancestors. His heart started racing.
He never knew his father had kept their old books, in his mind they’d been long lost to some type of cleansing fire ritual. He tightened his grip on the grimoire, protective of their history in that moment more than he’d been his entire life.
Those spells, potions and rituals were the reason his life has been tormented, stained by the ghosts of his ancestors. He needed to know what earned him such a haunting, what could’ve caused so much harm and heartache that they’d blame his family for something that was done long before any of them were alive.
“But everyone will be there, Des!”
“I have to study, Gemma,” he insisted, flipping through the pages of a spellbook and frowning in confusion.
She took a seat at the edge of the desk and let out a heavy, defeated sigh.“When did you become such a stick in the mud?”
Desmond snapped up his head to glare at her. “Why are you trying to keep me from getting better at this?” It was so easy for her, she barely had to try. It wasn’t his case, he tried really, really hard. “Are you worried I might steal your thunder?”
Her shock was followed by hurt. “Fuck you, Desmond.”
He immediately regretted it every time they fought and when she left out the door, he kicked at the desk. He loved her, but he was envious and it was a sickening feeling to be left behind by his other half.
Desmond managed to shove the grimoire under the desk and pull up his sleeves to cover the scars just in time to greet her with a flat look on his face. “Des, why aren’t you at the party?”
Gemma put on a warm smile, she always had some of those to spare where he was concerned. “There’s no one here, Des. Who are you going to teach?”
He knew she meant well, but her insistence was annoying and particularly inconvenient at the moment. “I’m preparing a class, Gemma. Some people don’t just wing their lives.” His retort was delivered with a bored, flat tone despite his irritation.
“Maeve is looking for you.”
The mention of his little sister made Desmond pause. “I’ll see her later,” he decided.
Gemma fell into silence and he expected her to leave, but she approached him instead. Hands on the table, she leaned in to catch his gaze and keep it. “Des, I miss you.” Her voice was soft, warm and pleading.
He had never seen her sound lonelier, begging for his company. Scraps of his affection. They had grown apart and he was to blame for that. Desmond was profoundly sorry for the first time in a long while, but he could feel the blood seeping through the fabric of his shirt and he had to send her away before she caught him. “My life doesn’t revolve around pleasing you anymore, Gemma.”
Gemma pulled away. He would never forget the hurt look on her face. “I can barely recognize you anymore.” Desmond lowered his sight to the book open in front of his eyes. He didn’t need to look at her to know her eyes were welled-up, he could hear it in her voice. “You’re just… some asshole with a superiority complex now.”
“You are behind again, Desmond,” his mentor pointed out. “This is last week’s assignment, you missed the deadline. I can’t keep making an exception for you.”
“If you need help with the work, ask your sister. She is always the first to hand hers,” the witch reminded him. It was unnecessary. “Do what you’re told or you’re always going to be behind everyone in class.”
“Yes, sir,” Desmond agreed, though he knitted his brows in protest.
“You need to keep up, Desmond. For your own good.”
He simply said what the man wanted to hear then,“Yes, sir.” And that made his life so much easier. To pretend.
“Please.” Desmond pulled at the cuffs around his wrists, but they were made of iron and imbibed in sage. The chains pulled him down to his knees in the cold, dark room of Ceremonies. “Please, don’t do this.”
The witches took their places to form a circle around him. Their eyes were full of disdain and betrayal, both cold and aggressive. They wanted to hurt him. He knew they wanted to hurt him. “You don’t have to do this!”
“I’m sorry, Desmond,” the leader of the Ceremonialists said and reached for the blade. His voice was flat. “It’s the rules.”
“Please!” He begged with tears in his eyes. He begged with his whole heart, but it didn’t stop the blade from cutting him off.
It felt like bleeding, but this time the power didn’t come in, it spilled out. Leaving him an empty husk to dry.
“We’ll make a new home, beautiful boy,” his mother offered him an understanding smile and brushed the curls off his eyes. He was seven years old. “A better one.”
He looked at her and she seemed so sure, but he was still scared of the world. “People won’t hate us anymore?”
Gemma’s small hand found his and she held it tight. “I won’t let anybody hate you.” He believed her.
His father stepped in front of Desmond to keep him from walking any farther into the house. “Get out, Desmond.”
“I’m talking to my sister!” He could see her standing by the kitchen table. “Gemma!”
His father grabbed him by the shoulders. “I said get out, Desmond,” he said and shoved him towards the door and out. “I can’t even look at you right now. You are not welcome here anymore!”
The door was shut with a loud bang.
“Gemma!” He tried again, bringing his hands to his hair and tugging. What did he do? What did he do? “Mother! Please!”
“Do we have to be witches?” His question stunned his mother at the breakfast table. “Can we be something else?”
“You don’t like being a witch?” He shook his head softly. His mother turned off the stove and took a seat next to him, touching his hand. “Desmond, you can’t change who you are.”
“I can change.” He insisted. “I just turned six and I’m two inches taller. I can change, mommy. I can be good.”
She got down on her knees and cradled his face between her gentle palms. “You are, baby,” she said and kissed his forehead, “You are so good.”
“No, I’m not.” There was a sadness in his voice that did not belong in a six year old’s mouth. “Everyone says that.”
“You are good.” She pulled him into a hug and held him there, where he was safe from harm. “You are my good boy.”
The screams that echoed through that building’s basement were haunting. Sometimes they were his, sometimes they weren’t.
Desmond was vaguely aware there were others trapped in there. Dying. Like him. It was dark and cold in there, darker than usual, then it was quiet. Silence. Maybe death was coming, and he recognized it when it stood in front of his cell.
An angel covered in blood and looking at him with cold eyes.
“Please…” His voice was hoarse, and his throat dry. It hurt to speak, to breathe, to live. “Just… kill me.”
His mouth felt like sandpaper. They came in to ask him questions about his kind. Tortured him when he wouldn’t talk. He was so hungry and the stink of that filthy basement burned his nose. Something was dead in there, or maybe that was just him. He felt so weak, and he could see his bones sticking out under his skin.
And maybe that was what he deserved, to die alone a long way from home.
He stepped out of the shower to catch her fidgeting with pendant again. “Is that a dark object?” Ashley threw him a wide-eyed look, like she’d forgotten he was in there and it shocked her to hear his voice. “I can feel there’s something alive in there,” he explained himself on his way to the closet to gather what little belonged to him.
“I know.” The vampiress fell in silence for a moment, though it didn’t surprise him. It seemed she was prone to long moments of silence. “Do you want to help me with it?” Her offer was tentative, but the look in her eyes when he met them was determined.
“We help people, that’s what we are meant to do as witches. We help people who are sick, and haunted, and hopeless. That’s what this healing clinic will do for the people of Johannesburg. We’ll help everyone who needs us because we have been given this power for a reason and it should be used for good.”
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