My demons: Healing (book 3)

Free will

Aisha was drowning. She knew she was on dry land, in the infirmary with her chosen family, but she was also drowning. The noises of the instruments Claire was using to tend to her, the voices making idle conversation, it all floated around her, muffled and distorted. She could see Claire and Nathan, but it wasn't real. Their faces wavered and warped until she felt like she couldn't breathe. After what felt like a century of holding her breath in, her body finally allowed her to breathe out and then in once again, filling her brain with much needed oxygen. 

"There she is," she heard a feminine voice, soft and velvety. "You are okay, Aisha, it's okay. Can you squeeze my hand?"

It took far more effort than it should have, but she eventually managed to move her fingers and offer the faintest of squeezes. But Claire seemed pleased. 

"Good," she praised, squeezing back gently. "I'll leave you with Nate for a bit, is that okay?"

Another squeeze.

"Okay," Claire murmured, letting go of her hand. "Call me if you need anything," she turned towards Nathan, who approached the bed cautiously. After he nodded, she left the room to join her family upstairs.

All eyes snapped to her as she entered and she smiled softly before placing herself next to her wife and son. She greeted them each with a kiss on the cheek, before paying any mind to the rest of the occupants of the room. 

"How is Aisha?" Rose asked.

"She'll be fine," Claire smiled reassuringly. "She just woke up, I left Nate to fuss over her for now."

"She is like a koala," Alex mumbled groggily from her position in Rose's arms, making all eyes snap to her. 

"What, cute and likes to sleep?" Rose lifted a brow at her lover. 

"Stupidly obsessed with eating toxic leaves and vulnerable to extinction," Alex replied. 

"Alex!" Rose feigned shock, while the rest laughed. "You are incorrigible."

"Speaking of," Manuel jumped in. "I still want to know about the time you took away Jade's and Benjamin's free will," he demanded, looking at Alex expectantly. 

"Why, I would never do such a thing," she gasped, clutching her heart dramatically. "Not to Benjamin anyway," she added, winking at the boy in question who grinned back at her. "Jade, however..."

"I started it," the black haired demon-wielder picked up the thread of the conversation.

The sound of a gunshot rang through the silence and a barely audible grunt confirmed the bullet had hit its' mark. Jade sighed, feeling the blood seeping through the wound on her stomach, wetting the thin fabric of her shirt. "Really?" she muttered continuing her path towards her shooter with no further indication of the bullet inconveniencing her. 

She noted the astonished gasps of the people around her, pondering how many of them she would have to kill in order to get out of this predicament. She figured they'd call the police on her and didn't feel inclined on spending any time in a jail cell.

She was a few inches away from her shooter, watching as his eyes widened almost comically with fear and he shot at her again out of reflex. The bullet tore through her shoulder, but she barely felt it. She grabbed the gun, wrenching it upwards. 

"You know," she started, grabbing his neck as her eyes finally turned completely red, opposed to the usual glow of just the edge of the iris. "I never liked men with bad manners." 

His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he collapsed to the ground.

She turned, watching the people scamper back. "Anyone else?" she asked, her eyes still aflame. The crowd dispersed. She nodded approvingly. "Good."

"Needless to say, it wasn't good," she murmured. "So I called Alex for help."

Ringing of her phone startled her and she reached for it with a sigh. It had been very tempting for her to simply turn it off, but she knew that would get her in a great deal of trouble in the long run, and she really didn't need any more of those. 

"Can it wait?" she asked the second she picked up. She hated how tired she sounded. "I would not have called if it could," came the reply. Alex heaved out a sigh and swung her legs off the stone ledge by the window. Taking her gun from her bedside table, she let out a barely audible sigh as she tucked it away at the small of her back. She grabbed a knife and slid it into her boot before straightening up. Bone tired but unable to do anything but stare at the ceiling and try to decipher shapes made from the flickering candles that stood on the small table. With another sigh, she left her home.

She made her way down the dark alleyways, still littered with fragments from the fight that ended not even a day ago. Blood, weapons, bricks and stone.

It felt unreal.

A waking nightmare.

The stalls from the Sunday market were overturned, the produce unrecognisable in the debris. She stepped over what she supposed had once been a basket filled with cherries. Glancing at the red on the floor, she wondered how much of it had been from the fruits. 

She re-gripped her weapon before turning a corner, coming face to face with another destroyed street. The yellowish colour of the brick path had been replaced by the colour of the dried blood, the grass poking through the cracks a few shades shy of the usual rich green. She chanced a glance upwards, briefly scanning the windows for any potential threats. But just as the streets, the windows were empty, the curtains closed. 

She took a few calculated steps forward, tracing the bloodstain on the wall closest to her while listening intently to the steps approaching her from the alley on her right.

She drew her weapon and braced her stance. The bullet hit its target and she supressed an eye roll as she glanced over her victim who lay on his back, a gaping wound on his forehead. Contrary to her wishes, she was not plagued by guilt or any other emotion, really; the Smith and Wesson was weightless in her hands. 

"How many left?" she murmured, overstepping the body. 

"That was the last one," a soulless voice answered. She looked around the alley, trying to find the source.

"Above you," the voice again, followed by a chuckle. Looking up, amber met red. 

"Quite a mess you made," Alex remarked, as her companion jumped from the high wall they had been perched on. "In my defence, they started it," Jade shrugged, causing her friend to lift a brow at her. "Thanks for coming."

Alex shrugged it away. "They'd blame me for it even if I wasn't here."

"Surely you can't be held responsible for something I did," the black haired beauty reasoned.

"No," the pressure of a headache only a glass of bourbon could cure crackled at her temples, "but I will be".

"Not only was I held responsible, I was also punished pretty badly for it," Alex wrapped up the memory. "I may have taken it out on Jade."

"And I deserved it," Jade concluded, lifting herself of the sofa. "Now, I should probably make myself useful and go over those files Rose recovered."

"We will join you in a minute," Sky nodded, glancing over at the half asleep toddler in her lap. "We need to take Lucius to bed first."

With one last nod, Jade left the room, already dreading what she might find.