Bathe In Fire - Shadows of the Night 2

Chapter 29

Hi!

Prepare yourselves for the next chapters! This will be one big rollercoaster ride, and I poured a lot of work into this one. If you notice anything that you didn't like or thought was odd - please let me know. I want this to work and I want it to be good! I need your help to do that!
Thank you all for your support and for reading this story!

Lara

_______________________________________________________

Chapter 29

I closed my eyes, thinking about what I told Brown and the rest of the team. Had he bought my story about shooting one of the cardboard boxes of liquor and that someone must have set everything on fire? Would he believe that the vamps orchestrated the explosion? But, honestly, what else was I to tell him?

Guess what, I was able to use the element of fire! Did I mention that I already used water back in Pennsylvania?

No, not happening.

One week of restless sleep, dreams of white fangs glistening with blood and the smell of putrid smoke; small daytime intermezzos in which I found myself padding bare-footed through my apartment. It took a whole week to shake off the feeling of numbness that had set in after the attack. I felt like a victim, once again. I had sworn to myself that I wouldn't become one again. Never again.

However, it was not the worst part. The worst thing was the state of not knowing that drove me to the edge of my sanity. I had no idea what I did in that liquor brewery. I used and commanded fire, but I had no idea where the power came from.

Know thyself. The maxim kept repeating itself in my head, as if it had invested my mind like a disease. There was a part of me that kept shooting questions at me, bombarding my mind with theories, offering possible answers I never wanted to have. I remembered Giuliana telling me stories about Pentagrams and my origin – the Larosa line. One of my ancestors was a Pentagram – a witch that could command all five elements, extremely powerful, the kind of powerful you found in old legends and myths. I couldn't control all the elements. I just happened to use water and fire and get extremely sick in the process.

What did that make me? Was the universe just playing one sick joke on me? Was there real power in my blood? And if yes, was I the only one? Were there others who had the power to wield more than one element in the way I did? Where the hell were they and why hadn't I ever heard about them?

The questions didn't end there, and it felt like I'd go insane if I spent more time in that goddamned room of mine. I had enough. I got up, determined to leave the confines of my bed for good this time. I walked into the kitchen and lifted the coffee pot with the grace of an old woman suffering from rheumatism. I poured myself a cup of the black liquid with unnatural slowness, my mind wandering back to the drug case.

The girl was alive. She had some witch blood in her veins, but didn't categorize as a full witch, and yet her bite marks had healed faster than a normal human should have. Now that we actually had a living human that had taken the drug, an eye-witness, we were bound to find the persona behind the 'untouched body' deaths sooner or later. Brown still believed that the vamps that perished in the fire were just flunkies.

I shook my head. I had to stop thinking about this stuff – at least for a few hours. I felt better, even though I still had a few flashy bruises adorning my body. The doctors told me that it was a miracle that no bones (or ribs, ahem) were broken. That brought me back to Alexander's offer. If I drank his blood, I would heal instantly, but I would have to swallow my pride. If I didn't, I would be in pain. No matter how you looked at it, it was a no-win situation.