Than the Water of the Womb (Book 4 in the Coven Series)

Prologue

Lydia

"'But hardly anybody ever finds out that their actions really, actually, hurt other people! People don't get better they just get smarter. When you get smarter you don't stop pulling off the wings of flies, you just think of better reasons for doing it.'" I paused, listening to the shouting and heavy footsteps over my head. "'Lots of kids say they feel sorry for Carrie White-mostly girls,'" I returned my gaze to my book. "'And that's a laugh-but I bet none of them understand what it's like to be Carrie White, every second of every day. And they don't really care.'" I paused, looking through the bars as the spell-reinforced doors were blown open. "'Do you?'" I spoke with my eyes trained toward the sounds of approaching footsteps. "'I don't know!' She cried. 'But someone ought to try and be sorry in a way that counts...'" I held my book in front of face as the intruders stopped outside my cell. "'...In a way that means something.'" I pretended they were not there, because I was not getting involved with people that felt the need to break into other people's residences. "'All right. I'll ask her.'"

"Lydia Sorenson." A man's voice spoke from behind the bars.

"'You will?'" I read on. "The statement came out in a flat-'"

"-We're getting you out of here." The man stubbornly persisted.

"Surprised way. She had not thought he actually would."

"Lydia!"

I lowered my book and saw a man I had assumed was long dead.

"We've come to get you." He looked between the two women and one other man that was accompanying him.

I sat there in silence as one of the women taped an explosive to the lock, sending the whole barred wall crashing down against the stone floor.

I got up from my bed, leaving my book on the thin mattress as I approached my so-called "saviors". "'Yea. But I think she'll say no.'"

"What's wrong with her?" A woman with a machinegun sneered my way.

"Nothing." The man replied nervously before meeting my eyes. "Lydia, please come with us."

"'You've overestimated my box-office appeal.'" I relished in his squirming as I stopped right in front of him. "'That popularity stuff is...'" I leaned in close to his ear. "'Bullshit.'" I kneed him in the groin before punching him so hard in the jaw he fell onto the bar littered floor. "'You've hot a bee in your bonnet about that!" I screamed at him as I tried to crush his ribcage with my foot. "'Thank you!'" I elbowed one of the women in the face while they tried to settle me down. "She said, and it sounded odd, as if she had thanked an Inquisitor for torture." I calmed down bit by bit as my hands were bound behind my back so I could be taken with them without any attempted homicide. They even gathered all my books as well.

"'I love you,' he said."