To Cut Blood Ties

Chapter 4: A Witch and Her Knowledge

May 18, 2016

Paradise Valley, Arizona

4:00pm

Alice swung open the bathroom door, flinching as the chill of the AC hit her wet skin. She had just gotten out of the shower, trying to get the sweat and blood off of her skin. She moved towards the mirror, the cold air slowly causing the steam that obscured the surface to dissipate. As more of her reflection became visible, the bruises all along her left arm from where she had been grabbed during training that morning were revealed.

They had to been doing hand-to-hand combat and Alice had been up against James and he had grabbed her arm. They had struggled against each other, with him never letting go of her arm. Finally Alice managed to flip him over her head and knocking the wind out of him. Alice had been frustrated and upset, despite Sam's praise. It shouldn't have taken her so long to throw him off.

It was her ribcage though that caught her eye. Bone could be seen peaking from beneath the skin. But that very skin had dozens of small red lines scattered across it. A mirror image to the pale ones on her wrists. Some of the lines were a bit more faded, pinker, while the others had small scabs that had formed over them. A stone lodged itself in her heart, making it hard to breathe. This was her punishment, had been for years. For every mistake she made, for every move that embarrassed her family with her weakness.

Alice had begun to do it when her father, Jason, granted her permission to enter training when she was eleven. The very first day had been a disaster and George had stared at her with disdain. Expressing very clearly in his deep voice, "You will never amount to anything. You are not my sister."

She had been so heartbroken, crying well into the night. Distraught she had contemplated ending everything, eliminating her very existence so that it may bring her family peace. But it didn't matter whether her heart still beat or not, the fact that was that her family name was already tarnished. Her mother, Marie, was still looked down upon and often-cruel jokes were sent her way due to the fact that it was she who birthed the first human in the Oswald line.

Despite knowing that her death would bring nothing, Alice could not shake the pain that ripped her apart from the inside. So she irrationally had grabbed a pair of scissors. In bleak desperation to somehow shatter the internal pain, she had brought the edge to her wrists in a hope that the external pain would make things better.

It had worked, like a strike of lightning in the midst of the storm. Alice had sworn that that would be the last time she would stoop to such a level. She was stronger than this, and she was stronger than the average human. She would not allow herself to fail; she would make her family proud.

That had only lasted a few weeks before she made another mistake in training, bringing upon her the wrath of George and the doubt of her ability to succeed by Jason. And so she added another line on to her skin, cleared her head and continued on. She began to crave the pain that came after, the constant hiss of it when she was moving around in training. It kept her in check, made her head stay clear, and she began to excel where the eighteen year olds did not.

Questions began to arise at her attachment to long sleeved shirts, and so she switched to her ribs. Discovering that the pain was infinitely more painful. And deserved. Alice shook herself from this trip down memory lane, and quickly got dried off and dressed. On her back, between her muscular shoulder blades was a phoenix. Beautiful in its flaming inferno, the flames making up its elegant, twisting body: the symbol of the Oswald family.