Edge Becomes a Witch | [Half Bad Fanfiction]

Breakfast with Van and Arran

It's 5 am, and I put down my headphones as Arran comes into the guest room.

'Good morning.'

'Morning.'

'Sleep well?'

'Couldn't sleep,' I say and get out of bed. Arran tells me there's breakfast in the dining room, and that we're going in forty minutes. He leaves, and I take a shower to freshen up. I started thinking again, as if a night full of thoughts hadn't been enough.

I called dad in the middle of the night to tell him everything that had happened, and told him to just text mom a summary of what I said. It's still so weird for me that she's a witch.

I wish that I'd turn into a fain, and that I'd never found out the truth. I wish I'd just die not knowing why. My expectations of being saved are low, but if the witches in the Phrontistery actually manages to save me, I'll go back to my normal life, back to Isabella, Mike, and dad, and never think about any of this again.

I don't know if my relationship with mom is ever going to be the same. Not that it ever was a strong relationship. I live with her on the weekends; meaning I sleep there, and eat breakfast with her. The rest of the weekend isn't at her place, but at either Mike's or Isabella's.

Then there's Nathan, my biological father. I'm most likely going to meet him today, and before Arran told me about the contract, I hadn't thought about him. But knowing he's not been in my life because he's a serial killer, makes me wonder if he ever wanted to know me. If he wants to know me now.

I get out of the shower, and look at my face in the mirror while I dry. I wonder if I look like him. I have mom's blue eyes, that's for sure, but the rest of my face isn't mom's at all. My spiky black hair isn't moms', my olive skin isn't mom's, my lips, my jaw, my eyebrows, my nose; not mom's at all. Mike says if it wasn't for the eyes, he would've guessed I was adopted.

I get dressed, but then change my clothes again. After five different outfits, I end up wearing my mint green scoop neck and white shorts. I stare at myself in the mirror for another five minutes, analyzing and overthinking how I look before I finally just let it go and go down to the dining room.

Arran and Van are sitting by a long table, drinking coffee and chatting. I join them, glad there are croissants.

'You nervous?' Arran asks.

I nod and grab a croissant. I never asked to meet Nathan, and after what I've heard about him, I don't think I ever would.

'This must be a very special day for both you and Nathan. I remember how special it was for Nathan when he reunited with his father,' Van says.

I know she isn't talking about Arran's father, because he told me he and Nathan were step-brothers. Nathan's father was a black witch, Arran's father a white witch, their mother a white witch.

Yesterday, when we walked up to the council building, Arran told me some history about the White Council; the segregation between white and black witches, how the White Council treated blacks, and that 'Nathan had a hard time being half black'. It was too dangerous for Nathan's father to stay with his son, so he didn't.

'When did they reunite?' I ask.

'At his Giving; Marcus performed it. That's when they met for the first time, but it wasn't until Marcus joined the Alliance they connected.'

Arran also told me that the Council is for all witches now, after the White Council was taken over by a group of rebels; the Alliance. Arran was in it, Nathan was in it, and as un-mom-like as it sounds, mom was in it, too.

'You were in the Alliance-thing, too?' I ask Van.

'Yes. In fact, I started it,' she says.

'Really?'

I don't know if I believe that. Van looks twenty.

'And it would never have succeeded without Nathan. He was undoubtedly our strongest fighter... It wouldn't have succeeded if it wasn't for your mother either, when I think about it.'

'Can mom fight?!' I ask, freaked out by the thought.

'No, but she was captured by a crazy old witch,' she says and sips her coffee. I laugh, then get myself together, still smiling; 'What?'

Van gives Arran a questioning look and he nods.

'Darling, I'm sure you're not very familiar with your mother's past, and definitely not her romance with Nathan.'

My smile fades. 'And you are?'

'I know they had a childhood romance, but Arran knows more about that. I met Nathan as a desperate seventeen-year-old, planning to rescue the love of his life from Mercury, a black witch that threatened Nathan to kill Annalise unless he could bring her Marcus's heart or head-'

'But that's insane!' I interrupt. Mom was held a hostage!

'Yes, quite so. Anyway, Nathan, had no chance of rescuing Annalise by himself, so I, and that idiot you met yesterday, helped Nathan, in exchange for him to help me by joining the Alliance. Annalise naturally followed.'

I stare at my croissant, thinking about what she just said.

'So... When did Nathan become a serial killer?' I ask.

They both cringe at that.

'It's strange when you put it like that. We don't see him as a serial killer. He's more like a war hero,' Van says, and Arran agrees.

'Because he killed for the Alliance?' I guess.

'Precisely.'

Calling him a war hero instead of a serial killer doesn't change what he's done, it's still bad.

'But to answer your question; I believe his first kill was when he was sixteen. In self-defense.'

'So young,' I mumble, poking my croissant.

'Oh, yes, very young. Nathan did not have an average childhood. Nor did your mother.'

I look up at her. 'Tell me everything you know about her.'

Mom's odd behavior has always made me wonder if something happened, and now I know it definitely did.

'You'll understand everything, Edge, but later. We have to go now,' Arran says, looking at his watch.