"Wake up!" Derrick cheered as he ran through the house. Ariana sat right up with Kai.
"What the fuck is he thinking?" The last bout of mental power she had used had infected her with the very rage she had given to the entire ward of the hospital. Hopping out of bed, she put her clothes on and swung the door open wildly. Her breathing trembled with sheer fury as she held the doorknob, the metal creaking and groaning under her grip. "Derrick!" She screamed with a cruel voice.
Kai followed right behind her and put his hands on her back. "Breathe. You're not actually mad at Derrick. It's the backlash." Kai said the words but didn't believe them.
Tightening her fists she took deep breaths. Ariana let out a roar so loud that the whole house was up in an instant. Miles rushed downstairs with Jason right on his tail. The cabal quickly gathered in the living room to find Ariana panting with rage. "Derrick! Get back!"
Ariana started running for Derrick, he froze as he saw the look in her eyes. Her muscles tightened as she readied herself to punch Derrick. With every step she got closer and closer to her target. A loud thunk hit the back of her head, and her vision went dark.
"Oh fuck!" She woke up, putting her hand to the back of her head. Miles stood over her with a large smile. "Let me out of here!" She screamed. Miles had her strapped to a metal chair, and the more she tugged, the tighter her bonds became. Rigged into the chair was a pulley that Miles had strapped onto it, smiling as it tightened around her.
"I don't think so. We're gonna sit here until you calm the fuck down." Miles said calmly.
"I'll fucking kill you!" She screamed as her feet stomped the floor.
"It's okay. I hope you do." Miles chuckled. "As far as I can tell, you've got a while before your head turns back to normal. I'm gonna get to know you a little better."
Ariana had her hands balled, her face beet red with rage, and her veins popping from her neck. "I should have killed you the minute I met you. You fucking coward. We should have left you in that hospital to die." Her voice was poison to his ears, and silently he tugged back the urge to let her cruelty show.
Miles leaned real close and rolled up his sleeves to reveal the large scars he had running up his wrists. "Is that why you took me in?" He sat across from her. "I seem to remember some beautiful words you had." He looked around her room. "Some words about fate, about the path we choose."
"You didn't have a fate. You were a scared little boy who ran away from Daddy and took the easy way out." Ariana grunted and started to laugh. "I used to pity you until I found out what an asshole you were." She kicked the chair she was tied to as best as she could with her position.
"Sorry for hitting you in the back of the head you potential child murderer." He threw his arms up and laughed. "When you're done with your magical period we can get right back to business, and I'll take any apology you can muster."
"How do you know I won't just use my gifts and snap your neck?" She smiled wickedly.
Miles cocked his gun and pointed it at her. "Just try it." Ariana chanted harder and harder as she attempted to bring her power to the edge of her skin. "No blood, no dick, no bones, none of your stupid rocks." Miles chuckled.
Ariana's chanting got louder until he stepped forward with a large sock and jammed it into her mouth. He grabbed a roll of duct tape and pulled it with a horrible scrape, he taped the sock into her mouth. "Hush dear." He sighed. "Lemme tell you a story."
Miles sat back and put his hands behind his head as he stretched out on the floor. "When I was a little boy, I was a lot like Derrick. I was smart, I was strong, I had a lot of nifty skills." Ariana growled against her gag. "Until I hit my twenties. I was stuck in this little apartment with two coke addict roomies who never had a dime they didn't spend on the powder. I tried it a few times, and it was fine, just not my thing you know?"
"One night after a fifth of tequila and a heavy conversation with my partner, I got a little down on myself. I think it's easy to say I didn't handle it well." He said, pointing to the scars. "I woke up to the rest of you, minus the kid of course, standing around my bed with Maggie from the Chakravanti." He smiled as he pondered the memory.
"I'll never forget the way you looked at me. You were so serene." He looked up and suddenly jumped to his feet as he saw blood trickling from around the duct tape and freely running down her chin. Ariana began to blur as she moved faster than he could keep his eyes on, her hands quickly cutting the rope on the chair by rubbing it against an edge. She grabbed the metal chair, swung it, and hit Miles in the side of the head with a scream. His body went limp as it hit the ground.
Ripping the tape from her face she stood over him, grabbing a dagger from her altar and raising it above her head. Garrett, Kai, Jason, and Derrick burst through the door and saw the look in her eyes. Jason threw his hands forward, screaming as tears poured down his face, and her body was thrown by an invisible wall of force into the wall.
***
"Whuu.." Ariana garbled speech started to fall out of her mouth as she drooled heavily.
"Hey, don't move." Kai put his hand to her face. "You're gonna be just fine."
"I'm all floaty." She mumbled.
"Yeah I bet you are." Standing beside Kai was a man in a lab coat, his eyes looking over her as he prepared a large shot with blue liquid. "This is Dr. Wheeler. He's been treating you for the last two weeks."
Ariana gave him a puzzled look. "Weeks?"
"Yeah baby. It's been two weeks. We gave you enough sedatives to make a werewolf into a cuddly little stuffed animal." He smiled as Dr. Wheeler took the injection and slid the needle into her arm. Ariana gasped at the pinch of the needle but her expression settled back into a calm smile. "The sedative is going to last the next day, and then after that, you'll be just fine."
Sitting up she grabbed him by the shirt. "Derrick!" She screamed, her eyes wide in terror as the images burned themselves into her mind.
"He's just fine." Kai excused the doctor from Ariana's room and came back to her bedside, sitting by her.
"I almost hurt him." Tears dripped past her cheeks.
"But you didn't." Kai took hold of his rosary and wrapped it around his hand. Taking her hand and pressing his other on top of it, he began to mutter a prayer.
"Are you healing me?" She asked sloppily.
"No. Just praying for you." He said quietly. He stayed by her bedside as she slept that night, and unbeknownst to her, as he had done every night since she was drugged the first time. Kai had used his power the minute it came back to keep himself without sleep, drinking coffee and pounding energy drinks as he spent the days watching her trance.
As Ariana shook awake with a twitch, she saw Kai still sitting with a smile as the sunlight poured into the room. "You okay?" She asked as she looked at his tired and red eyes.
"I could use some sleep. It's been..." He checked his phone. "About fifteen days." He laughed. " You mind if I crawl in there with you?"
"Not at all." She smiled at his kindness and watched as he stripped off his clothes to reveal his tattoos. Crawling into the bed, Kai put an arm around her and started to relax. "You stayed with me for fifteen days?"
"What can I say? Pretty girls are my weakness." He started to breathe heavily, and Ariana just sat stroking his hair as she let the sedative work its way out of her system. At two in the afternoon, she stood and worked her way out of the bed and searched for clean clothes. On the wall was still the mark where Jason had thrown Ariana with a blast of energy she had never seen from him before. Jason was usually unable to put together a powerful ritual even with hours of prep, but the image of his eyes leaking tears as he thrust his arms at her.
Walking downstairs she saw Miles already brewing coffee for her. Setting a mug on the counter, he poured some of the dark liquid. "Hey I had to throw out the almond milk but I got you another carton. You want sugar with it?" He asked casually.
"Uh...yeah." She saw her phone plugged into the counter outlet and pulled it off, opening the last two weeks of messages. "Listen Miles-"
"Take a shower, we have to pick up Derrick from school soon." He interrupted her.
"Oh uh..." She nodded. "Right." For the next thirty minutes she only sat and poured over her messages.
"Get your shoes." Miles said to her as he grabbed his keys. Ariana stumbled her way to the car and took a seat in the passenger side.
"Miles..." She said softly. "About what I said."
"Don't." He said sternly as he started the car. "Don't go telling yourself it's your fault. Don't even start thinking that you have any problems with me. You said what you said, it wasn't you."
"Miles it wasn't fair of me to say all that." She tried regardless.
Miles got to the main road and nodded. "Yeah, and you've been there for me when my head is fucked up. More than once. Hell, I seem to recall someone pulling those blades back out of my hands a second time." He looked at her. "We're even."
"What the hell am I supposed to say to Derrick?" She looked at him horrified. "Sorry kid, your Mom's crazy?"
"He knows about the backlash. That fight he had was entirely under it."Miles said coolly.
