fate is never fair
The Merge. The bane of Penelope’s existence. The one thing she hated most in the world. Trying to take away the one person she loved. The loophole was there. Somewhere in the city of Antwerp, in which she currently resided. She could feel it, the pull it had. The supernatural creatures guarding the cure seemed to call out to her. They begged her to come for the last item she would need to complete the spell that would end it all. The spell that would put her life at risk yet save Josie’s.
Now, as she ran from the witch that chased after her, the witch that had been chasing her for the past few months, she thought of a transportation spell. She thought of the one place she had felt was her home away from home and only prayed that the owner of the pouty lips she loved so much wasn’t there to ask why she had randomly shown up with a big gash that ran down the length of her side or why her shoulder looked like it had been pierced with an arrow.
Those had been answers she wasn’t ready to tell. She wasn’t ready to let Josie know she had been risking her life everyday since she had moved to Belgium. Yet she risked being exposed as she teleported into the twins’ dorm room.
She held her side and breathed heavily as her feet came back to solid ground and she felt the familiar presence of the room she had spent so much time in before the break up. She grasped the bed frame beside her and attempted to find some form of balance so she wouldn’t fall over and bleed out in the middle of Josie’s room.
She doubted the girl would want to come back and find such a thing; the body of her ex laying on the floor surrounded by blood. Lizzie would probably just be worried about the mess she made on the floor.
Penelope hunched over and tried her best to remember any healing spell she could, but she knew no spell could help her this time. The witch she had encountered had been too powerful, and along with her keeping some supernatural creature’s blood, Penelope knew the only thing she could do was get it stitched up and wait it out.
She had to find some other place to go before the twin’s returned from their classes.
She pushed off of the bed and grasped at the door handle, turning it while clutching her side. Her steps were heavy as she made her way down the hail, no doubt leaving a few drops of blood here and there but not so much as to make a distinct trail. She’d never be able to guess why her feet carried her in the direction they did.
Call it fate, maybe.
After a minute of clutching at the wall and trying not to topple over, the witch found herself in front of a room that she had only been in a handful of times. She tried the handle, unsurprisingly locked. Her mind had become groggy and it took longer than it should have to think up a spell to unlock it.
The magic that pulsed it’s way through her veins and out of her palms brought her a certain power. It made her feel whole, even if she were about to bleed out in the dormroom of the one person part of her was always jealous of. Another part of her had a soft spot for the girl and the reasoning was a mystery.
When she left, she knew she would take care of Josie though. She had always seen it in hidden glances and soft smiles, small gestures between the two. They cared for each other like Penelope cared for Josie, like Josie cared for Penelope once too.
She turned the knob and stumbled into the room. Holding herself up using the desk by the door, she turned and shut it before teetering over to the middle of the room and falling down. A gasp escaped her and she bit her lip.
Penelope eyed the room and eventually decided to prop herself up against the bed frame. She looked around for anything she could use to keep herself awake. Anything to stop the bleeding. Stitching herself up would be dangerous and she figured the auburn haired tribrid may have a spell to help in one of her aunt’s grimoires, but she needed to be awake because if she closed her eyes she knew the chance of waking up again was slim. There were words left unsaid between her and Josie, even between her and Lizzie, maybe some left unsaid between her and Hope.
She needed to at least hear Josie’s voice one more time before she went. Then she’d be satisfied. She could rest easy.
The ravenette scoffed at her own cheesiness and shook the thoughts from her head. Her breathing worked its way to becoming more ragged and uncontrolled even though she tried to keep it steady. Focused on certain objects in the room; pictures, pens, paintings, books. She must’ve read every book title she could see on the shelf. Once more she scanned the room for things, before her eyes closed and she forced them back open.
In the corner by the bookshelf sat a stack of albums, CDs of musicians that were mainly older. There were some Penelope hadn’t known, mostly the jazz artists, but there was an album that caught her eye. Pray for the Wicked by Panic! At The Disco sat on top of Mozart and Freddie Hubbard.
A mumbling mess, she recited lyrics to herself. One might have thought her crazy, but it was a distraction from the gash and her possible death, at least until Hope got there and could help her, which would hopefully be any minute.
“Hmm hmm ‘hat they don’t call me ‘hankless,” she stumbled through, “my tell-tale heart’s a hammer in my chest.”
A coughing fit wracked her body before she continued, “Cut me a silk tied tourni-”
A tourniquet. Of course. It really took having to sing through a song for you to figure it out?
She swore her stupidity would get the better of her one day, assuming she was still alive.
Her hand removed itself from the gash and she carefully lifted up her black t-shirt. At least the stains would be easier to remove. Her features were contorted as she lifted the material from the blood it stuck too. She drew in a breath and brought it up the rest of the way over her head. The material was thin, but the sleeves were long so she attempted to tie it around her waist as tightly as possible.
The bleeding didn’t stop, but it slowed.
It must have been about five minutes later when she repositioned herself to lay in the middle of the floor. A look to her right caught her staring back at herself through Hope’s full length mirror. She laughed at the bitterness of it all.
How she was willing to risk her life for the girl everyone thought she had given up on. How the girl hadn’t even known what she was doing. How she would probably be called selfish and irresponsible for it.
Her reflection looked back at her. She noticed how tired she looked, how her face paled and her eyes drooped. They threatened to close and she had already fought them off for so long, so she allowed them to shut. She allowed herself to nod off, and she trusted herself to wake up again.
But not before saying, “I love you, JoJo.”
Because saying it makes it real. Saying it means it was heard.
Just in case.