CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ 14 ☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

( never let me down again by depeche mode )
KAIA WASN'T SURE when she got wrangled in to witch duties. Maybe it was from the second Darcy told her. It would be impossible to ignore, and for Kaia, it was impossible to not be involved.

Dead leaves crunched under their feet as Kaia and Gwen slowly paced the forest, flashlights in hand. There was always something unsettling about these woods, but now even more so, given that the threat of real demon activity was very much possible.

"Why are you walking so fast?" Gwen whisper-yells, as she keeps falling behind Kaia's tracks. She swats at a moth.

Kaia trudged on, letting out a short sigh. "I'm not."

Gwen swallows, watching as the girl ahead of her stopped and waiting for her to catch up. She hugged her puffer coat around her, crossing her arms but keeping her light facing out. "What are we even looking for?" She asks.

Kaia looks at her with narrowed eyebrows. "Why are you asking me? I'm just here so you don't get your leg caught in a bear trap." She snorted slightly.

Gwen's eyes widened. "There's bear traps out here?!"

Kaia shrugged. "Probably, now that everyone thinks that's what killed Tobias Palmer."

Gwen clenched her jaw and rolls her eyes. "I don't get why we can't just tell people the truth. Everyone knows that there were witches here before, right?"

Kaia doesn't respond, she keeps walking through the dark trees.

Gwen was right. Everyone knew, it was just a matter of whether they really wanted to admit it or not. With history this morbid, you'd be stupid to think otherwise.

Gwen bites the inside of her cheek before starting to walk after her. "So you live around here?" She asks.

Kaia nods. "Mhm. Like a mile north."

"Like on a farm?" Gwen asks.

There was something about Gwen that Kaia didn't like. Maybe it was the fact that all of her questions felt backhanded. They came from very different walks of life, which made it difficult for Kaia to truly feel comfortable around the girl. Especially knowing who her family is.

Kaia nods again. "Yes, on a farm."

"Do you take care of the animals?"

"Yes."

"Do you like it?"

"Not really."

"Why don't you hire someone else to do it for you?"

It was that. That desire to pay out someone else the second things weren't presented on a silver platter. Kaia wondered if the girl had ever really worked a day in her life. Or, if she ever would. She already had a pretty solid career laid out in front of her, despite the fact that she's had little to know challenges to get to where she is. It's all parentage.

"Because... that's stupid."

"Why's that stupid?"

"Because why would we choose to have a farm if we hired someone else to do all the work?"

"Well, why are you choosing to do work?"

Kaia stops and turns to look at the girl. "Because we sell meat to the grocery store, and make money." She talks to her like she was four.

Gwen blinks. "You kill the-"

"No." Kaia cuts her off. "We raise the livestock and then sell it when it's ready."

Gwen shrugs. "I guess that makes sense. Do you have a favorite animal-"

"Are you on drugs?" Kaia holds up her flashlight to Gwen's face, to which she puts her hands up and shields her eyes. Gwen's pupils were dilated entirely. "Seriously?!"

"I'm not!" Gwen raised her voice, shaking her head. "I just had like- a couple Xanax."

Kaia raises her eyebrows. "So drugs?"

"If I wasn't on something right now I'd be freaking out!" Gwen argued. "I can't see anything and I keep hearing shit!" She gestures all around her.

"So if there was something out here that wanted to hurt us, what were you gonna do? I doubt being drugged up while trying to cast is spell is gonna go over very well."

Gwen yelps as another moth got in her face, swatting away at it quickly.

Kaia runs her tongue over the bottom row of her teeth, frustrated. She turns and begins to walk on, leaving Gwen to deal with the bugs.

She didn't know if Gwen was naturally this chatty or if it were the drugs. She knew there was no way a couple Xanax were the only thing the girl was on. Kaia wondered if she'd been sent on this hunt with her because Darcy knew she wouldn't be able to handle things herself.

But even with Kaia here, the two of them were practically helpless without the others.

Kaia felt slightly out of place. She assumed she probably always would from here on out. She wasn't with them when they were at Marin's training or learning new spells, but she got dragged along only when things got truly dangerous. She knew she held no value like the other girls did. She didn't have magic, she just had knowledge. Which she guessed Gwen was lacking in, assuming that's why she was here with her and not Darcy or Sloane.

Gwen's phone started ringing with a loud, obnoxious ringtone that made Kaia jump at the sudden sound. She turned around, eyebrows narrowed in anger.

Gwen put the phone to her ear, Darcy was on the other line. Darcy doesn't even say hello before speaking, "We have a problem."

☾

"No, I'm telling you I watched it go inside." Darcy says from inside of Kaia's van, eyes focused ahead of her at the lighthouse.

"Demon's can open doors?" Gwen whispers to Kaia who was beside her.

Kaia ignores her. "What did it look like?" She asks Darcy.

She thinks for a second, unsure how to answer. "Human. But it wasn't always human. It was like, uh- it was like a shadow? At first? Like a cloud of shadow. Something just lingering in the air waiting for a host, and then it... found one." She says, confused by her own words. "I didn't even realize what it was until I saw it take the guys body."

"And he just up and went inside the lighthouse?" Kaia asks, clarifying.

Darcy nodded. "Yes. I didn't know what to do. I can't kill it, because that means I'm killing him too."

Kaia taps her fingers on the steering wheel of her van, thinking as the headlights shine ahead of them towards the building.

"And Marin's not answering her phone." Darcy adds.

"Do you have the Continentia Box?" Kaia asks, turning towards her friend. Darcy nods, leaning into her backpack of supplies and pulling it out. "If you can trap it in there for now, we can bring it to Marin and see what she thinks we should do, yeah?"

"Do humans... fit inside those?" Gwen asks, glancing behind her towards Darcy who sat in the back. "I mean, do we know it'll even work?"

Darcy swallows harshly. "I don't."

"Why don't we just leave it?" Gwen shrugs, eyes worried. "I mean, it isn't hurting anyone. Maybe it'll just leave the body alone and be gone by morning."

"Have you tried Sloane?" Kaia asks.

"No, that's not a good idea and, yes, she's trying to get here as soon as she can." Darcy rubs her eyes, anxious, and entirely unsure what to do right now. "I have no idea what I'm doing." She mutters.

Kaia clenches her jaw. "Let's just trap it." She says. "I'll go in there with you, it'll be fine. We'll bring it to Marin in the morning and figure it out then."

Darcy was wondering why the hell Marin wasn't with them in the first place. They weren't ready to make these decisions by themselves. They barely knew ten percent of the rules of magic, and here they were, pretty much in charge of it all.

"Okay." Darcy swallows. "Okay, yeah. Gwen?"

Gwen nods in agreement.

The three of them get out of the van, the familiar sound of the ocean hitting the rocks filled their ears as the chill of August's breeze swept past them. They shined their lights out towards the lighthouse and looked around for a moment, before Darcy started walking ahead.

The door slowly crept open as Darcy put a gentle hand on it. It wasn't a welcoming environment, especially given the events that happened here last time. It all felt so mundane now.

It was silent, except for the echo of some bat's wings flying around above. The three flashlights danced across the walls, creating quickly moving shadows that tricked their eyes and made them assume other things.

Gwen peered around the corner. "Maybe it left out the other door-"

And then she screamed.

Kaia and Darcy both whipped their head around towards her, watching as the man tackled Gwen to the ground, taking a glass display case with them, glass shattering everywhere.

Gwen felt his arms on her, inhumanely strong, his nails dug into her skin as she kicked and struggled against him.

She caught glance of his eyes. Like a rabid dog's. No sign of humanity left, dark and reddened, he was working solely off an animalistic instinct to maim and kill.

Darcy held a hand out towards him and he was ripped off of Gwen. She flung her hand out in the other direction and he went soaring over to the other wall, hitting it with a loud thud before crashing to the ground.

Quickly her attention was returned to Gwen, who was frantically trying to get herself off the floor despite the fact that she was trembling and coughing. She hadn't realized he had her by the throat.

Kaia was beside her, trying to help her up. "Shit." Kaia mutters, examining the already bruising hand marks on Gwen's arms and throat.

Gwen coughs, panting heavily. "I'm okay." She lets out.

The man, if it was even right to call him that anymore, scrambled around on the ground like a half dead bug. Convulsing, and choking on his own words. His eyes were bulging out of his head, and the veins in his neck and arms looked moments away from popping.

"Darcy, go!" Kaia says, snapping Darcy back into action.

She held the Continentia Box out in her hand, focusing on the guy who was mumbling curse words between his groans of pain, most definitely directed towards her.

Gwen tried to steady herself next to Darcy, to be some sort of aid in power despite the fact that she was in full panic.

He slowly got to his feet, looking at the girls like they were his next meal.

There was something about him that Darcy recognized. He had tattoos that went up to his neck from under his shirt, that she swore she had seen before. She'd never be able to pin it, at least not now, while his teeth chattered from hunger.

Darcy opened the box, and then her mouth to begin the spell, but it had started it's charge towards her.

She held a hand out to stop him, but too late, she was pinned up against a wall, feeling it's teeth in her arm.

She lifted her head up, letting out a scream that echoed off the walls and back to her.

Kaia ran forward, flashlight in hand as she brought it up, then back down against it's head.

It pulled away from Darcy, letting out a loud groan of pain as it adjusted to the blow. Kaia grabbed onto her. "Let's go!" She shouted amongst the chaos.

Darcy was panting, eyes wide as she examined the human teeth marks in her arm, blooding pouring from it. She never thought she'd ever experience a pain like this in her lifetime.

"Gwen, come on!" Kaia yells, as she was practically shoving the two out the door.

Darcy was running now, or trying to, following after Kaia and Gwen, as she still heard the low growl of the man behind them.

They pile out the door, back into the dark rocky hill that the lighthouse brought her, back to the sound of the waves crashing.

She pulled the door behind her as quick as she could, the iron creaking. "Go! Get something-" Darcy yelled in between groans as she pulled to keep it shut.

Kaia and Gwen scrambled to find something to put in the door, to keep it stuck closed. But there was nothing there that nature had left them in an attempt to assist. They were on their own.

And that wasn't working out.

"What's going on?!" Sloane yelled, running towards them as she got out of her car.

No one turned around to explain, to focused on trying to keep the door shut.

Darcy fell back, her hands slipping from the door knob. There was no use, anyways, even if she got it shut, there was no way to lock it.

He ripped the door back open, not even taking a second before going after Darcy again like a starved lion freed from a cage.

She saw his eyes, lifeless and bleeding as the demon ate through his insides. Anything that was human about him anymore was purely the skin he wore, his brain was gone, his heart was gone, and the demon wore his flesh as a tank. Something to give it teeth, nails, strong arms for strangling and a stomach for consuming.

Instinct forced her to put her hands up, quickly spitting out a spell before he latched onto her again. It was only split seconds before he crashed on top of her that his bones began to twist and snap in directions they shouldn't.

And then his body erupted in flames, before quickly dispersing into ashes that fell onto Darcy, as she lay there on her back below him, arms still up as she gasped for breath.

It was silent for a few seconds, none of the girls dared to move until someone else did.

Kaia walked over to her friend, breathing heavily as she tried not to think about what had really just happened. She bent down, helping Darcy up from the rocky ground, ash covered and blood pouring from her arm.

No one spoke.

Sloane and Gwen left, then Darcy and Kaia.

Kaia helped her into the van, buckling her seatbelt for her as her eyes stayed focused on the pile of ash that slowly dispersed it's way through nature at the breeze's will.

They took backroads home, to avoid any cops that were monitoring the curfew. It was longer, but to be stopped and questioned would be worse.

She wasn't sure what answers they had, but if they did, none of them were good.

Darcy's phone rang, startling her.

As Kaia drove, she glanced at it and back to the road. "You should answer it."

Darcy, still not fully aware of her surroundings, nodded in agreement. She grabbed her phone, it was Marin on the other line.

"Hey, sorry, I- uh, I was in the shower and didn't hear my phone ringing." Marin says. "Everything okay?"

Darcy could barely breathe.

"Mhm, never mind." Darcy responds, trying to keep her voice steady from cracking. And then she hung up.

Kaia glances at her, taking a deep breath. "It's gonna be okay." She says, but there was no sign of confidence in her words.

a/n
hi if ur reading this can u pls comment 🫡 just need to know how many ppl r actually viewing these chapters and that they're not bots lmao bc apparently that happens

anyways hope u enjoyed :)
(not edited)
- jane