There he was.
Standing right there.
Of course he was.
Of course he'd come.
Why had Rainbow thought any differently?
The Mayor of Sheffield was standing in the entrance to the school, chatting to Gary and Barry. The Mayor of Sheffield. Jacob Sheffield. The Sheffield her mother had failed to kill. Rainbow trembled, taking a step back. If he was here then that wasn't good news.
Rainbow had been walking down the hallway to breakfast with Dimond eyeing her nervously every five seconds. It was the cover spell, it had scared her, along with the massive blast of magic in the dorm last night and her declining mental state. Dimond was on edge checking up on her all the time, she'd seen the stages before.
But that was when Rainbow had spotted him. Barry had ran ahead to find out what was going on, he always wanted to know everything that happened at SummerVille High, so that he could use it as blackmail later she mused. Rainbow hadn't really noticed that anything was up until she saw Barry acting a little off. She stopped in her tracks, startling Dimond a little, until she also realised it was the Mayor of Sheffield and then she froze too. If the Sheffield saw her, he would throw her straight into a magic cell, preventing her from using her own magic and then she would be publicly slaughtered, like an animal in front of her family. The stories of her childhood came flooding back to her.
The blood drained from her body, being replaced by a cold poisonous instinct that caused her to feel slightly queasy. An awful thought had hit her. Had Gary called his father here upon finding out that the Aimes was attending the school? But then again, why hadn't he done it sooner? Maybe he only now perceived her as a threat? Had he found the explosion while she was unconscious? Did he want to kill her? The thoughts whirled around her brain, entrapping her in her own mind. Gary turned towards her, staring at her. Was he going to call his father over? Was he going to kill her?
Was she going to kill him?
The thought shocked Rainbow. She couldn't have thought that there was no way. Yet the thought persisted. A tiny whisper crawling through her mind, corrupting her thoughts. Rainbow's breath started to speed up, he was coming closer, he was going to kill her. He was going to kill her. He was going to kill her. The thought pounded her mind suffocating her. Then she realised that she actually couldn't breathe. Her breathing had completely stopped. She took a shaky breath and realised that she still couldn't breathe. Her body had shut down. She couldn't move. She couldn't breathe. Why couldn't she scream? She couldn't breathe. Small black spots started to appear in her vision and she became loosely aware of someone dragging her away. She couldn't breathe. The air felt so thick all of a sudden. She couldn't breathe.
"…alm dow…" Dimond's voice soothed, but Rainbow couldn't make out what she was saying. She dropped to the floor, suddenly able to move again now that she had been taken out of her initial spot. Her hands flew to the sides of her head, clutching it. She wished the voices would stop. Their shouting was driving her insane.
Gradually, her breath calmed down, slowing to a normal rate. Rainbow opened her eyes, realising that she'd closed them earlier in her panic. She was curled on the floor, knees pulled close to her chest with her hands clutching her head tightly. She loosened her grip slightly, beginning to take in her surroundings. Dimond was sitting in front of her nervously, holding one of her arms, trying to be reassuring. Rainbow touched her damp cheeks realising that she'd been crying as well but hadn't noticed before now. Dimond's dark brown eyes were filled with worry, empathy for Rainbow's attack. Rainbow avoided eye contact with her, the other girls they'd been walking to breakfast with had left, meaning they were completely alone. She took a deep breath, relishing in the feeling of the air filling her lungs again. She exhaled and leant her head against the wall, bracing herself for the scolding from Dimond.
"Are you okay?" Dimond simply asked. Her words were soft, as if she thought that speaking too harshly would break her… again. Rainbow ran a systematic check on herself. She wasn't injured in anyway, the magic was flowing normally, she could breathe, the voices had returned to distant chatter… In every aspect of the word she was 'okay' and yet something lingered inside of her. That question. "Was she going to kill him?". Just thinking about it accelerated her breathing again, so she quickly pushed it out of her mind. She studied Dimond's eyes, looking for an answer to her question.
"I don't know." She admitted, her voice barely audible.