"Anne, could you be a little more gentle?! I can't heal as fast as a werewolf," Ben whines. He's laying on the ground, cradling his arm like a baby.
"Aren't you 23? Stop being such a big baby," I tell him as I reach my hand out to help him off the ground. He accepts my hand and stands up.
"Being 23 doesn't mean I can't feel pain, you asshole. Look, I'm bleeding."
"It's just a little blood, Benny Boy. Guys wouldn't survive a day on a menstrual cycle. They're such babies," I scoff and chuckle.
Ben and I have been training for about an hour now. We came to an agreement that I'd teach him combat and he'd teach me undetectable magic. We always start with combat because it helps me calm my nerves and prepare to focus on learning undetectable magic.
"Let's just get to the magic part," Ben says all grumpy. He sets up a stool again like every training session and puts a can of soda on top.
"I think we're past soda can levitation, Ben," I tell him sarcastically and throw the can off the stool from 20 feet away. He gives me a silly grin.
"Yeah, you're right."
"Then what do you want me to do?" He pauses to think. I know he's done thinking when he has a challenging smirk on his face.
"I want you to burn this room. Only this room. Not any of the other rooms and you can't let the fire touch us."
"Are you crazy," I ask him. He can't be serious about this.
I watch as he nods his head.
"You were just crying over a tiny cut. Do really want to know how it feels to be burned alive?" He must've bled more than I thought. He's gone mad.
"Trust me, you won't burn me. You've been learning control for two weeks and you've basically mastered it." I look at him with worry. "If anything happens, I'll put everything back under control," he finalizes.
"Okay, I'll try."
I back up to the middle of the room and Ben stands next to me. the thing with undetectable magic is that there is no language or movement you have to do to complete a spell. Original magic is easier because you just speak the spell out in Latin. There's not much thinking to it.
But with undetectable magic, you're forced to stay still. It's all about focus and stillness. Ben told me to just focus on one thing and build off of it.
I stare at the opposite wall and imagine a flame blossoming out of a picture frame on the wall. Everything else disappears and I focus on starting the fire.
The flame trickles out of the frame and it burns slowly from the inside out. It spreads out of the frame and onto the wall. It pools down to the floor and travels towards us. I close my eyes as it gets closer, half of the reason being because of fear and the other half to increase focus.
"Anne, open your eyes," Ben says. I hesitate at first, but open them. I can see flames dancing in his eyes. "You did it," he says proudly.
I look around the room to see that the whole room is lit on fire. It surrounds us, but doesn't touch us.
"I did it! I did it," I squeal with joy. Unfortunately, the fire goes out, returning the room to its former glory, but the fire is transferred somewhere else.
"Anne, put the fire out before it turns me into roast beef," Ben yells out. The fire is crawling up his pants. I hurry and put out the fire and Ben breathes out a sigh of relief.
"I'm sorry. I just got very excited." I pull Ben into a tight hug. I can see my mother looking at me with a proud smile on her face, leaning on the room door. I pull away fast from Ben.
"Get me my pills. I'm starting to see things," I tells him, rubbing my forehead. These are the side effects I have to deal with after every training session. Lina was able to get a doctor to come over and do in house check ups. He prescribed me some pills that were safe to use during pregnancy that would help with my schizophrenia.
I never liked having to take pills and I still don't. The only reason I'm taking them is so that I don't put anyone in danger, especially my baby. The worst thing about these pills is that they make me feel slow and drowsy.
I make my way over to my bed, feeling sore from all the training today. I could really use a back massage.
"Let me help you," Ben says when he comes back with the pills. He helps me sit down on the bed. He lifts my swollen feet onto the bed.
"Thank you." He passes me a pill and a glass of water. I gulp them down and lay on my side.
"You sure you don't want to slow down training? You're six months pregnant, Anne. It could be dangerous to be pushing your body this much," he expresses his concern. I can feel the pill taking affect and my eyes fluttering closed.
"I'll be fine, Ben. I know my limits." I feel him massaging my back and it's like he read my mind. My eyes have no more power to stay opened.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"Aufmachen. Wir wissen, dass Sie da drin sind." I'm woken up by loud banging.
"Anne, you have to wake up," I hear a whisper. I open my eyes to see Ben crouching at my eyesight.
"What's going on," I ask him, bringing myself up from the bed fast.
"Come on, you have to hide. Cops are outside," he says fast, leading me out of my bed room. Lina and Emilia are moving around, hiding things like paperwork and picture frames under floorboards.
"What's going on," I ask him again. He leads me to a closet and brings me inside of it with him. We're still in view of the front door and I can see everything from a hole in the door.
"During training, you mistakenly let loose a strand of magic. The police are here tracking it."
"What? Why didn't you tell me? I've put you guys in danger. You should've told me to leave the instant it happened. They wouldn't have tracked me here."
What have I done? The reason I was learning undetectable magic was so that this wouldn't happen. If they catch me, we could all be taken under arrest and to where ever they take their prisoners.
"It was only for a second. We didn't think they would track it because the strand was only out for a moment. Don't worry though. We've got this under control," he tells me.
That instant I see Lina open the doors for the cops and they come in.
"Was hast du so lange gebraucht, um die Tür zu öffnen? Versteckst du etwas," one of the cops says. There's three of them. Emilia clings on to the side of Lina. It's hard to understand them when I don't know German. All I can understand from their facial expressions are that they're here to catch witches and they don't care for sympathy.
"Nein Sir. Du hast meine Tochter mit all dem Knallen erschreckt und ich musste sie beruhigen. Du solltest meine Tochter nicht in so viel Truma stecken." I can tell Lina's playing the role of a concerned mother and Eli is playing a scared child. They've wiped any objects that would say anyone other then the two of them lived here.
This act doesn't break the officer's harsh faces or make them show any remorse.
"Nimm sie einfach beide. Verwenden Sie die magischen Manschetten. Der Kompass zeigt hierher," another officer says. Lina and Eli are pulled away from each other and my heart stops. They're put down to the ground forcefully and the officers pull out cuffs that I'm sure are magic dampeners. Lina stays calm, but I can tell Eli is starting to panic.
"Stay calm," Ben tells me. How can he say that? His mother and niece are being arrested.
"Please, stop," I heard Emi tells them. I can tell she's about to have a panic attack. I look over at Ben, but he isn't doing anything.
I have to do something.
"Don't do anything," Ben warns me, but I don't listen. I can't sit here and watch as this happens.
I focus hard on the three officers, stilling my gaze on them. If I focus hard enough, I can hear their heart beats.
And then I crush them. I squeeze their hearts from inside their chests, wanting to hear that beating stop.
"No, Anne," Ben yells at me, trying to break my concentration, but I already have a goal in mind. The first cop chokes up blood and collapse to the ground. The second one tries to hold on to his heart, but it's ripped out of his chest and falls to the ground.
"Witches," the third officer screams before his heart is burned from the inside of his chest. I watch in relief that Emi and Lina are free now.
"Are you an idiot, Anne?! I told you not to do anything," Ben yells at me, snapping me out of my trance. He walks out of the closet. I walk after him angrily.
"You weren't going to do anything. Did you want me to just stand by as they took the rest of your family," I yell back at him. He turns back on his heel and grabs my shoulders.
"It was a trap! Now they know for certain that there are witches here!"