Someone in the crowd screamed as Bridgette’s body went limp against the tree trunk.
“Oh, God. She’s dead!”
A couple of people rushed forward to help Bridgette and the hands holding me vanished. Then everything kind of happened at once.
The people holding Alina let her go and almost everyone turned toward Felicity. They fired angry questions at her.
“What have you done?”
“How could you do this?”
“We were only supposed to get a confession.”
“We can’t tell if anything she says is a lie now because she just killed Bridgette.”
Felicity glared at them. “Stay back! She killed Emily. I know she did. Bridgette was wrong. They were lying.”
A younger girl with skeleton makeup on her face stepped forward. “Bridgette is never wrong. Ever!”
A few people called out to the girls that tried to heal Bridgette. They were walking away from the tree with tears in their eyes.
One of the girls wiped her eyes. “We tried to heal her, but she was too far gone. It was like the dark magic cooked her from the inside.”
Someone in the crowd said, “Oh, I’m gonna be sick.”
The blonde girl pointed a long, manicured finger at Felicity and shouted, “Murderer!”
More people shouted the word, then everyone surged forward, attacking and subduing Felicity.
In amongst the chaos, a guy held up his hands frantically. “Stop! Don’t kill her! We need her alive so she can face justice.”
“Yes! Call the cops!”
There were a lot of shouts of agreement from the crowd.
The blonde girl looked down at Felicity with disdain as they kept her pinned to the ground. “You told us that Maddie had killed Emily and that you were just going to have us hold her till she confessed, but you went crazy, throwing dark magic around and setting the bush alight. You’ve killed Bridgette and almost killed Jason. For all we know, you probably killed Emily yourself. We’re gonna hand you over to the Guild so you can rot in prison.”
“No! I’m telling the truth! She did it!”
More people came out of the bush and demanded to know what was going on and the blonde explained what had gone down. There was shock and anger from the newcomers. Blake pushed through the mass of bodies and took me into his arms and I fell into his embrace.
“Are you okay?” His voice vibrated through his chest against my ear. “I came as soon as I could. There was a group of girls keeping us away from the fight and then they started a huge bushfire. We tried to contain it before it got more out of control, but in the end, it turned out to be just an illusion to keep us busy.”
Marco appeared out of the crowd. “The cops are on their way.” He turned to Felicity. “What the fuck is wrong with you? First you use dark magic and fuck up your face, then you fight with Emily, then she goes missing and you blame Maddie. And then you lose your shit and start blasting anyone that moves.” He sighed heavily. “You’re going down for this. There’s no way I’m protecting you this time. And as for your stupid friends, I’m reporting every single one of them. I hope the Guild locks you up and throws away the key.”
Felicity glared at me, then looked at Marco. “I haven’t done anything to Emily. That thing the other day was because she was laughing at me for having to use a glamour all the time. I swear I haven’t touched her.”
“That thing the other day was a total disaster. You messed up her room and turned her hair dryer into a charred piece of plastic.”
“I was just angry. I haven’t touched her.”
“We’ll let the cops decide.”
“Maddie did something to her. I know it.”
I didn’t react this time. There was no point.
As we waited, I saw a few shadowy figures wandering between the trees and averted my eyes. That was the last thing I needed.
Eventually, we heard the sound of the engines and then the police showed up. I felt a little better when I saw that Parkinson and Martin were among them.
Alina and I stood back away from everyone as the others told them what had happened back at the camp. I figured the police would take a while to get to us for our side of the story and wasn’t looking forward to it.
“Please.”
I jumped and turned around. The ghost of the burnt guy was right in front of me and it was a struggle not to scream again.
“Please help me. You’re the only one who can see me. I need your help.”
Guilt stabbed me in the gut. After a quick glance around, I walked slowly toward a large tree and he followed. “I… I don’t know what I could do for you,” I whispered.
The guilt built up inside me. I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that someone had been caught up in a fire because of our fighting. At least he seemed to know he was dead.
He stopped in front of me again, too close to be comfortable. “I need to show you where I’m buried.”
“Wait – what? Buried?”
“Yes. It’s a shallow grave over this way. It’s all a bit fuzzy, but I do remember that I was kidnapped and tortured…” He swallowed. Took a breath. “And then they burned me alive.”
“Oh, my God, who did this to you?”
“I don’t know who they were. They covered their faces. I can take you to where they buried me. Come.”
He turned to go, but Alina was staring at me. “Wait a minute.” I waved her over and I told her what the ghost had told me. “We need to find the grave, then we can tell the police.”
She nodded and glanced back at the crowd. No one was paying any attention to us. We crept off into the bush before they noticed and tried to stop us.
Because my injuries weren’t completely healed, I had trouble keeping up. I could see that Alina was lagging behind too, but we kept going. I was a bit wary of the way he was leading us into the bush. Last time I’d followed a ghost that I thought needed help, he just yelled at me and disappeared, leaving me open to attack by those two guys that drained my magic.
I wished I could stop and rest. My head throbbed mercilessly and the pain from my ribs had me on the brink of collapsing. Nausea threatened to overwhelm me.
“Here!” he called from ahead of us. “Right here!”
He was standing at the edge of a small clearing with a freshly-turned mound of dirt at its centre and it hit me that his dead body was right there under the ground. That brought up memories of Sophie’s bloated body and I gagged. I had to catch my breath, so I bent forward and put my hands on my thighs, which only hurt my ribs, so I stood upright again.
“Oh,” Alina said. “He really did take us to his grave, didn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIbyiYJZ1Ep
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───
Author's Note: I’d like to thank you for reading and giving me feedback on this first draft of Fire and Magic. You are helping to create a book from my imagination. Your comments and questions are very welcome.
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgRLMfaFqqM
