Blood Red Roses

ZAYDA

I felt so comfortable…

As if I was sleeping on a bed of roses.

I had a pillow of cloud beneath my head.

And my lover was on the bed beside me.

~Xythor.~

~My one and only.~

~He was alive again. I could just feel his presence beside me, which made me feel safe and sleepy.~

~And on my chest, I had our little bundle of love…~

~In my blissful and dreamlike state, I gazed down lovingly at the baby.~

~He batted gently at my breast with his little hand. He was almost like a tiny animal.~

~He began to cry.~

~I knew what this meant. My baby was hungry.~

~I noticed my swollen breasts. What a wonder that so many women have fed their children like this since the beginning of time. They didn’t even complain from being sucked dry.~

~I, too, now bore the supreme duty and responsibility of raising a life.~

~The mothers’ duty was also mine.~

~Dreamily, I lifted my baby up to nurse.~

~He clawed at me with his tiny fingernails and latched onto my nipple with his sucking mouth.~

~Sharp pain pulled me from my philosophical thoughts.~

~Was this pain normal? My baby clawing and biting me like some animal?~

~I looked down to see my baby staring up at me. His eyes were red and burned with a strange fire…~

~I screamed out of fear. Had I given birth to a monster?~

~Xythor tried to comfort me.~

~“Zayda!” he said.~

~“Zayda!”~

“Zayda!”

I wrenched open my eyes.

“Zayda!” Maddie screamed.

“Oh!” I cried. I realized I wasn’t sleeping in a bed of roses.

I was lying in a pool of blood.

And I had just had my most fucked-up vision so far.

Not that it was much worse than the real world. After all, I was covered in blood.

It slicked my hands, soaked my shirt, and drenched me through to my underwear.

Maddie had it on her, too. Red splattered her face, probably from the effort it had taken to wake me up.

I struggled to my feet on the slippery, blood-soaked floor.

“Let’s get out of here,” Maddie cried.

And then we took off running.

My body ran on animal instinct. The blood terrified me. The sheer quantity of it was repulsive. The way the puddle grew so quickly and unpredictably felt almost…evil.

The rock was like the grave of a huge, dead animal.

The blood squelched beneath my sneakers as we ran out of the chapel.

A huge crowd had gathered, whispering among themselves. Nobody tried to help us or see if the blood had injured us.

No. They were glaring. Gossiping. Plotting.

As Maddie and I ran off campus, the image of the students’ cruel faces burned in my mind. I knew what they were thinking.

They hated us. They wanted us to burn.

They were angry and frightened that we’d escaped from the blood unscathed.

The students of XU were used to magic. But when they looked at us, they saw something different. Something dark. Perhaps even evil.

And maybe they were right.

“Let’s go to mine,” I said, leading Maddie down the sidewalk.

Though Maddie and I hadn’t exactly left things on good terms, none of that mattered now.

“Thank you for waking me up.” I met her eyes and gave her a little smile. Maddie sighed and shook her head, letting out a small laugh.

We were okay now. Even if Maddie and I were oil and water, fate kept making sure we stayed friends.

People stared at us on the street. I crossed my arms over my chest, as if that could help to hide the fact that I was drenched in blood.

“Should we just run there?” Maddie asked.

“Definitely,” I replied with a laugh.

“Last one there’s a rotten egg!” shouted Maddie, taking off like a rocket. We raced all the way to my apartment. When we arrived, there was no way to keep blood off the floor.

No one else was home, so we stripped and threw our clothes directly in the trash. There was no saving them.

We didn’t even need to ask whether we would shower together. We both just needed to get clean as soon as possible.

Maddie and I piled into my shower, and I slid closed the glass door.

I twisted the faucet, and the water came.

It was cold at first, but it felt blissfully good. I pulled Maddie toward me, toward the stream. I watched blood rinse off our arms.

It felt like a baptism.

But the ceremony was tainted by the confusion of what had happened. The anxiety of what our futures held.

And, as we smiled at each other under the falling water, our gaze was charged with love and gratitude.

We were both thankful not to be alone.

MADDIE

I plopped down on Zayda’s couch and sank into it like sand.

Finally, after the shower water had stopped running red, and we’d cleaned up all the blood and taken the bag of clothes to the trash, the whole thing was over.

Zayda handed me a mug of tea and sat down at the other end of the couch. I pulled up my knees so that my feet were on the cushion, and my back leaned against the arm.

“What a day,” I sighed.

Zayda held her mug and breathed in the steam.

“You know people get burned by the blood, right?” she asked.

~Okay. She wants to get right into it.~

I nodded.

“I just don’t understand it,” she went on. “One minute I was standing, and the next I was—having that vision…”

“What were you doing at XU?” I asked bluntly. I knew I shouldn’t have been short with Zayda, but I’d just pulled her out of a pool of blood.

“What were ~you~ doing there?” she shot back.

“I was there to find out about my mother,” I answered through gritted teeth.

“Well, did you?”

“No. I have to do something for Xander first.”

Zayda waited for me to elaborate. I didn’t.

“What do you have to do?” she touched her forehead, frustrated. “You know what, Maddie? This is only going to work if we’re totally open with each other. We have a lot of shit to figure out, and maybe together we can actually do it.”

I considered this and then sighed. “Fine. But you go first.”

Zayda nodded and looked into her mug.

“Well, you know how I have visions of the future?”

I nodded.

“I think my visions have become more intense since the rock started bleeding. I want to know if you feel that way too.”

She paused as if she were organizing her thoughts.

It was an interesting idea. And it rang true for me too.

“Earlier today,” Zayda continued. She leaned toward me, like that would help us to connect. “I had a vision that I was nursing a baby…”

She dropped her head, starting to cry.

“That’s sweet, Z,” I said, trying to comfort her.

She looked up at me with bloodshot eyes.

“It’s not really sweet. I’m pregnant, Maddie.”

I felt the blood drain from my face.

“With Xythor’s—?”

Zayda nodded.

“Oh my God! Will you keep it?” I asked.

“Of course I’m fucking keeping it,” Zayda responded. “It’s the last piece I have of Xythor.”

“Right. I’m sorry.” I shook my head. Why did I have to be so insensitive?

“It’s okay. It’s just…stressful, you know? Because in my vision, this baby wasn’t totally human…”

I held my breath as my mind raced. The only other Blood Mage I knew who had borne a dragon’s baby was Freesia…

And we all knew what had happened to that one.

“It will be okay, Z,” I comforted her, reaching to touch her knee. Of course, I didn’t know for sure.

“Well, I have hope. Which leads me to the other thing I have to tell you.”

Zayda swallowed. She looked like she was about to be sick.

“I’m bringing Xythor back,” she said.

~“What?!”~

What the hell did that mean?

“I’m bringing him back from the dead. Xander said he would help me, so—”

“Oh, so ~this~ is why you’re working with Xander!”

I shook my head. Zayda was in mourning. She wasn’t thinking straight. But how could she be so fucking ~stupid?~

“And what do you have to do for him in return?” I asked. I knew my voice was sharp as a blade, but I didn’t care. I wanted to cut.

“He takes my blood,” Zayda whispered. “It’s so he can revive Xythor’s body.”

That was enough. I couldn’t believe that Zayda had agreed to give her ~blood~ to that disgusting degenerate. He was lower than a worm.

I stood up, accidentally knocking over my tea in the process.

“Are you a fucking idiot, Zayda? You think this is going to work?!”

“In my visions—”

“Fuck your visions!” I shouted. “No wonder you’re passing out all the time. Who knows what that two-faced bastard is ~really~ doing with your blood? You could be putting other people in danger, Zayda. But you’re too selfish to think of anyone but yourself.”

Zayda was quiet. Once again, I knew I was near the point of no return.

“Maybe you’re forgetting, Maddie,” Zayda hissed, “but you’re working with Xander ~too.~”

“Oh, fuck off!” I shrieked.

That was different. ~So~ different. And for Zayda to attack me when she was gambling with her life…

“Zayda, I can’t do this. I can’t handle your ~fucking~ drama; I don’t want anything to do with it anymore.”

My friend’s face crumpled before my eyes, but I didn’t care.

“Maybe you’re the next Freesia, or maybe I am,” I said in a low voice, “but we’re each going to have to figure it out alone.”

Zayda started to cry, but I didn’t wait around. I stormed out of her apartment and out into the evening.

Alone in the street, I knew I’d said my piece. But it didn’t make me feel any better at all.