What did they mean? I knew who I was, didn't I? I was Rosalia Mallory, a girl left on the doorstep of our town's foster agency to find a new home. From there I went through three homes before at the age of 16 instead of having to live in the group h...
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Many Months Earlier
Hunter's POV:
After finding that Rosa was missing I must have searched the whole mansion top to bottom several times over by the time Eris and the others get back, their lighthearted shouts breaking the oppressive silence I'd been trapped in since realising that she was gone.
And she was. She was gone.
Despair tries to swamp me and I fight hard to push back against it, slipping out of the bloodstained scene of Rosa's abduction into the room where Chalice was still lain still on the couch under a thick blanket, her golden hair spilling over the dark colour like trapped sunlight or molten gold. She coughs when I enter and I approach her carefully seeing her emerald eyes open in a startled blink. "H-Hunter?" Her voice is lilting and soft but at the moment it sounds too much like my Rosa's and it makes me feel even worse. Worse that the last words we exchanged were in anger. "Hunter?" Chalice calls again, her voice sounding stronger and I move into her line of sight. "Wha-what happened?" She asks when I remain mute.
Seconds later she must have smelt all the blood that's still painted across the corridor and decorating various areas of the kitchen. Her eyes widen as she recognises the distinctive Ambra scent that's familiar to her of being that of her best friend. She looks at me with wide, fear-filled eyes as if begging me to tell her she's wrong in her assumptions but my silence just confirms her fears and she gives a low, animalistic moan.
Shortly after that, I slip out of the room, leaving Chalice with her knees drawn into her chest as she stared blankly out of the windows at the rising and setting sun as if willing it to bring Rosa back. Unlike her, I can't hold such false, futile notions about the lives of my brother and Rosa. I needed to find them. I need them. I need her. Moving out of the room I close the door behind me to come face to face with a shocked coven of witches who are all staring at the bloody trails and handprints in the hallway and kitchen areas. "What happened?" Ianira asks, looking at me with terrified eyes. Next to her, I see Rachael and Mara standing on either side of Eris who's golden gaze is fixated on me with a blinding intensity that makes me shiver internally by the magic behind it. What happened? She mouths at me and I shake my head, indicating to the others.
She seems to get my attention and corrals people into the sitting area where Chalice is still looking blankly at the window until we all file in which causes her to tear her eyes away from the window towards us. "Alright, out with it H," Eris says, silencing the mutterings of the whole room with those few words. "What happened and why do you look like you've seen a ghost?"
"R-R-Rosa," I choke out, pain lancing through me from her through the Bond - something I appeared to still be able to access. "She...she was injured and then she just....she just vanished." Fear and worry make me slur my speech but I know Eris and the others can still understand. "She said Heidi was there but I didn't believe her, thinking she was still just against her for no reason." I sigh, stiffening when the scents of something sweet rotting combined with the rotten, cloying scent of over perfumed lilies. Heidi. I think to myself, mildly surprised to feel the venom in my tone. But then I feel the scent of evergreen conifers mixed with melted wax and I knew who she was with. Angel. I think, seeing the two arrive in the room.
