Snippet #2613554

By this point, Pell’s fingers were rigid. The knuckles had gone all but white as she held tightly onto the fabric of Rowe’s shirt. All that was left in wake of the fire she inducted was the heat of New Orleans. And Myrtle Snow’s stare. Men in suits formed a half moon a short distance away, like, they were some sort of human wall or something. All of her classmates had gathered on the front lawn. Except for Greyson. But could Pell blame her? She shook her head, feet edged together, closer to Rowe’s. With weak faith, the Laveau girl tried to reinforce herself. Beside her Rowe was resilient, maybe only a twitch of real fear showing in the muscle movement of his face.

The Supreme stood off to the side. She was quiet, and Pell hoped it was part of a facade or plan. The woman was magnificently irrepressible. Cordelia came to her side, with a frown of concern and worry inscribing itself into her mouth. She rasped, “You can’t possibly be thinking of burning these students at the stake. They haven’t even learned how to properly harness their powers or, or even ward off the likes of voodoo, Legba, or have anything to do with murder. Ms. Snow, please, reason with us…” A nervous hand fluttered to Cordelia’s chest. Her mother still said nothing, standing beside her in a steel sort of way. “Silence, Cordelia. I may hold you like blood but I do not take Laveau’s, or their ancestry lightly. It is even astounding to me that you allowed not one, but two to be enrolled here. Where is this other one, Jacqueline?” The head of Council had spoken. Cordelia squeaked in surrender as she grasped a rung on the fence of Robichaux. A squad car rolled right up next to it. Pell glanced at the officer in the vehicle, quirking a brow.

Noting that the greenhouse had survived, a twinge of guilt rushed through Pell. Poor Kyle. How difficult it must have been for him. To witness all that, to not fully fathom it, or how to fix it. And Pell made it worse by screaming for him like an uncontrollable toddler, and using his safe place as an escape from punishment. She wished she could apologize.

No sooner than the academy and its visitors looked away from Pell and Rowe were they gone. Seemingly into thin air. They manifested again sloppily a few blocks from the academy, somehow hand in hand. It was almost like the universe had chewed them up and spit them back out. Fiona was behind it for sure. No one else at the academy had that type of ability. And with all the chaos going on, she probably had a hard time masking what she was up to, hence why they didn’t get very far. New Orleans was quiet, with only the hints of crickets and spinning wheels in the air. Pell released Rowe, finally.

The wind chilled her to the bone. Catching her breath, she started peeling off her black lace top. They had only just narrowly escaped death, and to continue to avoid it, it would do them well not to make spectacles of themselves. Even if she revealed some skin, it was better than toting each other, adorned in all black, traipsing the streets at an outlandish hour. She was left to the thin fabric of an ebony bra and taut stomach muscles. For a minute, she doubled over, sure she would vomit. Rowe reminded her that they needed to get going, but she didn’t move. She planted herself and tried to breathe through the nausea.

What else was she going to survive?

When she rose to her full height again, she looked at him without words, and continued toward the darker end of the street. She proceeded to the margin of the block before turning to face him, her eyes dark and her face wan, “I’m not going to waste what time we have left in our lives being angry, especially at you. But if there’s something I want to say, it’s this…” Huffing, she pulled her hair into her hands, “Whatever you did to me, whatever you planned… It brought Legba to me. Do you know he was promised my soul? That man - thing, entity… He wants what was promised to him. Aside from nearly killing me, giving me a fucking aneurysm, you almost gave me away to some black magic, purgatory deity. I don’t think you know what that felt like, Rowe. You might have seen some shit. You may have killed other people, for all I know. But don’t look at me with an ounce of sympathy like you understand what you’ve done. What you’ve done to me.” She tied her hair and continued walking at a brisk pace, throwing the topic to a metaphorical open window.

“And now that we’re both fucked, we might as well work together. We need to get at least a couple hundred miles away. Neither of us are dying. Neither of us are going to burn."