Page 43 of Against All Odds

But of course, I should’ve known she fucking was.

Chapter 19.

Seren

I was so goddamn angry, astral projection was nearly impossible. It took me multiple attempts to calm my mind properly. When I finally crossed over, I found Raya in what seemed an accurate depiction of a mind mad enough to mix alcohol, ketamine and crack cocaine.

Her dreams were even more chaotic and nonsensical than usual. One moment, I was standing in a dark hallway, a faint flickering light at the end while the walls shimmered and distorted around me. The floor rippled beneath my feet, throwing me off balance – and just as I found my footing, the whole world shifted into an endless landscape of blackened earth and dried wood, crows scraping in the distance. Strange objects floated through the purple-pink sky, from flying UFOs to tumbling cows to – you’ve got to be fucking kidding me – SpongeBob and Patrick.

“Raya!” I yelled out, fists clenching. “What the fuck is this?!”

The air in front of me flickered. Like a glitch in her intoxicated subconscious, clouds grouped together into the shape of a short girl sitting on the ground, hugging her knees. Her brown curls a mess, run-down mascara all over her face, tear-stained chestnut eyes glanced up at me. As if even her sense of self had faded until I called out to her.

“Seren.” Her eyes widened – their innocence ironic given the amount of substances in her body. The way she stumbled up was unnatural – her legs stretched out from beneath her, as if she didn’t just stand up, but her body unfolded upright. “Are you mad at me?” she asked in a small voice.

“Mad?!” The maniacal laugh that left me hardly sounded like mine as I stepped closer, red spots clouding the edge of my vision. “I want to burn down this fucking place right now, and you with it. What the fuck is wrong with you!?”

My scream echoed through the air like a shockwave, distorting the sky until it erupted into a crack of lightning that startled Raya. She flinched, hands covering her face as if trying to shelter herself from it. The cows started mooing loudly in protest, while SpongeBob and Patrick threw up their arms and started yelling in toe-curling high-pitched voices that made my hands itch to strangle them.

“Just one drink, huh?!” My voice dropped a few octaves lower as I took another step toward her. “One glass of champagne at your friend’s birthday, wasn’t that right? How the fuck did that turn into snorting ketamine in an alleyway with two shitheads who were jumping at the thought of fucking an unconscious girl!” I screamed the last words. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes.

Raya started trembling. “They didn’t—I wasn’t—”

“And snorting crack with a homeless guy who’s old enough to be your dad?!” I hated how my words echoed through the air, erupting into more lightning, and the rain that started pouring down from the now darkened purple clouds matched the tears that popped up in Raya’s eyes. “Do you want to die, is that it? Are you trying to get murdered so you can cross to the other side without having to pull the damn trigger yourself? So that you can keep on blaming others for your misery? You want the sweet mercy of death without making that conscious choice? So that people can paint your demise as a tragedy, not weakness?”

“Is that how you see me?” Her tears now flowed freely, so heavily, she struggled to speak. “So I was right then, wasn’t I? You do look down on me. You think of me as no better than your victims.”

“Well, it’s pretty hard to see anything else when the truth is right here in front of my face, isn’t it?!” My feet stomped the ground with such force, the earth split open beneath them. Raya jumped aside just in time to prevent being swallowed by it – the sight so ridiculous, it was almost poetic how my judgment of her quite literally pulled the ground out from under her feet. Worse was the realization I reveled in it. If this was how I could make her pay for her betrayal, I would break every single damn bone in her fragile body.

“All these weeks of progress.” My voice softened; the crack in it startled me as much as her. “Staying sober, focusing on your exams, getting your finances in order – for what?!” My foot shot out to a large black crystal that definitely hadn’t been there moments ago. It shattered into a thousand pieces as I kicked it into the heart-shaped purple sun, the two halves shattering in opposite directions. “To throw it all away? Can you not even survive one party without reaching for the bottle?”

“Stop,” she forced out, arms reaching out to hug her shaking body as she dropped to the ground, her misery flowing off her in waves of indigo blue – and for a moment, I almost pitied her, almost wanted to hold her.

If only she hadn’t made me feel so fucking powerless. I did not like feeling powerless – I had spent my whole damn life running from it, so I wouldn’t have to watch the people I loved burn in front of me again. And still, this bitch chose to burn.

“I have done everything I fucking could!” My breath came heavier, barely keeping the tears at bay that fought to break through. I wasn’t sure where they came from. I had not cried in twenty years – this bitch would not bring me to tears; I wouldn’t allow it. “I fixed your financial situation. I risked it all by coming to you in your fucking dreams – hell, I killed for you. Twice.” My voice broke, much to my dismay. “And this is how you repay me? By relapsing at the first fucking chance you get – and falling back into the worst of your habits at once?” My sarcastic laugh echoed through the sky and turned into that of a cartoon villain, which was gasoline on the simmering pit of rage in my chest. If she viewed me as the villain now, I would show her one. “How do you think this makes me feel?”

“How this makes you feel?” Through glistening eyes, she stared at me in disbelief. “What makes you think this is about you? Do you think I want to be like this?”

“Well, you’re not making an effort to be better, are you?” I snarled. “I fucking killed for you, Soraya, and I wanted to kill for you again. My stupid fucking power doesn’t allow me to intervene with conscious decisions, not even when you abuse your free will every chance you get. I couldn’t twist the odds of these sick fucks feeding you ketamine, or you asking random men for cocaine – but you know what I could’ve done?” I briefly paused to suck in a deep breath between words. “Make those shitheads collapse from acute organ failure. Drop a chunk of concrete onto the crackhead, breaking his neck – and I wanted to. That’s how it makes me feel when you’re putting yourself into the hands of men who want nothing good with you.” I spat out the words.

“But they didn’t put their hands on me!” she pleaded. “None of them did. I’m fine, they—”

“And you know what? Sometimes, I want to kill Rebekah, too.” I pressed my lips together into a tight line, fire now burning through me as if the flickering purple flames in the distance reawakened every emotion I’d learned to bury since I was twelve. “I want to kill her for occupying space in your mind she did not deserve. Hell, maybe I’ll even kill Kyle and his stupid girlfriend for putting you into this situation in the first place.”

“Seren, this is madness.” Raya’s eyes widened – and for the first time, she looked genuinely afraid of me. “Do you even hear yourself? You’re being insane.”

“Maybe I am.” I spread my arms in a gesture that felt more helpless than intended. I knew I was talking like a crazy person. Of course, I wouldn’t kill those people – that would be wildly impractical. But right now, I wanted to. “That’s what you do, bringing out the worst in me. You’ve turned me into a murderer, and for what?” I scoffed. “I can’t save your damn soul if you’re so set on throwing it to the flames.”

One of the purple solar flares in the distance lit up dangerously, heat rippling through the air toward us. I ducked out of instinct.

I clenched my teeth. “I fucking hate fire.”

“Oh-ooh!” SpongeBob’s laugh cracked through the air as he pointed his yellow finger toward me. “Someone’s scared of a little fire!”

My eyes narrowed. “Bazooka. Now.”

Raya frowned. “Where are you seeing a—”