Chapter 31: Witch's Wrath

Silvana tried calling her father to no avail.

She sped down the roads towards Bruce’s house, and she noticed police officers and a fire truck slowing down the traffic as they cleaned the highway of glass and torn plastic from a car nowhere to be seen.

“Must’ve been an accident,” Silvana thought to herself.

She rubbernecked and saw the tire tracks leading into the ravine.

“What a way to go,” she mumbled, shaking her head, hoping that anybody involved in the crash was alright. It hit her deeply that no matter how much magic she learned, she would never be able to save and protect everybody around her, and tragedy would befall even the most innocent and pure of people.

Then she snapped her head forward and saw that the car ahead of her was much closer than she had thought, and she stomped her foot on the brakes, just narrowly avoiding rear-ending the red car in front of her.

Her hair bobbed in front of her eyes and stuck to her sweaty forehead, and cars behind her all honked their horns at her recklessness.

She took a deep breath, suddenly focused completely on the road again.

After peeling off the highway and making for the road Bruce lived on, she tried her father once more.

But it didn’t even ring, as if his phone had died.

Silvana parked in Bruce’s driveway and heard repeated, meaty thwacks, and her mind immediately skipped to Bruce tearing into her father, filled with the same rage he had been consumed by when Bruce nearly slashed Solaris up during the evening of the full moon.

Although, she knew Bruce would never do something like that because he was in control.

At least, she hoped so.

“No, he never would,” she thought to herself.

Silvana ran around the side of the garage and saw that Bruce’s truck was missing. Where he usually kept it parked was a gigantic trail of parts and oil and destroyed trees.

Then, the thwack, thwack, thwack.

Silvana winced with each sound and thought about the more likely scenario, her father somehow on top of Bruce with all his magic and might, pulling him to bits to try and revive some old forbidden spell she didn’t even understand.

Silvana gripped the side of the garage as she turned the corner and gasped so hard she nearly fell over.

Bruce and Kurt were both shirtless in jeans and boots.

The thwacks were coming from Bruce, who was delivering blow after blow to a heavy punching bag hanging from a rusty metal frame. Kurt was behind the bag, trying to keep it stable as Bruce jabbed and crossed and pounded his fists until his knuckles bled.

“I’m glad that old fucker is done with,” Bruce said through athletic breaths, quick and paced so he could continue punching. “He’d become such a problem.”

Silvana quietly stalked forward, her mouth quivering.

“Yeah man,” Kurt said, sweat lining his blown-back, cider-colored hair. “He seemed like a real dickhead.”

“Who?” Silvana asked loudly, over the sounds of the bag taking a beating. “My father?”

“Silvana,” Bruce said, holding a hand so the swinging bag stopped in its place and didn’t swing back and hit him. “I’m sorry, it’s only that--”

Silvana arced her head, observing every little detail on Bruce’s face, trying to determine how truthful he would be in this moment. “And what do you mean that my dad is ‘done with?’”

“Hey” Kurt said, sticking his hands up like he was calming a wild animal, “Your father came to us.”

“I know that,” Silvana said angrily. A windy chill struck them all, and the afternoon sun was beginning to set, staining the sky a bloodshot pink.

She held her phone up and shouted, “He was coming here and now he’s not answering my calls!”

Bruce took several steps forward. “Babe, listen, this isn’t what it looks like.”

“And what’s it look like, Bruce?”

“We didn’t hurt your father,” Bruce affirmed, his tone considerate and loving.

And suddenly Kurt lost his charm when he bluntly said, “But you know we’d have every reason to.”

Silvana scoffed in disgust and Bruce punched Kurt’s shoulder.

“What’s the matter with you?” Bruce asked his brother. “She’s afraid.”

Kurt’s mouth hung open and he pointed at Silvana. “That doesn’t look like fear to me, bro.”

He gulped and said, “That looks like a witch’s wrath.”

Silvana was clenching fists by her waist hard enough to make her palms trickle with blood, and her eyes glowed a fierce and intense pink, even stronger than when she had released the restraints off Bruce.

The chill got colder, making even the shirtless werewolf brothers shiver, and the dirt around Silvana started to stir.

The rusted chain holding the punching bag up started to shake and rattle.

“Silvana please,” Bruce said, “your father came here to ask me to protect you.”

Whatever had been giving Silvana her strength was now distorting her thoughts, making her doubt everybody and everyone in her life.

In this moment, she knew the only person she could trust was herself, for even these two menacing men feared what she was capable of when she reached her full potential.

Silvana slashed a hand upwards, and the garage door crumpled into a tiny ball of metal by Bruce and Kurt’s feet. It was as though whatever powerful magic was strengthening her was also casting cynicism and doubt throughout every corner of her mind, and she felt entirely the opposite of who she was.

“And how am I supposed to know that you’re not taking up some kind of revenge,” she shouted. She pulled her outstretched hand toward her chest, and a lawnmower, a tool box, and rakes and shovels hovered from inside the garage and then flew towards Bruce and Kurt.

The brothers ducked, and the sharp tools speared into the side of the house, sticking out like daggers planted in skin.

Silvana wasn’t herself.

“What does she mean revenge?” Kurt asked. “Revenge for what?”

Bruce was on the spot and didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t want to out Silvana’s father as the man who captured him, but he didn’t want Silvana to hurt him or his brother either.

Silvana was nasty when she screeched, “You didn’t even tell your brother where you’ve been!?”

Kurt shot a confused look at Bruce and asked, “But you did tell me where you were? You said you were with our aunt.”

Shockwaves of pink lightning emerged from Silvana’s body when she hollered, “Liar!”

The lightning danced on the ground and caused a tremor that knocked Bruce and Kurt off their feet. The punching bag swayed and toppled over, and Bruce rolled out of the way before he was crushed by it.

Bruce sniffed the air, got to his feet, and said, “Listen to me, Silvana, you’re not yourself right now. You’ve got every reason to be angry. But I’ve still got your father’s scent, and I’ll find him just to show you that I didn’t hurt him.”

Bruce’s voice was so tender and affectionate that it snapped Silvana out of her magic-induced rage.

She shut her eyes and held back the urge to throw up, then covered a hand to her mouth and whispered, “Oh my god, what did I just do?”

“It’s okay,” Bruce assured. “It’s okay, I’m here.”

Silvana glared at him, then brushed hair out from her eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. Her nose bled and her head pounded worse than the scotch hangover.

She dabbed the blood away and said, “I don’t know what happened.”

“Babe, please,” Bruce said, stepping forward. “You’re okay now. It’s me. You’re alright.”

But Silvana was fighting to control her breaths, and in so much pain she could barely see straight.

She didn’t want to be close to anybody because she felt so far from herself.

“I need to go,” Silvana said, and scampered off.

Bruce went to chase after her but Kurt pulled Bruce’s arm back.

“Bro, let her go,” Kurt said. “Give her some time to get her bearings before you run after her.”

“I promised to protect her,” Bruce said firmly.

Kurt nudged his head at the shovels embedded into the side of the house. “Not sure she needs it right now.”

Bruce shook his head and formed a fist. “Maybe you’re right.”

He turned to Kurt and asked, “Will you watch the house? Whatever’s happening right now, I think it’s best I’ve got somebody I can trust standing guard of our home. I’ll go see if I can track Solaris and sort this whole thing out.”

Kurt winked and smiled, “I got the place on lockdown.”

Kurt handed Bruce the keys to his car and said, “Take mine, since your truck is toast.”

He laughed and added, “Hopefully you’ll even fit in it, Brucie.”

Bruce let out a small laugh.

“I appreciate this,” he told Kurt.

Bruce opened the window while he drove slowly, tracing Solaris’s scent. He pulled over on the side of the highway, smelling Solaris’s sweat soaked into the leather steering wheel of the vehicle he’d driven to Bruce’s house.

Bruce parked and set out on foot, climbing down the ravine. He noticed shards of glass on the concrete of the highway and tire tracks leading to a huge dented tree.

Then Bruce picked up the scent of blood.

He turned around and saw a black figure rush through the forest, too fast to identify its height or size.

Bruce narrowed his focus and kept moving, ready to transform at any moment should the figure attack.

He was brought to a halt by another familiar scent, hidden by dirt and moss.

It was the scent of blood like his-- blood from a Silverclaw werewolf mixed with Solaris’s.

Bruce knelt down and pushed aside dirt and branches to find dried blood on the cold ground.

And beside the blood, a gory severed, ringed finger that had been pointed at his face no more than an hour ago by the father of his worried lover.

What the hell would he tell Silvana now?