Nanowrimo Bits - 11/16/19 (Patreon)

A snippet from today's Nanowrimo. I'm really proud of this one --

She ran towards them, fist pulled back and ready to strike. But her fist never made contact. In fact, she never reached them at all.

She froze midstride, held suspended in time as her muscles contracted painfully and shook. Flannery gasped in shock, feeling the burning, caustic smoke of William and Jacob’s magical essence surround her and, as she inhaled, fill her lungs. 

“Ah! Isn’t this wonderful, William,” Jacob said, his voice filled with a childish, greedy delight. “Our magic has grown so strong in such a short period of time. It seems Miss Hood here cannot fight us alone. How delightful.”

“Flannery!” Elwood shouted, jumping up from the bench so hard Flannery thought she felt the ground shake. “The hell did you bastards do?”

“We are simply defending ourselves from assault, my dear Woodsman,” Jacob explained coolly, slowly circling Flannery. His smile was wide, pulling at his cheeks in an almost grotesque way. “It is not the first time Little Red has tried to strike me. She’s such a violent little delinquent. Isn’t she, William?” 

“Indeed she is, Jacob,” William agreed, reaching out to take a few strands of Flannery’s hair in between his thumb and forefinger. “A shame, isn’t it, that such a lovely young woman would have such a ugly side to her.” 

“How right you are, William.” 

Flannery felt a frozen panic grip her heart as Jacob stepped out of her peripheral vision. She was totally frozen, unable to move any of her limbs. She couldn’t even breathe properly. Even her vocal chords were petrified. She wanted to scream, to cry for help, but all she could do was stand there and breathe. And she could only just barely do that. 

“Let her go,” Elwood ordered, a warning edge to his words. Flannery couldn’t see him either. 

“In time,” Jacob promised, continuing his predatory circle around Flannery.

“Let her go, now,” Elwood repeated, sounding far less like a warning and more like a threat.

“I don’t think you’re really in any position to be giving orders,” William said, and Flannery couldn’t help but be terrified by how much it sounded like he was enjoying this. 

Flannery wanted to close her eyes, to try and pull herself together and focus, but the brother’s magic wouldn’t even let her do that. It felt, Flannery realized, like sleep paralysis. How fitting, she thought in her panicked state, that something that was supposedly the work of witches would be how the brother’s manifested their control over her. She’d dealt with this before – not often, but enough to remember how she’d handled it. Supposedly, when this actually happened, you were supposed to just go back to sleep. But Flannery, possibly very stupidly, had always just forced movement into her limbs.

So that’s what she was going to do now. She pulled focus into herself. She called on that little girl in the red hood deep in her soul, and asked her to be brave. Asked her to help, because there were predators scarier than the Wolf in these woods, and Flannery didn’t know the path out. Could she, this brave little good in a red hood, be brave and help her find her way back to Granny’s house?

For the first time, Flannery focused on the feeling of her own aura. It was warm, like a crackling hearth, and billowed about her like a cloak protecting her from the wind. She could almost see, at the edge of her vision, a brilliant crimson hood of fire. The bracelets around her writs jingled as the clinked together, reacting to the movement of her aura. The red hood of her jacket billowed behind her. She could feel the eyes of Jacob and Elwood on her. She stared into William’s eyes, watching his face transform from smug, predatory bastard to frightened, confused bully who was about to get a heaping helping of karma. 

The breakthrough was sudden and unexpected, launching Flannery the rest of the way forward like a bullet from the barrel of a gun. Her fist collided with William’s nose with more force than she thought was possible, knocking the tall, lanky man prone. Flannery stumbled two steps forward, her foot landing on William’s hand with a sickening cracking-crunch sound. William howled in pain as Flannery jumped back, horrified. 

“I’m sorry!” she shouted. “I didn’t mean to, I swear!”

“You bitch!” William shrieked, pushing himself up on the hand that didn’t have and broken fingers. Flannery shuddered as his eyes met hers. 

He looked absolutely feral.

Jacob, on the other hand, seemed unperturbed with his brother’s injuries. No, something else set him screeching.

“How did you break the spell?!” he demanded, stalking up to Flannery and grabbing her arm. “Both of us were casting it on you! You shouldn’t have been able to break free on your own!” 

“Bitch, don’t you think if you two were getting strong, so was everyone else?!” Flannery shouted back, completely making up the excuse. She had no idea how she was able to do it. She just knew she had to try. 

“Jacob! Let me hurt her!” William growled, blood pouring down his nose. Flannery looked at her right hand, seeing a few speckles of blood covering her knuckles. Oh yeah, that had to be broken. 

“Not yet, William!” Jacob snapped. His eyes darted between her and his brother, clearly trying to formulate some plan of action. Dread sunk deep in Flannery’s gut at those words. 

He didn’t say ‘no’. He didn’t say ‘we can’t’ or ‘you shouldn’t’. 

‘Not yet’. The words echoed in Flannery’s mind. Not now, but at some point, Jacob was going to let his brother off the tight leash he clearly kept him on. 

That frightened Flannery than any Wolf could. 

“Let go of me,” Flannery ordered. 

Jacob said nothing, still trying to come up with some kind of plan but clearly distracted by his brother’s wild, animalistic calls for revenge. 

“Let go of me,” Flannery said again, her voice forged steel. “I won’t say it again.” 

Jacob smirked, but it was unconvincing. “You act like you can make me.” 

Flannery pulled at her magic again, wrapping herself in its flaming cloak. Her hair and hood fluttered in the warm, sourceless wind it kicked up. “I can.” 

She could see him wavering. She pulled sharply against his grip, breaking it easily. She could tell he’d hung on tightly, but with his fear taking hold, his magic wouldn’t supplement his meager strength like it might have otherwise. 

“I told you to never touch me again,” she warned him. 

He laughed, nervous. “So?”

Flannery’s hand clenched into fists, her bracelets sounding like bells as they clinked against each other. “So I’m gonna fucking punch you again, you obstinate douchebag.”

Jacob opened his mouth, so Flannery aimed for that. She laid him out cold, surprised by her own strength. Stepping back, she took several deep, calming breaths even as William spat obscenities and threats at her. She felt the heat of her aura fade, leaving behind the strange, lingering feeling of a tiny hand in hers. 

“Let’s go, Elwood.”