Free Heven & Hell Anthology (Heven and Hell) by Cambria Hebert Page A

your powers. I’ll help them grow. Each day you’ll grow stronger.”
     
    Right. A potion to turn me into a witch. This woman was from crazy town. “Okay, drink potion every day, get the paper from Heven and give it back to you. Got it.”
     
    The woman held out her hand, extending the “potion” to me, and I took it. It was time for her and her special brand of crazy to get out. “Thank you.”
     
    I sat the bottle beside my bed and when I turned back, the woman was muttering beneath her breath… not really muttering, but chanting.
     
    Awaken what slumbers, bring dark to light
     
    Bring power to those in my sight.
     
    As she spoke the hairs on my arms began to stand.
     
    Break the binds, tie anew
     
    To darkness thou stays true.
     
    I felt as if there were a box inside of me, a box I hadn’t realized had been there, and it suddenly opened. From the inside of the box, a strange sensation seemed to flow forth and spread through my chest to my limbs and climb up my neck. It felt as if something thick and warm coated my insides.
     
    Everything around me grew dark until it was just me, standing alone, outside with my feet in the dirt. Something thin but strong began to wrap itself around my legs and move upward.
     
    Vines? I looked down and shrieked. They were vines, but they weren’t the bright green ones that grew in the sun. These were black and dry looking—I knew that these plants had never seen the sun.
     
    Just as I was about to panic, to fear I would be overcome with these weird, dark chains, they soaked right into my skin, disappearing.
     
    I felt renewed, stronger somehow…
     
    I felt powerful.
     
    “It is done,” the woman said, her voice low and full of authority. It was strangely hypnotizing.
     
    I shook myself, opening my eyes to see I was still in the comfort of my room. “What is?”
     
    “I’ll be accompanying your class to Italy in disguise. We have a deal. I’ll be watching.”
     
    I didn’t say anything else. She was totally creeping me out. When she was gone (about time), I stood in my room for a few long moments before shaking myself and going down to the kitchen, heading for the fancy espresso machine Daddy had installed last year. I grabbed my favorite mug (my name was engraved on it), and with a press of a few buttons, a perfectly created latté began to brew and pour into my cup.
     
    While it brewed I stood there and thought about what just happened. That woman hadn’t even told me her name. It was just as well, I wasn’t about to drink some weird potion she claimed would give me powers. She was probably some whack-job drug dealer who thought she could give me a sample of something and then I would want more and more, which she would then charge me for. She was probably just someone who was hoping to take advantage of someone with money. How unfortunate for her I wasn’t that gullible.
     
    When I reached for my completed latté, I was suddenly assaulted with images, stark, clear images that played behind my eyes like a movie.
     
    Cole and Heven. Heven and Cole. He had backed her up against the wall and her face was upturned, her blond hair tickling her shoulders. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and all the muscles in his arms stood out as if he was fighting against himself not to touch her, not to be even closer to her than he already was. His face pointed down, meeting hers halfway, and her eyes were closed. I wanted to cry out when his lips captured hers, his arms going around her like vices, not letting go. He lifted his face, just a fraction above hers, and he smiled.
     
    “Cole,” she whispered, before pulling him back down.
     
    I sank to the floor, not bothering to wipe the tears that fell, one after another, over and over again.
     
    I felt completely and utterly alone. Betrayed by the two people I trusted most.
     
    I don’t know how long I sat there and cried. I replayed the images again and again in my mind. I remembered the way Heven looked when I was