Sawyer

  “Sawyer…” Clare’s voice broke as she called my name, making me realize that whatever she’d seen was frightening to her.

  I wanted to turn back to meet her gaze which was fixed on the back of my head to tell her that whatever she was seeing was okay and she could just break the news to me but the truth was I was a little scared to know what she’d seen too.

  “Yes?” I tried to make my voice sound calm even as my hands clenched into tight, sweaty fists by my side.

  “I think I know what’s causing the migraines. There’s something feeding on your…energy. It’s not just one…they’re like little specs of black.”

  Her words made my heart sink down to my stomach, but before I could say anything, she continued, “Wait a minute, I feel like I can…take them out. Can I try?”

  I hesitated, but then decided to let her. “Sure.”

  She fell silent for several seconds, as if she wanted to take back her offer to try to take out whatever she’d seen.

  I was going to tell her not to worry if she didn’t want to when she started speaking again. “I’m starting. Y-you have to let me know if you feel any kind of pain, even if it’s the tiniest of discomfort.”

  “Okay,” I said as my fists tightened and my body tensed in anticipation of something I couldn’t even see.

  Several seconds of silence went by and, other than hearing Clare’s quickening breath, I felt nothing out of the ordinary.

  “Did you feel anything?” she asked.

  “Nothing.” I answered.

  She walked around me to stand in front of me, holding something invisible between her fingers. “This is what I saw. I took only one out so I could look at it very well.”

  An involuntary shiver rocked her body.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked with concern.

  She met my gaze and then looked back at her thumb and forefingers, which were pressed together as if she was holding something in between them. “Nothing, it just moved. Wiggled a little. It has gone back to playing dead. I can kill it, but I’d rather we find out if it’s dangerous to you or was actually serving some kind of purpose other than…well, feeding on your instinctual magic. That’s what came to mind as soon as I saw them, but I don’t know much about my instinctual magic and I think it’s better we check.”

  “Can you draw it?” I asked, moving my hand to scratch the back of my head only to retract said hand when I remembered that Clare had seen a bunch of invisible insects feeding on my energy at the back of my head. “I might be able to search for it on all the supernatural creature databases I can find.”

  “Sure. Where can we get a pen and paper, though?” she asked, still staring down at her fingers that were pressed together.

  “Give me a minute. I have an apartment in this building.” I said, before exiting the rooftop and taking the stairs down to my penthouse apartment, which was the only apartment with access to the rooftop.

  There, I gathered my laptop, a sketchbook, several stationeries and a jacket for Clare because it was breezy on the rooftop and I’d seen Clare shiver a few times as we spoke.

  When I returned, Clare didn’t notice. She was seated on the lounge chair and fully focused on staring at her fingers.

  “Clare?” I called, feeling a little worried as I draped the jacket over her shoulders.

  “Mmm?” She answered, looking up at me before looking right back at the invisible bug. “This thing makes sounds. At first, I thought it was just a buzzing noise but I’m realizing that it’s a song. Can you hear anything? It’s singing again. A little louder now.”

  I sat beside her, dropping my laptop beside me and was going to hand over the stationery for drawing the bug when my body stiffened.

  The stationery notepad and everything I was holding clattered to the floor as the dull throb that began to pulse behind my eyes while I was in my apartment suddenly intensified, as if a thousand needles were stabbing through my skull.

  I gripped my head, trying to steady my breathing, but a groan of agony escaped my lips as the pain intensified. My vision blurred, and I could hardly think through the haze of agony.

  Through the haze, I noticed Clare’s frantic face, her hand resting on my shoulder.

  "Moon Goddess, what’s wrong?!" she asked in a strained voice.

  “It’s my migraine. It suddenly spiked.” I gasped, barely able to speak as the pain was relentless, washing over me in waves.

  Her eyes widened in sudden realization.

  "The pain is coming from the insect’s song," she said, her voice filled with urgency as she looked down at her fingers. “Wait a minute, I’ll crush it.”

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  For a while, I couldn’t hear anything, but after what felt like several minutes, the pain began to fade.

  I sagged against her, my breath coming in ragged gasps as the sharp, searing pain slowly receded.

  “Thank you,” I whispered, my body trembling with the aftermath.

  “I’m so sorry.” She whispered as she held my hand in hers and squeezed it.

  I didn’t know what to say as I pressed my nose to her shoulders, taking in her scent as I tried to calm my nerves that had been completely frazzled by the migraine attack earlier.

  I might have dozed off because when next I opened my eyes, Clare was asking, “Do you want to rest? We can meet up tomorrow to find out about the bug.”

  I shook my head, stubbornly rubbing off the sleep in my eyes. ”Now that I’m so close. I have to find out what is causing these migraines.”

  Then I realized that we’d been together since 5 pm and it was now…9.55 pm. “Are you tired? Do you want to go back to sleep? Let’s make it tomorrow then.”

  “No, no, I’m not tired. Let’s check it now. We just have to be done before 12 am because I told Josie I’ll be back before 12.” She picked up the sketchbook and opened the pencil bag that I’d stuffed with as many pencils and pens as I could find in my apartment. “I don’t have an eidetic memory, so let’s hope all the time I spent drawing out plants helps me draw this bug perfectly.”

  I smiled. “I’m sure it will look great.”

  For the first time in my life, I worked with someone else, not over the internet but physically. As I gathered the databases we would need to search through when we had an image of the invisible bug, she drew out the back and front of the bug in surprising detail.

  “It would seem like you have a hidden talent, Miss Parker.” I teased her.

  She laughed, “Nah, this is the result of a lot of hard work. My mom was an herbalist with an instinctual magic that made her easily understand how to mix plants and herbs to make concoctions that alleviated or eliminated people’s Illnesses as well as a green thumb on steroids.”

  Her smile turned a little sad. “To impress her and spend more time with her, I studied very hard about plants so that I could help out at her shop and work with her on her small herb farm. Part of my studies involved drawing the plants because a lot of plants have lookalikes where just one little curve on the leaf means the herb is the poisonous version of the real herb.”

  “Oh, wow. Being a herbalist must be a very tricky job.” I said as we scanned the bugs with an application on my phone.

  She smiled proudly. “It is, and my mom was the best at it…until she died.”

  I covered her hand with my palm and squeezed them. “I'm really sorry about your mom. I know this must still be hard for you.”

  We shared a moment of staring at each other and sharing comfort before she moved closer to me and, in a way that made my heart thump like never before, she placed her head on my shoulder.

  “Are you cold? Do you want to go downstairs? We can go to my apartment or the apartment building’s lounge?” I asked, worrying about her after I’d plugged the scanned images, pressed enter on the code I’d typed earlier while she was drawing to set the databases search in motion.

  She sighed, “I’m fine, don’t worry about it. I’m wearing your jacket and I have werewolf blood too, you know. So I’m very much a warm-blooded supernatural creature just like you, albeit to a lesser extent.”

  “Well, I’ve met mixed bloods who have human-like immunities where exposure to the wrong chilly breeze has them sick with fever for days.” I said.

  “Really? I’ve never really had any exposure to mixed bloods, though. Growing up, the two towns I lived in were attached to very traditional packs where everyone were full blood werewolves due to their Alpha’s beliefs of not mixing blood. I would have really loved to know more about the differences between mixed bloods.”

  “Well, there’s a report on it because the Supernatural Council did some research on the matter with the Hope International Medical Facilities. Do you want to read it?” I asked.

  “Sure.”

  We read the report and shared our thoughts as we waited for the database search to yield results while keeping an eye on the time because we’d decided that regardless of when the database search was complete, I would take her home by 11:30 so she could get home in time for her curfew.

  Our conversation was interrupted by a notification sound from my laptop. Instantly, the research we were discussing was forgotten as I rubbed my hands together nervously before trying to figure out what the database search had found.

  “It seems to have found something in this database owned by N.O.T.E.B.O.O.K., notebook?” I said nervously as I clicked in to see what the code had found.

  Immediately, a page started loading with another drawn image of the creature Clare had drawn.

  "This document explores the existence of spiritual parasites that feed on human mental energy. These entities, which are invisible to the naked eye, have been documented to cause severe mental and physical distress to their hosts." Clare read the abstract out loud before meeting my gaze.

  We skimmed through the short 1-page document, past the visual representation of the parasite and the symptoms in hosts, which I was very familiar with, until we got to the visibility ritual. It was an obscure, even unexplained ritual not outlined in the document for enabling a medical professional to see the parasite.

  When we got to the part about the extraction procedure, I was so excited that reading it in my mind didn't seem to work, so I had to read out the paragraph with the necessary information. "Extraction Procedure. Once the visibility ritual has been performed, the doctor will be able to see the parasites. The extraction involves physically removing the parasite from the host's body. So long as the doctor can see the parasites, extracting them one by one and crushing them immediately is a seamless task."

  "Every extracted parasite should be crushed into powder immediately upon removal. The parasites have a dangerous song that could alert the other parasites and cause them to cause havoc in the host’s mental psyche, so immediate crushing is highly recommended. This method ensures the complete eradication of the parasite and mitigates any potential risk of causing pain to the host." I went silent after reading.

  I couldn’t believe that the pain I’d experienced for the past decade or so of my life could just be so simply eliminated by Clare Parker, my true mate with a simple movement of her hand.

  “So basically, I can help you extract the parasites?” she asked.

  I looked at her, asking before I could stop myself. “Do you want to?”

  “Of course, I do. This may be one of my few chances of using this gift to actually help someone. You said it before, right? That it was my responsibility to help people with this gift to make up for my past. So let’s do it. Tomorrow is a Sunday. You can come over anytime and I’ll pick them all out and crush them.”

  “Just like that?” I asked, staring dazedly at her.

  As if she could see how shell-shocked I was at the possibility of being free, she gave me a wide, full grin. “Just like that! If this document is to be believed, you’ll be free just like that!”

  Unable to stop myself, my lips pulled up into a grin before I pressed a kiss on her forehead and thanked her. “Thank you, thank you, thank you so much!”

  “You’re welcome.” She smiled and then pressed a chaste kiss on my cheeks.

  We were lost staring into each other’s eyes when the 11:30 alarm for taking her home went off.