ashes to ashes ➙ simon lewis [1]

PROLOGUE.

PROLOGUE.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

❝ I wonder if I will ever find a language
to speak of the things that haunt me
the most. ❞

━ Bao Phi, Vocabulary.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The night Bella Mastrano lost her life without having to die was a bit of a blur.

Frankly, everything was blurring for her -- her thoughts, her vision, her own movements from the speed of her motions, pale hands resembling white smoke as she frantically tossed clothes into her tattered black backpack. She heard familiar shouting from downstairs, her father's voice mingling with her older brother's, along with heavy stomping. She knew Charles was attempting to stall their father. As much as she appreciated the effort, she also knew it wouldn't work.

If her father planned on doing something, he would follow it through. It was one of the few traits she had inherited from him.

Which was somewhat amusing now, considering her discovery that she wasn't actually related to him at all.

There was a horrible slamming noise, causing the walls of her bedroom to shudder. Bella froze, her knuckles white from her firm grasp on the worn journal in her hands. When she heard footsteps, fast approaching, she threw the journal into her bag, zipped it with a screech, and had just slung it over her shoulders when her door burst open.

Nathaniel Mastrano stood in the entrance. His eyes, ocean blue and so unalike her own, were flaming. Most of the color had gone out of them, she noticed idly, resembling a faded gray far better. "Get out," he spat through his teeth.

Regrettably, her mind took action against her -- she remembered the early days of her childhood, where she would curl up in her father's lap as he read Harry Potter books aloud to her. She remembered the sound of his laughter as she discovered her own wit over the years; the reassuring pressure of his tight hugs during the holidays.

Charles appeared behind their father, thick strands of red hair falling into his eyes. Desperately, she wished she could have one last moment alone with him. Despite their issues over the past few years, he'd been there for her when she needed him the most. She wanted to thank him.

Unfortunately, life was not a wish-granting factory.

"Oh, please." Bella rolled her eyes with her typical aura of indifference. It was all an act, always had been, but no one ever recognized that. "Why do you think I'm packing a bag? To exercise my arm muscles?"

Nathaniel's eyes flashed. She'd never seen such hate directed towards her before. Anger, naturally. Her father had been increasingly infuriated with her over the last two years but hate? Wasn't she family?

No, she supposed. Not anymore. The knowledge that Bella's mother had an affair -- with a demon, of all creatures-- had clearly shattered something in her father.

And he was taking it out on her. The demon's daughter; filthy magical spawn. He'd said as much to Charles downstairs. She'd heard; their walls weren't particularly thin.

Tightening her grip on her bag, Bella moved to brush past her father and brother -- only for her father's fingers to enclose around her wrist like a vice. She gasped, more from being startled than pain, as he twisted her back around to face him. Charles stood between the pair, unmoving, though his dark brown eyes flitted rapidly between their faces and their father's grip on Bella.

"If you ever darken this doorstep again," Nathaniel growled lowly, "I'll kill you myself. I swear it."

Bella grew cold, though she fought against the shiver that threatened to rake down her spine. She would not show weakness. Especially not in front of him. When she spoke, her voice was as sharp as shards of ice. "That would be incredibly ambitious of you."

In the time it took her to draw a single breath, Nathaniel jerked her wrist, sending her flying towards the looming stairway before releasing her. She heard Charles shout; saw a blur of messy red hair and pale skin reach towards her. But to her, reality was a distant fog. Nothing truly existed beyond the excited thrumming in her veins; nothing other than the flash of her eyes as they shifted to lime green cat eyes.

Before she could even consider preventing it, the stairway erupted into a blaze of flickering orange and red flames.

Bella crashed into the floor with a gasp of air, her sharp black nails digging into the familiar beige carpeting. She lifted her head, struggling to catch her breath as she watched fire engulf her family home. For a brief moment, satisfaction enveloped her; the excited thrum in her veins had yet to die down, and she felt nothing more than an endless desire to continue to destroy. To burn it all to ash.

The feeling disappeared as quickly as it had appeared when she heard her brother shout her name, strangled and terrified. Fear overwhelmed Bella instead. She pushed herself to her knees, breathing hard. "Stop," she commanded, though who she was speaking to, she was uncertain. Nothing happened. She set her jaw. "Stop!" she cried.

At once, the fire ceased.

In fact, it was as if it had never been there at all. There was no soot, no blackened walls or ruined stairway. No hazardous smoke to choke on. Her family home appeared the way it always had; a little cold, a little detached, but completely normal.

At the bottom of the stairs hovered her brother and her father. There was an inexplicable fury on Nathaniel's expression, and for the first time in his presence, Bella felt a prickle of genuine terror. Beside him, Charles's face was unreadable. He was looking at Bella as if he had never seen her before.

When Nathaniel spoke, his voice trembled, though whether it was from rage or fear, she could not tell. "Leave."

Bella didn't spare him a passing glance. "Charlie," she whispered. Years. It had been years since she'd called her brother by that nickname. He stared at her, eyes blank, and she felt a panic that had nothing to do with Nathaniel's rage or her own alarming powers. "Charlie, please--"

Nathaniel stepped forward. "You have one minute," he said coolly. "One minute to leave this house. After that, I'll show you no more mercy, Daughter of Hell."

This time, Charles made no move to defend nor protect her. Not that she needed anyone's protection. That much was evident. She could burn the world with a flick of her fingers. It was a frightening idea, even to the girl who proclaimed she feared nothing.

In this moment, she feared herself.

Bella pushed herself to her feet. Vaguely, she noticed ash crumbling off her black leather jacket, though where it came from, she couldn't imagine. It was the only evidence to her destruction. She brushed it off with a hard swallow, watching as it fluttered to the floor; black dust staining her mother's beloved carpeting.

Without another look towards her former family, Bella turned and stumbled out the front door. It shut behind her with a definitive click.

This was the night she would begin to run.

From herself most of all.