“Dammit, dammit, dammit.” Gabby growled as she paced. It was late, ridiculously late. She had no business being out of her dorm room after hours, but she couldn’t sleep. Her mind simply wouldn’t shut off no matter how much she cursed at herself.
Why did she have to meet Tara? And why did the girl actually have to be cool? Friends. They were not something Gabby had a use for. She didn’t do close relationships. She’d learned long ago that people couldn’t be trusted, no matter who they were. Her parents had taught her that.
“Don’t go there, Gabby,” she snapped. The last thing she needed was to remind herself about the people who’d brought her into the world but hadn’t bothered to care about her. Love was not an emotion she was familiar with, and that extended to friendships. Her heart could only handle so much pain.
“DAMMIT!” She yelled and threw out her hand. A ball of fire erupted out of it, illuminating the night and striking one of the targets standing innocently in the middle of the training field.
Gabby had never felt that she fit in anywhere. She had always been that girl. The one who stood off to the side, unsure of her place in the world. She kept to herself because she was embarrassed by her body. Not just because she was so thin, or at least she had been when she was younger, which was a result of the lack of food kept in her house. It wasn’t that her parents refused to buy food. It just wasn’t a priority when scarce resources would be much better spent on important things like drugs or alcohol. As long as Gabby could remember, the majority of her nourishment had come in the form of the occasional stolen candy bar or bag of chips from the convenience store a block down the road. Not exactly three square meals a day. But that was secondary to the real issues Gabby tried to hide. What embarrassed her more were the bruises. She hid them well enough. But she knew someone would notice if she allowed them to get close enough.
“Thanks, Mom and Dad,” she said bitterly and flung a few more fireballs, one after the other. She was sweating, and her clothes stuck to her skin. Gabby hoped she would wear herself out to the point of exhaustion and that she’d be able to sleep without her demons attacking her in her dreams. Just once, she needed a good night's sleep.
It troubled Gabby that the girl, Tara, was threatening to cross that clearly defined line of arm’s-length acquaintance into a full-blown friend, which would put her in a place she didn’t belong, a place where she would inevitably cause Gabby more pain. But Tara wasn’t really the thing keeping Gabby up tonight. The real cause of Gabby’s worries was him. The water elementalist who was too handsome for his own good. The second she’d heard his voice, the air had fled Gabby’s lungs. Then she’d looked at him, their eyes had met, and she’d felt something inside of her reaching out for him. It clawed at her insides, desperate to get close to him. Apparently, according to the professors, it was possible that different types of elementalists could be soul bonded. The thought that she and Liam just might be such a pair was buzzing at the back of her mind like a pesky fly she was refusing to acknowledge.
Gabby wasn’t surprised to find out that it was the darkness in one person that would draw the light in the other to them. Professor Fernis had said there were some students who came to the academies missing a part of their soul because of the trauma of their past. Gabby’s life had certainly been traumatic … and painful. Also lonely and full of anger. How could her soul possibly have remained intact after that? For all she knew, she wasn’t missing merely a part of her soul. She could be without the whole damn thing. Gabby knew there was darkness in her. It was always there, deep down, waiting, biding its time. She didn’t know what it was waiting for, and that was the most terrifying thing of all.
When her magical energy was spent, and she no longer had the strength to raise her arms, Gabby sat down on the ground, fell back, and looked up at the sky. She sucked in huge breaths of air, enjoying the quiet of the night. She