The Survivors: Book One

"But not yet," she told the Witch and the heart that had both jumped eagerly. She would call out to him when she was ready, and that wasn't today.

Angela lit a cigarette and blew out thick smoke rings that stayed intact until they hit the big brown blanket hanging over the thin, wooden door. She had been an abused animal in a luxury cage, and it had happened fast. Her gifts (curse, Kenny always called it her curse) were the end root of their fights, what he wanted her to do with them. After a while, the Demon inside had gone to sleep, locked behind a thick steel door, to prevent Kenny from using the power to satisfy his own selfish, petty desires.

And Angela had spent a decade in hell because of it. There had only been two things she had kept from him during their long, hard years together - her abilities and the name of her baby's father. Everything else had been under Kenny's unforgiving control each waking moment and many of the sleeping ones too.

Until the War.

Being alone while her world was being blown away had ripped off the locks on the Witch and the old Angela. The twisted, slotted cell door was barely standing, and the dark, shifting spirit behind that thin shield whispered almost constantly to her now, guided her. She found it easy to listen, still surprised to look inside and see the courage she had been forced to lock away. She was suddenly allowed to be her own person again, to make her own choices based on what she wanted and needed, including exploring these things that she could do…and of that, there was a lot.

Her gifts had aged well in storage. Most of it was random, coming and going without control, but she was learning to direct it again, to concentrate and get what she needed - to trust the powers inside. When the Demon spoke, she listened.

The Witch said it was fated for a new, more careful world to replace the old, but when Angela asked if her own small family would be a part of that peaceful population, there was only darkness.