Chapter 216: Through My Fingers
Nina
My friends still weren’t here yet, and it seemed that the hex that Luke put on Selena was already beginning to wear off. I could see the slight flicker of sparks that formed on her fingertips as she tried and tried again to open a portal, and I knew that she would accomplish her goal at any moment.
Maybe I was acting crazy and reckless, but I couldn’t just let her leave with Enzo. I couldn’t lose him again. I didn’t care if Selena hurt me, or even if her spell was so thick in Enzo’s mind that he thought I was insane. All I knew was that I needed to stop her until my friends came to help me.
Without a second thought, I bolted out from behind the tree.
Enzo saw me first. His eyes widened with a mixture of surprise and
confusion as I sprinted across the
clearing.
Then, Selena saw me; but only a single moment before I collided with her, tackling her to the ground with all of the force I had in my body.
Together, Selena and I grappled on the forest floor for a few moments. She snarled and shouted obscenities as she tried to claw at me with her fingernails, but I quickly grabbed her wrists as hard as I could and wrenched them back, pinning them against the ground and causing her to yelp in pain. I sat on top of her and kept her pinned there, my eyes wild with determination.
“You bitch!” Selena growled. “Enzo! Help me! Get her off!”
“No, Enzo!” I shouted, whipping my head around at him to stare into his eyes in the hopes that he would recognize me and break through her spell again. “Don’t listen to her!”
Enzo’s eyes were still wide. He stared at both of us with confusion, his eyes darting back and forth between the two of us. I could tell that Selena’s spell had dug itself even deeper into his mind this time, and it seemed as though he didn’t even really know where he was. No matter how hard I pleaded with my eyes, he only looked back at me with a confused expression on his face.
“Baby!” Selena insisted. “Help!”
Finally, Enzo stormed toward us. I thought for the briefest of moments that he recognized me and was going to help me again… But I was so, so wrong in that assumption.
“Get off of her,” he said, his eyes
beginning to glow red with anger as he
towered over me.I already felt tears beginning to well up
in my eyes.
“Enzo,” I begged, “it’s me. Nina. You have to break through her spell. Selena is-”
Before I could finish, Enzo suddenly grabbed me by the back of my shirt and yanked me off of Selena. He tossed me to the ground, not even caring that he might have hurt me, and then helped Selena to her feet.
“Are you okay?” he asked her, his eyes searching her face with worry while his hands rubbed her wrists gently where I had been holding her down.
I scrambled to my feet, my face caked with dirt and tears. “Enzo, please-“I began, reaching out for him, but he slapped my hand away and glared at me with those angry, glowing red eyes. Meanwhile, Selena only smirked
behind him as he looked at me, but her
face quickly returned to a twisted sob as he looked back at her.
“Baby, I don’t know who this crazy bitch is, but I want to go home,” Selena sobbed, throwing her arms around him.
I wanted to fight back. I wanted to tear them away from each other, but Enzo only glared at me angrily over her shoulder, his eyes burning with a territorial urgency. I knew that if I tried to get in between them now, he would only get even more angry and Selena would get her way.
All I could do instead was plead with him, with my eyes and with my words.
“Enzo,” I murmured, shaking my head as my vision clouded with tears and my heart sank in my chest, “don’t you remember me? Can’t you see that she’s tricking you?”
But Enzo didn’t answer.
“Let’s go, Selena,” he said, his angry eyes fixed on me. “Let’s get away from
her.”
A sob caught in my throat. I couldn’t stop my knees from buckling beneath me, and I fell to the ground, digging my hands and my knees into the dirt as another sob escaped my mouth.
I heard the unmistakable sound of a portal opening in front of me and jerked my head up. Luke’s hex had fully worn off now, and Selena had succeeded in opening a portal. But I knew that there was nothing to do now; Enzo hated me. Selena had sunk her claws so deep into his mind that he didn’t even remember me as anything but an evil doppelganger of someone who he thought was his fated mate.
Now, more than ever, I wished that my wolf was here to prove him wrong; but with Selena right in front of me, my wolf wouldn’t come out, and I wasn’t even sure if she could come out again. “Please… Enzo…” I begged through my sobs. The tears in my eyes were so thick that they fully clouded my vision, turning Selena and Enzo into nothing but two vaguely human-shaped blobs.
But then, I heard the sound of crunching leaves underfoot, and Selena’s face suddenly came into view. She grabbed my face with her hand, digging her nails into my cheeks and my neck, and scowled at me with eyes that burned with hatred.
“Can’t you see that he doesn’t even know you?” she growled, bits of her spittle flying into my face. “You’d never even be his first choice if he did know you. I could just kill you, you know. Save everyone the trouble.”
“So kill me, then,” I replied. “If you’re
going to take him from me, then just
kill me.”
Selena threw her head back and laughed, releasing her grip on my face
with a final shove that was strong enough to send me back onto my butt. on the forest floor.
“Killing you would be too much of a kindness, I think,” she said.
Just then, I heard the sound of feet pounding through the woods, and voices shouting.
But Selena heard it, too.
“Come on, baby,” she said, storming over to the portal and grabbing Enzo’s hand. She cast me one last glance over her shoulder, the smirk on her face undeniable. “Let’s go.”
And then… They were gone.
A cry escaped my throat. My friends. came just split seconds after the portal closed. If they had only been there just moments before… But it didn’t matter now. It was over. Selena had won.
“Where did they go?” Matt said, looking around frantically while Lori and Jessica fell to their knees beside me, cradling me in their arms as I sobbed uncontrollably.
I could only shake my head. No words
would come out through my sobs.
“They’re gone,” Jessica said, her voice low. I nodded. Jessica pulled me closer, wrapping her arms around me and pulling me into her lap while Lori rubbed my back.
But I couldn’t even feel any of it. I was completely numb, as though I was an outside observer looking down at the scene.
And as I saw myself spread out on the forest floor with my friends huddled around me, my face caked with dirt and tears, there was only one word that would come out of my mouth. “Enzo.”
