Chapter Text
"Don't fucking touch me!" I screamed, huddled at the back of my room, my hands were in fists, eyes were wide almost looking delirious. "I'm gonna go to his fucking dorm, I wanna be with him!"
"Jack," Matt called me, his voice was a mixture of horror and exasperation. The poor guy had seen me like this several times now. "I need you to take them, okay? You'll feel better."
"The only way I could feel better is if he comes!" I sobbed, turning all the commotion into a pathetic crying. My body stopped tensing, and slowly shrank, leaving me weak. I pressed myself against the wall behind me and slid down until I was sitting on the floor.
Zack came over and squatted down to my level, while the other two guys stood at the back, unsure about what to do with me. The light-eyed boy gave me a sympathetic look, hiding a worried expression. "Jack, take the pill," he ordered in a soft but firm voice.
"I'm not going to do it!" I didn't even know why I didn't want to, I just felt this burning need to have him close, to have Alex pressed against me, to smell his scent and hear his sweet laugh, and it felt like they were trying to take him away from me.
"I need you to calm down and cooperate," he explained, "or do you want us to do this the hard way?"
"I need him, I need him now!" My voice was clumsy, punctuated by my frantic sobbing and my inability to keep my breathing steady. "I just need him with me. I don't want you here. I know you all hate him."
"Matt, do we have to do it now?" My friend turned to the boy behind him, glancing up at him. "Can't we wait until things calm down a bit?"
"No," Matt spat out with a determined and agressive tone, his brown eyes shifting from Zack to me, staring at me as if I were a threat, a dangerous stranger. "We have the appointment already, and we need to do this tonight, or else he will show up."
"It's going to be really hard to reschedule if we don't go today," Vinny agreed, his voice was trembling. Of the three of us, he seemed the most scared, maybe because he wasn't as close to me as the other guys.
"The sooner we do it, the sooner we can help him," Matthew's defenses had lowered, and his expression looked hurt, sadder than the one Zack had given me moments before.
The big guy nodded and turned back to me. "It's for your own good, Jack."
I opened my eyes clumsily, finding myself staring at a beige suede-covered ceiling with a small yellow lamp mounted on it. My head was spinning, and I couldn't focus my gaze. It felt like my blood pressure had dropped, like all my emotions were gagged deep inside my head, like my chest was empty and I couldn't hear my heartbeat. A distant sound, like something underwater, caught my attention, turning my face toward whoever was speaking to me, my friends.
"Jack, we're here," I heard, the sound was broken and muffled, almost distorted.
"Do you need help getting out?"
I couldn't answer. My tongue felt numb, and my jaw was incredibly heavy. I was in a trance, with no real control over my body, which felt like a shell with barely any movement, too big for what my mind had become. I nodded as best I could and closed my eyes again, trying to sleep. I didn't remember where I was or why I was there, I just wanted to wake up in my own bed, without any worry in the world.
"What did you give to him?" I heard Matt's voice. "He's totally shitfaced."
"What did you expect? You asked me for a strong sedative."
"I didn't think he'd get like this. He can't even talk."
"Would you prefer the version of him that was screaming for his boyfriend?"
"Shut up," said Zack, who was carrying me. "Yes, he's sedated as fuck, but he can still hear you."
And it was true. I couldn't fully process my emotions, I had them suppressed. But it still hurt to have gotten to this point. I felt like a burden, literally, like a person without agency, like a tantrum-throwing child everyone had to put up with. I had lost my personality, my sanity, and I was dragging my friends into all of this.
The effects were wearing off, not enough for me to behave like a normal person again, but enough for me to trust my senses. The images were lucid, I could hear my friends' voices clearly, close by, and I could speak again, or so I thought. I didn't want to try, I was already too embarrassed to open my mouth and draw their attention to words that might not even be well thought out.
We arrived. It was a social housing apartment building, one of those with no more than three floors, no lobby or doorman, just stairs and doors as accessible as those of any ordinary house. We found the apartment, there were several potted plants and the wooden door had some writing carved into the frame. Beneath it, a reflection of purple light shone. I swallowed and snuggled into Zack's arms, hoping to fall back asleep, but I knew we were there because of me, and I had to cooperate at least.
A young woman, in her early twenties, opened the door. She had dark brown skin, tattooed eyeliner, and thin eyebrows. Her long, shiny black hair, almost blue, was tied back with a clip. She wore several beaded and string bracelets, and pendants around her neck, some with symbols I'd never seen before and others with metal crosses. The girl had a kind, sweet face, but with deep, black eyes that seemed to tear your soul out. She wore loose-fitting clothes made of fabrics with different patterns and textures, which only added to the mystical atmosphere surrounding her.
"Cso, csochi," Matt tried to pronounce, and the woman let out a little laugh.
"Xóchitl," she corrected him, "yes, and you must be Vinny... and his friends."
"That's us," the shortest replied, raising an eyebrow.
"Okay, come in," the brunette stepped aside to let us into the apartment. Xóchitl turned to look at me as my friend crossed the threshold, her eyes widening instantly. "Is he okay?"
"Yes, just a little sedated," Vinny laughed.
We went inside and sat on some cushions arranged on the floor, on top of an Arabian-style rug, I knew that because we had a similar one at home. The interior of the apartment was exactly what you'd imagine when you think of a young witch, quartz crystals, tapestries, strange art, and various plants of all kinds, in floating planters, as centerpieces, and in enormous vases on the floor. Furthermore, even though there was a spotlight overhead, the area was illuminated only by indirect lighting, lamps, candles, and purple-tinted LED lights.
"So, you think your friend is being worked up," she kind of asked as she gathered her things.
"Worked up?"
"He's been put under a spell," she explained.
"Oh yes, one of those love spells, amarres?" the Italian replied.
The girl glanced at me for a few seconds and then returned to the objects in front of her. She sighed heavily, as if preparing to deliver bad news. "I'm going to be very honest with you. It's obvious he's being targeted, he has a heavy, strange energy... and you had to sedate him for a reason, I suppose," she arranged the deck of cards.
"Uh huh"
"So, for a bunch of gringos to come here and talk about an amarre," she tasted the word pronouncing it not with fear, but with respect. "I think you already know who is behind this."
Everyone was stunned, not quite understanding what the girl was trying to say, but amazed at how different witchcraft was from how it was portrayed in children's movies.
"That's why I'm not going to do a reading, that would only tell us what we already know," she concluded. "I'm going to do an egg... uh cleansing. From what I can see, it's something heavy, so I don't think that will get rid of it, but we will find out how serious it is and how long it's been going on."
"Okay," Matt murmured.
"Meanwhile, you can tell me everything that's been happening to him, his behavior, anything out of the ordinary," she turned her attention back to me and stood up. "I need you to help him to stand up."
Zack looked at me in horror, probably after hearing the seriousness of the matter. I knew that the muscular, green-eyed boy wasn't much of a believer in paranormal or magic stuff; However, in a situation like that, even the most skeptical person would waver. Zack was the one of the three who knew me best, and seeing me distraught, crying out for Alex when I previously couldn't stand the mere thought of him, finding himself in a witch's house while the girl logically explained what might be happening, his defenses began to crumble.
"Jack," he called softly, with a hint of fear. "You need to stand up for a moment, okay? I'll help you."
"I-I don't know if I-I can," I stammered in a hoarse voice, as if I'd just woken up after a week or so.
Zack got up with me still in his arms. He placed me carefully on the floor so I was standing, but leaning against him. I was more aware now, able to form more complex thoughts, but my limbs felt like boiled noodles—loose, limp, weak.
The woman began the process, passing an ordinary egg over me, at a short distance, but without making direct contact. The girl seemed focused even though the ritual looked idiotic from the outside. Xóchitl stared directly at Matt, nodding for him to tell her what had happened.
"Oh yeah, well," my roommate began, nervously, like before an oral exam or an important presentation. "The guy..." Matt stopped unsure whether to call him by his name, "Jack hated him, detested him. They'd had a falling out early in college, and he never stopped humiliating him."
"Hm..."
"Jack was always complaining about him, but one day he, the guy, invited him to a party, and from then on, I don't know," he recounted, scratching his head. "They started seeing each other a lot. It was all purely sexual at first, and when he came back, Jack would go back to hating him... and the more they went out, the more serious things got, and Jack started needing to be with him. Today, actually, he acted like a drug addict in withdrawal. He was yelling that he needed him and he got aggressive."
"Anything else?"
"He has wet dreams about him," Zack told him, and I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. "And he also has recurring panic attacks."
"I... I can smell him too, feel him when... h-he is not around," I spoke a little more clearly this time. "I need him so much, but sometimes I feel like I still hate him. It's not as strong anymore though, it's like intrusive thoughts when I'm with him or when I haven't been with him for a while." I told her trying to remember if there was anything else.
"Actually," I lifted my shirt recalling the night of the panic attack, that burning-like pain I felt in my lower abdomen, "I felt something here..." I couldn't even complete the sentence when I noticed 'AWG' written on my skin. It wasn't a tattoo, it was as if someone would sew the letters into me and then my body would scar around it leaving a monstrous mark on me.
My heart started racing, like it wanted to burst out of my chest, choke me with its pounding in my throat, and my lungs couldn't keep up. Everything started spinning, and all I could feel were the drops of cold sweat trickling down my forehead. I knew they were talking behind me, whispering, shouting at me, but I couldn't hear anything beyond deep murmurs, static. And that's when I fainted.
"This isn't an amarre nor a love spell. It's too heavy, too intimate. It's a stronger bond... but it's recent, probably from a few weeks ago. From what I'm told, it was done around the time of the party."
"But then, what is it?"
"I'm not entirely sure, but because of the depth of the work, the marks, and everything he told me, I think it's voodoo."
"Like the dolls?"
"It can't be. That's done to harm people, isn't it?"
"And you think it's not hurting him? I'm losing my friend."
"It's a common belief, but voodoo goes beyond that..."
"How so?"
"It's a physical bond, the doll, but it binds both the person who does it and the victim, in body, mind, and soul. That's why it starts with sex."
"But what does all of that mean? Why is he doing it? I don't understand. Does he want to hurt him?"
"It goes beyond that, beyond a relationship, beyond a simple love spell. He wants to possess him, to bind himself to him for life, taking away his will."
"Oh my God!"
"Can it be reversed?"
"What can we do?"
"Is there anything we can do?"
"That's beyond my capabilities. I don't do that kind of work..."
"Then what?! Why did we come here in the first place?!"
"Calm down!"
"How do you expect me to calm down?!"
"I'm going to find someone who specializes in it, okay? In the meantime, I'm going to do a protective spell for him. It won't break the bond, but it will... stabilize him? Somehow, when he is not with him."
"He's sick."
"Who did he pay to do it?"
"I need you to find the doll. It's the only way to reverse it. Find the doll, he must have it, and take it to the other witch so she can break the bond without harming his friend. Remember, the doll is basically him."