Camila shifted as much as her body let her against the couch. She couldn’t stretch like she wanted to, because then her arms and legs would pop straight again. But she could wriggle a bit to get more comfortable.

Or to get less comfortable. Honestly she didn’t really care. Just being able to feel and think again was nice. The couch she was lying on wasn’t very soft, and unlike Helena she didn’t fit completely on it. But it was a welcome change from the nothingness that filled her before. She could almost feel normal like this.

Normal was a weird word though. Her eyes were closed, but she could still see the room. In fact she could see better like this. It was almost 360 vision. All because of her creepy ‘chi drinking’ power. She was pretty sure the human brain wasn’t set up to see like that. And yet it felt totally normal. Like she’d been built to do that.

A spike of anger bubbled towards her consciousness, and she let it fill her. She had been built for that hadn’t she? Made her a better killing machine. A machine made out of her body and soul, stitched back together by some asshole.

She tossed out the anger before she could get really worked up about it. That was weirdly normal too. Futzing around with her emotions, like playlists she could swap between. That Kseniya girl had given her the power and understanding to do that.

And it honestly scared her.

With a grimace she forced herself to accept the fear. That was an emotion she probably shouldn’t leave bottled up. Even if it made her guts churn. But she wasn’t sure how much to accept. Or how much she could accept. Letting fear control her wasn’t right either.

Her grief had been easier to accept. She’d spent a good half day yesterday going through bouts of crying. Mourning the life she’d lost. Her parents had to be miserable too, not knowing what happened to her. Just the thought sent sorrow bubbling up, but she let it simmer below the fear. She could only spare a few tears now. The feelings didn’t bite as deep as they had before anyway.

No, fear was what she had to work through. It was a little weird to be thinking about fear, since she was apparently an invincible killing machine now. There wasn’t much that could hurt her. And she didn’t need to worry about her soul or anything. She objectively had one and it was safely preserved in her corpse.

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But her mind was still a mess. That bastard had used her as a puppet. And even now that she was free the strings were still there, waiting for someone else to grab them. To shut off her emotions and send her back into the darkness.

That was one of the reasons she wasn’t sleeping much. It was a good thing she didn’t need much sleep now that she was dead. The blackness of sleep was too much like the darkness that surrounded her when that bastard shut her off. There was only one difference. The one thing that let her sleep at all honestly. The strange link that bound her magically to her new friend.

She let her ‘vision’ focus on Helena. The magician had been scribbling out circles in those ugly hieroglyphs and muttering to herself for the past hour or so. Camila had felt the connection even before they’d made that pact, but now that they’d swapped powers, the link was more obvious. It wasn’t annoying, but when she slept, when nothingness filled her mind, that link was still there. A rope reminding her she could come back to reality when she was done resting.

Camila hadn’t told Helena of course. Given how badly the woman had freaked out when she’d thought she ‘controlled’ Camila, even indirectly, it seemed like a bad idea. It was kinda sweet how much the witch cared about freedom. Camila owed the woman a lot. Not only had Helena freed her, the magician was sacrificing some of her power to keep Camila sane and alive. Well, keep her undead anyway. She wasn’t going to let Helena worry about any more of her problems.

She forced herself to breathe, even though the air didn’t really matter. Breathing was supposed to calm people down right? And she should try to calm down naturally, instead of just shoving her emotions down unnaturally.

That there was the source of her problems. She couldn’t tell what was unnatural and what was natural. Okay, she knew which was which for a human, but she wasn’t human anymore. No matter how human she felt. And that scared her. Why wouldn’t it?

Helena finished scribbling down whatever she was putting together and smiled in triumph. Seemed her new friend had an idea. Camila let her eyes open.

“Alright,” Helena turned to Camila and waved the paper she’d been scribbling on. “I think I have something that will help. Want to try it out?”

“Sounds better than just lying here.” Camila let her arms and legs pop straight, then levitated off the couch and onto her feet. Then she took a moment to clear away the fear. She had a hard time figuring out what was normal, but she was really clear on what wasn’t normal. The fight that was coming up was gonna be something straight out of a cartoon. And unlike some idiots she wasn’t gonna be trying to work through her emotional issues in the middle of a fight.

Helena grabbed some chalk then headed out the door. “We should probably use the parking lot for this.”

“Oh a big spell?” Camila was curious. Most of Helena’s magic had been quick magic.

“Yep. And I think you’ll really like this one.”