A Hollow Soul, page 36
Tears prick my eyes.
“Alexia!” a kinder, gentler voice echoes around me yelling as if from a very far place.
I shake my head and try to push against Blaise and move him but his weight sinks further onto me and his bare chest comes down, his face right in mine. My fingers pat the ground next to me, searching for something to grab onto. Nothing feels substantial, just the ground beneath me. I go to dig my hands into the dirt there for something to throw at his face, but nothing comes up from the ground.
“What is going on?” I fight back, throwing out punches and moving my legs trying to throw him off.
As I fight, the voice calls out, closer this time. “Alexia, get up!”
“I’m trying to,” I yell.
“Trying to what, my sweet?” Blaise pins my hands to the side, caging my body more.
“You’re not real. This can’t be real!” I growl out getting angry now. “Are you even Blaise?” I ask, still uncertain. I hoped the voice earlier was the real Blaise. It sure sounded like him, but I couldn’t tell by voice alone this one looked so real.
“Yessss,” he hisses out. “Of course, I am real.” He licks my lips and presses down on me, the pain increasing as he does. “You are so easy to play with.” His fangs elongate and glisten as he lowers his head slowly.
“Who are you?” I glare at him, still trying to kick my legs and move my arms.
“I am the one that tricked you here,” he urges. “I am the one that made you fall for my devilish good charms.” He rolls his hips for emphasis. “I am the one that has brought you here soul mate.” He lowers his head beside mine, and his fangs scrape against the side of my mouth close to my cheek. “The dark side will be very pleased to have you brought to them finally,” he whispers. His tail coils around my leg, tightening his hold on me and making me stiller.
I struggle to move, let alone breathe. “I don’t believe you,” my thoughts yell at Shade, but nothing answers, no words whisper through my mind.
“You better start believing, I will be your only saving grace, if I want it to be.” He smiles.
Fire sisters. I think to myself not sure how to call them out to help. All my previous training flitted out of my mind as I tried to scramble for something, anything to break free of this. Whatever this was. This couldn’t be real; it didn’t feel right and I couldn’t grab onto anything other than him and there were no clear surroundings anymore, just darkness and a little light to see by.
“I don’t know how to do anything without others’ help,” I mumble under my breath.
“What are you mumbling about?” Blaise moves up and above me easing some of the weight off of me.
I stare back at this fake in front of me, my anger rising. “You are not him, drop the act!” I throw back at him. My fear is still there under the surface, but I let the anger over power it and let the sea rage on. I growl working myself up, powering myself tapping into that dark part of myself.
The scene skips a beat and shifts, a loud crack booms up above and the ground rumbles beneath us. Blaise looks up to the sky and then back down at me.
My eyes scramble for purchase on the moving ground. “What are you doing?” I try to roll out from under him.
I am able to twist my upper half away from him before he grabs my arm and twists me back towards him with a cold pinch, bites into my neck a burning sensation. My fingers flex into a fist and I pull my arm up but his grip keeps it pinned down. I look back at him and notice a needle being pulled away—no, his teeth. Blaise’s form flickers in and out.
“Sleep now. I will talk to you later my dear.” He laughs as my eyes flutter close; I fight to pry them back open. They are so heavy I can’t keep them open much longer but before they close for the final time, I see Tom standing up above me.
“Wha—” I whisper out before surrendering to the darkness once more.
Chapter 16
My eyes spring open, there are no bright lights but it is not fully dark either. The cold bites into me, I move my fingers and feel cold cobblestone below me. I scrape at the rock with my fingers, the dirt easily coming up. “Real,” I whisper and shudder with the cold. I move my head to look around and my stomach rolls as I do.
I don’t see anyone around or hear anything. I try to move slowly but my stomach rebels in answer. “Shade?” I whisper out in a croak, my throat sore as if someone had squeezed my throat as I lie helpless.
“Yea?” His voice echoes back at me in my mind. He flutters near my neck.
“Have you been awake this whole time?” I ask hoping he was so I could get some good intel.
“No, whatever got you, got me, too. I felt the tug in the woods but then I was cast into some weird place and could not connect with you,” he says, just as confused. “Does it hurt much?”
My fingers shake as they slowly rise to my throat brushing against my neck and him. “It does but I think we have other things to worry about. Do you sense anything or anyone down here with us?” I try to move as little as possible to not draw anyone’s attention to bring them here faster.
“I don’t sense anything now. But I can see if I can take a look around. What happened to you?” he asks, waiting to peel off of me since we needed the contact to speak to one another.
My head aches, but I think back trying to remember what exactly happened. “Blaise…”
“Blaise was there? What was he doing and he’s not here now?” He goes deathly still.
I close my eyes and take in a shaky breath trying to not let the pounding of my head get to me. “It wasn’t Blaise though. It was and it wasn’t. It looked and felt real… but it didn’t feel real at the same time. I couldn’t throw dirt, and trees moved. It was weird, almost like a dream.” I say my confusion, making me go in circles.
“So not Blaise?”
I sit up in surprise. “No, it was Tom!” I yell loud instead of in my head. My head and stomach roll in unison as they both try to catch up to me. I groan in pain and slowly lower myself back to the floor needing a moment for things to not spin.
“Tom? How could he be Blaise?”
I groan out once more but still answer him in my head. “It’s like he was disguised as Blaise. But he didn’t act like him or not much, just moved and copied the way he talks but did not say words like he does or know him really.”
“Like you do?”
“Hey!” I yelp. I let out a burp as my stomach also fights to answer.
Shade pulls up off of me fluttering away before he or I could say more. Not wanting to fight at a time like this. I wait, knowing it could be a few minutes before he is able to look around and come back to me. I dig my fingers yet again into the mud between the cobble stones and feel the cool earth there. The cold bricks feel good against the heat in my face. My forehead throbs in tune with my heart and the heat is cooled by the ground and bricks. I lie there with my forehead against the stones and my body twisted up almost in a ball conserving heat. I was both cold and hot at the same time.
The room is very cool and dry. My mouth is parched. “How long have I been out?” I ask out loud but in an almost whisper to myself again not wanting to call attention to myself. My arms are covered in goose flesh. I slowly sit up trying not to move too quickly and hug my arms around myself to try to keep warm. My breath puffs out and I can see it in the cold air.
Soon Shade is back, his dark shadow makes his way over to me staying low to the ground out of sight. He pulls up on to my arm and whispers against my mind. “We are at your parents’ house where I checked out yesterday.” He utters in a low growl.
My eyes fall close, they struggle to open once again. “What did they give me?”
“What did they do to you?” Shade asks at the same time.
“They gave me something though it looked like Blaise bit me and poisoned me.” I put my hands to my head trying to think over my last memory. “But at the end before I blacked out, I saw Tom over me with a needle.” I rub at my forehead trying to let the information sink in.
Shade elongates his form covering my arms fully and the little heater that is with him starts to warm up my numb fingers. “We are in a cage made of some kind of metal; metal bars surround us,” Shade whispers to me.
I look around the room and notice the bars around us. I reach out my foot slowly since I did not want to try getting fully up. A few tingles run up my leg in warning before I nudge the bar. An arch of pain radiates through scrambling my thoughts. I scream out in pain and shock.
Shade quickly slides down and pulls my leg back from the bars that were still sending quick shocks through my body. “I should have warned you, that I felt the vibrations from them to begin with.” He squeezes out in a wheeze.
My body shakes with the aftershocks of it, but I am more alert and awake then I was before. “Don’t be, I think it helped wake me up at least and not feel as groggy.”
Shade stretches out his form to cover my upper and lower half to radiate heat through my body and help protect me from anything else that might happen. Once my body stays still long enough, I try to sit up once again and scoot just a little closer to the bars to see if there was anything on them. “There is scroll work on these bars like the school had on those gloves,” I mention.
There is an altar on the other side of the cage along with a bunch of candles that are already lit, and from the candle wax dripping down the side, it looks like it has been that way for a while.
“There are guards everywhere around this place but I did not see Tom when I was out. You are heavily guarded, they most likely heard you and know you’re up now,” Shade says.
“Are you able to get out of here and go get help?” I ask, thinking through our options here.
“I am not leaving you behind!” he says sharply.
“But we might need help. If you do not want to do that then see what we can use around here to help get me out.” I throw my hands out around us taking care not to touch the bars.
He nods and quickly flows into a small slender being lifting off of me to go back through the bars, slipping through the bars easily as a serpent slithering over the stone. I hold my breath watching him move around not wanting anyone to come in and see him.
My body starts to come awake more due to the shock, the drug finally letting go of my mind. I look down at my bare feet, scratches and dirt cover them. I rub at them trying to bring warmth and feeling back into them.
I watch Shade slither over the bumpy floor, making his way to the door. “What are you doing?” I ask in a harsh whisper. I watch him not go under the door as he did last time to find out where we are.
He gets almost to the wall and then slithers away, backing up and moving around as if searching. He backs up a bit then elongates into something larger, a bigger blob and charges at the door.
I hiss, “Stop, you’re going to cause a scene.” But before he hits the door, he hits something else that is blocking him.
“What was that?” I call out a bit louder, catching myself midway and whispering the last of it. Shade falls down in a puddle as if stunned like I was when I hit the side of my cage. I take care but move closer to the front of the cage to be able to see better. My fingers itch to reach through the bars to touch Shade and hear what he is saying or feeling. “I can’t hear if you are saying anything. Are you okay? Move around or something,” I ask, worrying.
I bite at the tip of my thumb not sure what to do. I pace back and forth growing closer to the bars but still not touching them. He Mostly stays there in a puddle of himself but a part of him trickles to the side causing a stream of inky darkness that drips in between the bars and pools there.
I dip my fingers into the darkness and feel Shades’ mind latch on to mine. “Something is weird.” His voice strains as if he were fighting for breath like a normal person.
“Weird how?” I fight my instincts to pull him over to me and keep him close. I didn’t want to move him too much to hit the electrified bars and he would be hurt once again.
“Something is blocking my way through, unlike before.” His voice wheezes away as if he is trying to find enough breath to talk. “When I came up against it, it would just block me and allow me no further. But when I charged it, it hit back tenfold.”
“Was it electric? Like the bars?” I ask.
“No, more like a huge truck running into me it took what I literally did and magnified it somehow,” his voice whispers through mine.
I kneel down and try to get my face as close to the bars as I can. “I don’t see anything,” I say in confusion.
“Doesn’t matter, something is still there.”
“Shouldn’t we have been able to tell when the spell went up or at least you should have, right?” I sit back on my heels and just keep my one hand against Shade holding on to him.
“I should have, yes,” he says with sorrow in his voice.
I pat the little puddle of him I could reach with both my hands. “Shade, don’t go anywhere. You are my life line.” My voice dies out part of the way through, the emotion not able to be stopped.
“I will always protect you.” He sends back. “I am not going anywhere, just took a big hit, it’s going to take me a moment to bounce back.” He chuckles.
“Rise and shine!” A voice booms out as people come through the door. A red beam shoots out at me through the bars shoving me in the chest and causing me to fall back away from Shade and the front of the cage.
The beam dissipates quickly before I can even realize what is going on. I touch my hand to my chest expecting to see blood or see a burn there but there is no mark, just a sore spot where a bruise might show up later.
“What is happening?” I growl out, wiping the tears from my eyes. I sit up and look at Shade who has retracted back into himself and is squirming and writhing in pain. There are people who are surrounding him and they have the red beams turned on him. They are thick and cover his whole body from my sight. They are chanting and focusing on him alone.
“Shade!” I scream out, I run forward accidentally brushing against the bars.
I bite back a curse and step back. I ball my fingers into fists and shake them, holding them close to my body, trying to curl myself around the pain.
“You’re not going to get through that way.” Tom calls out.
I lift my head up from my fingers and scan the room. Tom is a few steps away from the people that are surrounding Shade.
“You!” I growl out feeling my anger rise. “What are they doing to him?” I yell at him, keeping well behind the bars. The people surrounding Shade pay me no attention, their sole focus is on Shade. “Leave him alone!”
“Don’t you feel useless. I have been watching you, you know?” he says casually as if we had all the time in the world and nothing serious was happening.
“Is that what you need to hear to stop what you are doing to him?” I say.
“Him, you realize he is genderless he is nothing but a spell a byproduct, he doesn’t have a soul, he isn’t anything but instructions made from a spell.” Tom laughs.
“He is more than you ever could be, all you know how to do is stalk people and make them feel as if they are weak and useless,” I throw back at him.
“It’s easy when you have the right participant,” he spits at me through bars.
I glare back at him and wipe at the side of my face and arm where his spit had landed. “What did I do to you? For you to do all this? Why go through all this trouble? You said he isn’t even real so why are you killing him?” I say in frustration not knowing how to stop the questions coming out of my mouth.
Tom interrupts, “First, we are not killing it. We are turning it human, so you have nothing to use against us. He may die if we can’t use him for anything else, but you will die first, I promise you that.” He smiles. “You are a rat, a lowly disgusting rat and must be eradicated. You took something from me and I am taking something from you.”
“What do you mean?” I ask in confusion and anger.
“You still don’t remember?” He laughs very loudly as it echoes around the walls. “Good that means what we did to you really kept you dumb and naive. You killed my wife and a bunch of other people at the house in your rage!” he yells. “You are unfit to be alive, you couldn’t control your power when it unlocked and she along with her group was the closest to you, they could not escape like the others. After all we did to care for you, this is how you pay us back.” He acts as if he is throwing something at me.
I am hit with a memory. One showing Tom, Jade, and I all happy and having fun at dinner like a normal family. I huddle over and grab my head fighting what I am being shown. “These are lies. This is not the truth!” I scream out. “I remember them going down. I meant why did you do this to me from the start. Why was I captured and kept as a prisoner that whole time I never did anything to you or Jade?”
“Oh, but it is the truth,” he presses. “You just don’t want to believe you did a horrible thing to a loving family that took you in and just tried to give you a place to live and a home. Especially after your own parents tried to kill you!”
I shake my head. Visions keep coming at me showing me a life that I had, my head started to throb as I kept rejecting them. I laugh at him, I laugh at myself, I laugh at everything that has happened. I let the pain and anger seep into me. I cover my face as I continue to laugh and peak behind my fingers at him, hunched over. “Want to know why I know these are all lies!” I continue to cackle.
He backs up from the bars away from me, looking over at the people that are surrounding Shade making sure that they have not been interrupted. “They are no lies.” He grounds out.
“Uh uh uh!” I call out in a sing-song voice. “The illusionist is not a writer of stories; they are filled with plot holes and not realistic. I can’t feel the depths of your story. It is a base coat at best.” I grin back. “I was told of your tricks. Silly rabbit.”
“You believed them when you were younger.” He laughs right back at me.
“Then why did you stop with just the illusions?” I bite out.
