Page 18 of The Shadow's Soulmate

“What about everyone else? My friends? I can’t just sit here like a lemon and do nothing.”

This was why. Unless I’d put everything else in place, to protect the other therapists, she’d never have stayed in this room. No force on earth would stop her from running to them. From trying, even in a full prison riot, to help them. At least I’d managed this much.

“They will be safe. I’ve already made sure that some of them will be ok, and now I need to go and put the last pieces in place.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I will not stop until they are all safe. I promise you that.”

“I trust you.”

“That is the greatest gift I’ve ever been given.”

She stroked my cheek and for a moment I let my full form show. The one that I never showed anyone. That I hadn’t even shown her before. Horns grew on my head, gray angular patterns formed on my ink black skin and I let the robe vanish. Her eyes roamed around me, taking in the spikes running up my forearms before traveling up to my face. She reached up and gently stroked my horns. A shiver ran down me.

“They are very sensitive,” I told her with a wicked grin.

“I look forward to having to hold on to them,” she replied with a twitch of her mouth.

I leaned forward for one last kiss and, as her lips grazed mine, disappeared.

Chapter 13

Ella

It was the hardest thing I’d ever done. Sitting and doing nothing. I waited, but there were noalarms. Eventually I heard shouting. My whole body tensed. The shouting got louder. There were loud thuds that sounded like the walls were coming down. A tear ran down my face as screams rang out in the distance. How could I just sit here? I knew that Descaris would do everything he could. But how could I live with myself knowing that I just sat here and did nothing?

I stood, my legs shaking. My friends might be ok, but maybe there were other people who needed help. All I had to do was not die. I walked to the door and pulled it ajar. There was no one in the corridor of therapy rooms, but I could hear that there was fighting nearby. Carefully, I wandered out and tried to stay silent as I moved towards the chaos.

Once I reached the corner, I peeked my head around. Monsters were fighting and behind them I could see two workers from the medical ward cowering. I caught the eye of one and beckoned them towards me. The monsters were too busy brawling to notice anything else. The man and the woman waited until one of the fighting monsters threw the other against a wall, sending both of them crashing through it. Then they ran to me. I grabbedtheir hands and pulled them back down the corridor to my therapy room.

I closed the door quietly as soon as they were in there and they both fell to the floor.

“Are you ok?”

“Yes,” the woman replied. “There’s a gaping hole in one of the cell blocks and all the monsters are everywhere”.

“Ok. Well, we are safe here. Someone is coming for us soon, I promise.”

I went back to the door and peered out again.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to see if I can spot anyone else and bring them back here. See if you can get the window open.”

I wasn’t sure what Descaris had planned for when he returned here. Could he blip multiple people safely? I wanted to have a back-up plan, just in case. But all the windows had a locked set of bars on them. But maybe we could break the lock somehow.

I ventured back into the corridor again. Trying not to flinch every time I heard a scream or a loud bang. I wasn’t sure if many people would even head this way if they were trying to escape. This set of rooms wasn’t near an exit. I got around the corner. There was no sign of the fighting pair of monsters any more. Just a hole in the wall. My heart thudded in my chest, like a drumbeat marching me to my death. I peered into the hole and jumped back before I could process what I was actually seeing. Both monsters were unconscious and lying in a large pool of blood. One of them was bent at an unnatural angle at his chest.

I looked away quickly. I wanted to help. But I also had no way of knowing how much that would put me at risk. I kept moving forwards even though every part of my brain screamed to run away. To stay alive. To save myself. Emotions roared in my mind, threatening to overwhelm me.

I stopped and took a deep breath. I thought of Descaris. He was learning to feel again. For me. Because of me. I could learn to harness my own feelings to help others.

“I am in control of myself and my story. I am making these choices. They aren’t happening to me.”

I repeated it to myself quietly and let the intense feelings go. I breathed and observed them and then let them go. After a few moments, I felt calmer, and I moved forward again. When I reached the end of the corridor, it branched into two different directions. There were noises of rioting from both directions. Next to me was the laundry. I darted in to find a woman who worked there hiding behind a cart.

I grabbed her and told her how to get to my therapy room and to help the others get a window open. She ran there without a word. I started pulling laundry carts out of the room and lining them up to block off the corridors. They wouldn’t stop a monster, but they might slow one down. I waited and waited, trying to regulate my breathing the whole time.

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