“I thought I would never see you again.” He said deeply, his tone becoming monotone. His grip was still increasing.
I gasped and sputtered at the sensation. I hit him and pounded at his back, but he didn’t respond until the last possible minute when his hold loosened and his eyes lowered to look right at me.
“I’m sorry, Jos. I got scared.”
I looked in his eyes desperately trying to figure out if it was him or not. All the times in the T?uha, all the dreams, every encounter with Ryland’s possessed body had made it so I couldn’t tell the real Ryland from the fake Ryland anymore. I didn’t know if this Ryland would hurt me or protect me. The old Ryland, my Ryland, was now becoming a fuzzy memory of someone I wasn’t even sure existed. I didn’t trust the Ryland that held me. I didn’t want to be near him.
With that one thought, everything that I had felt before was shattered. I didn’t feel the love I once felt for him, and it scared me.
“It’s okay,” I said, my words stopping as the heavy footsteps from earlier filled the space, the cabinets and bottles in our current refuge rattling with each impact.
Ryland clutched me to him, his nails digging into me at each beat. I barely noticed. My muscles jumped at each footfall right along with them.
Before I knew what had happened, Ryland had grabbed my body and thrown it across the room. I sped through the air, screaming at the unprovoked action, before slamming into an empty book case. The second my body made contact with the moldy shelves, the thumping stopped.
“You brought them to me!” Ryland yelled, his voice echoing around me.
I picked myself up to face him, my body aching from the impact. His eyes were wide and his fists balled at his side. I stared as he yelled at me before hunching his shoulders and charging at me.
“You cursed me!”
He had made it about half way across the room before I picked myself up and ran through the first door I could find, Ryland still yelling behind me. I swung the door shut but did not stop my progression. I ran from door to door, hallway to hallway, until I thought that I had put enough space between us.
I looked wildly around the room I had entered to see cabinets, a hospital bed, a dresser, and a filthy toilet. I recognized this place, but like all the other rooms, nothing made sense. The walls that were once solid had deteriorated enough that you could see through them in many places, but only enough to see what was coming.
It was a lookout.
A hiding place.
I ran over to the toilet and wedged myself between the filthy bowl and what was left of one of the walls, the hospital bed perfectly placed to block me from view.
I moved my legs into my chest and clung to them, my eyes wide as I looked around and tried to figure out my next move.
Next move?
Why was I here anyway?
Did I live here?
No.
That wasn’t right.
I clung tighter to my legs, rested my head on my knees and tried to ignore the smell of the toilet, the scurrying feet of large pests, and the drip
drip
drip
of water that was falling on my head.
A strange heat slowly began to spread through me. It began in my shoulder and soon reached every part of me. I screamed and jumped up, expecting to see blood dripping over my skin, but I found nothing. I looked around in a panic, knowing my yell had given away my location and that Ryland would be right behind me.
I ran my eyes over my skin, still looking for some form of injury, but nothing was there even though the warmth stayed with me.
The warmth seemed familiar, but I didn’t know why.
I had the distinct impression I was forgetting something.
Or was it someone?
Thirty-Three
The words were funny, but they calmed me. The strange words belonged to a song, a beautiful song that warmed my heart. I sang the song, the song that still lived somewhere deep inside me. I sang it to put myself to sleep every night in the only place I knew. In this room, against the toilet; I stayed here because I could see when they were coming for me. It was the only safe place in this terrifying space.
Ryland was hunting me.
He was determined to kill me. He tried to every day. Every day for forty-two days, I had made marks on the floor by the toilet to track the days, all the days he hunted me. The lines of my blood told me how many days he had hurt me. Forty-two days.
Forty-two days of Cail taunting me before Ryland came. Ryland hurts. Cail didn’t hurt, Cail warns.
Cail came first.
Cail always came first.
I felt the drip, drip, drip, against my neck, and that strange warmth flared again. I clawed at it, the same way I had for weeks, the skin now raw and broken in places. I scratched again, trying to get it out of me, but only my own blood ever came.
Blood wasn’t comforting. Ryland showed me that every day.
But this warmth was supposed to be comforting. I knew that somewhere deep inside of me.
I knew.