by Holly Martin
I moved back to stand amongst my Guardians and without any communication they all reached out to touch me. I closed my eyes and stepped through to the infirmary, easily taking them all with me.
Cassidy was ready for our return. The Guardians each took their charges to a bed. Eli lay Clementine gently down on one of the beds and covered her with a white sheet, the fresh blood from her nose and head immediately seeped through, staining the sheet. Izri saw this and let out a howl of pain.
The anger was receding now, leaving behind only an empty numbness. I watched Cassidy move to heal Seth of any of the drugs they had used on him and then I turned and walked quietly from the ward, pushing the doors open and stepped out into the cool corridor. Lucas was at my side instantly; he caught my arm, and gently held me back.
‘Are you hurt?’ he asked, his eyes searching mine.
I shook my head, though obviously he was only talking about physical injuries. Cassidy couldn’t heal the horrific scars within. He released my arm, satisfied that I wasn’t injured.
I walked quickly to my room, Lucas by my side. I found myself breaking into a run as we made our way down the corridor. As soon as I was in my room, I ran straight to the bathroom and turned on the shower. I saw Lucas standing outside the bathroom, facing out into the bedroom, he was uncertain what I needed, uncertain whether to leave me alone or to stay with me. Right then I didn’t care either way. As soon as the shower was hot I stepped in, not even bothering to get undressed. The water didn’t seem hot enough; I was so cold that if the water burnt my skin off it still wouldn’t be hot enough. As the blood ran out of my clothes into a red pool at my feet, I leant against the wall and slid down onto the floor, the water pouring over me. I rubbed and wrung out my clothes, to try to get the blood out, but there was so much of it on me: Caleb’s blood and maybe Clementine’s. I looked at my hands, covered in blood and as I retched, I felt my body go limp.
Standing over my body in the shower, I reflected how astral projection was the easiest pain killer. There was no more pain now, I was detached from it. The pain was in my heart, in my stomach, in my body and I was away from that now. My eyes wide open, unseeing were filled with pain and anguish, but I could feel none of that.
I heard my bedroom door slam open.
‘Where is she?’ That was Seth.
I turned round waiting for him, as Lucas indicated that I was in the bathroom. Seth came in, so angry, his fists clenched. ‘What the hell were you thinking? You could have been killed.’ Seth roared at my empty body.
‘Yeah I know,’ I said, quietly, but only in my mind.
Seth took in my empty shell, my slumped unresponsiveness and was at my side instantly, feeling for a pulse. Lucas came in too and seeing my body, was also at my side faster than was possible.
‘What’s wrong with her?’ Lucas asked, feeling for a pulse too.
I hoped I wasn’t dead, that this was nothing more than a bit of projection. How ironic to escape from the clutches of the Reapers only to die of shock when I was alone and safe in my shower.
‘She’s gone into shock,’ Seth muttered, scooping my limp body up into his arms and carrying me to the bed. I watched him go and turned back to Lucas who was looking at me.
‘Are you ok?’ he asked, softly in my mind.
‘Lucas, give me a hand helping her out of these wet clothes,’ Seth called. Lucas went into the bedroom and I followed them in, sitting on the window seat. I watched, as discreetly as they could, they removed my clothes and dressed me in my pyjamas, both of them trying not to look at my body whilst they got me changed. Seth wrapped the duvet around me and lay down with my limp body in his arms, stroking my head, my eyes still wide, unseeing, not blinking. Lucas came and sat next to where I was on the window seat.
‘Eve?’ he said in my head. ‘Are you ok?’
‘I’d think that would be a resounding no Lucas, since you are over here talking to my mind and Seth is over there hugging my empty body.’
‘Astral projection, again. I take it this wasn’t something you were trying to do.’
‘I guess it’s my body’s way of coping with what has happened, it helps to distance myself from the pain. But it wasn’t something I was trying to do.’
‘What were you trying to do?’
‘Get the blood out of my clothes, Caleb’s blood,’ I answered, hollowly.
Lucas sighed, sadly.
‘I’m sorry Lucas, I’m so sorry for losing Caleb, you must hate me.’
He turned to face me, even though he couldn’t see me. ‘I could never hate you Eve, I was sighing for you, for the pain and grief that you have endured over the last few months. It was never supposed to be that way.’
‘I didn’t mean to go, I really didn’t. I didn’t even realise it wasn’t a dream until Caleb arrived.’
Lucas was silent then as we watched Seth hugging me tightly, stroking my face, whispering to me, lovingly.
Quinn burst into the room, looked at my empty body, wrapped limply in Seth’s arms and was at the side of the bed like a shot.
‘Is she ok?’ Quinn asked, knowing he wasn’t going to get any answer from me.
Seth shrugged, helplessly. ‘I don’t know, I think she’s gone into shock.’
‘Eve, honey, can you hear me?’ Quinn took my hand, his voice, heavy with grief and pain.
‘I hurt them so much.’
‘She’ll be ok,’ said Lucas, without much conviction.
Quinn looked at him, and returned his attention to my shell.
‘How long do you think you’ll be like this?’ Lucas asked. ‘Can you get back in if you want?’
‘I don’t know, it hurts in there so badly, it feels like my body is screaming with pain. I’m not sure if I’m ready to go back in yet.’
Lucas looked back at me in alarm. ‘It hurts? Were you injured somehow?’
‘Not physically Lucas, mentally and emotionally. I suppose when I’m ready to cry and grieve over this I’ll go back in, at the moment I’m just numb.’
‘Would it help to talk about what happened?’
‘Maybe, I suppose when I’m detached like this, it’s the best time to talk about it. I can’t feel the pain that I would do if I was in my body.’
I paused and Lucas waited, patiently
‘Seeing Caleb die was horrific. They chopped his head off in one clean sweep and his body fell into my arms. Blood poured out of him, Lucas, I’ve never seen so much blood, it just gushed out of him like a fountain, and as I held his headless corpse, I just kept thinking how I could heal him, as if I could bring him back from the dead. I didn’t think about protecting myself, I just wanted to save him.’
‘We knew instantly he had died. And Seth slid to you straight away. But your signal went out a second later. We had no idea where you were or how to get to you. The others didn’t even know if you were alive, but I knew, I knew we had to be ready for when your signal switched back on.’
‘They had me wired up to all these electrodes, blocking my powers, blocking my thoughts, the whole building was charged with electricity.’
‘How did you escape if you couldn’t use your powers?’
‘It was anger Lucas.’
‘Anger over what they were doing to you?’
‘No what they did to Clementine, what they were going to do to Persia and Seth. They used some laser on Clementine, burned right through her skull. And Izri was screaming. God those screams, I don’t think I’ll ever forget them and I tried so hard to reach my powers and there was nothing I could do. Then they moved to Seth and my rage, my powers exploded out of me, it was like a sphere of fire, it turned the Reapers to dust, and destroyed their electric field around the hut, destroyed the hut too.’
I hesitated trying to block the images of the room from my mind. ‘I was too late though, Clementine was already dead. If I’d known I could do that, I would have done it earlier than that, I could have saved her.
A sob escaped from my throat, from my empty body on the bed
.
‘Oh, I guess talking about it did help.’
And then I was back in Seth’s arms as I sobbed again, the pain flooding through me as I wept uncontrollably. Seth held me tighter and I could feel the relief surge through him at me returning. Quinn went to sit on the window seat, sighing heavily.
Lucas shook his head. ‘You’re wrong Eve, none of this was your fault.’
I cried, great heaving sobs as I clung onto Seth, never wanting him to let go of me again.
Chapter 6
In the days and nights that followed I wasn’t really aware of much. Eli threatened to put me on a drip if I didn’t eat, and not wanting to face any more needles I obediently ate whatever was put in front of me, though I tasted none of it. Persia sat with me for a while, telling me I shouldn’t blame myself, thanking me for saving her and Izri. I didn’t really hear much of it. I could hardly bear to look at her, the guilt of Clementine’s death was too much. But there were two constants, two things that never changed. As the Guardians, Quinn, Persia and Cassidy came and went periodically to check on me, Seth never left, and I clung onto him like he was my life raft and I had been cast out at sea. And I was so grateful that he was there, even though I couldn’t really find it in me to talk to him.
The other constant was Caleb. Sometimes he would be sitting in the window seat with the other Guardians, sometimes in the chair on the other side of the room, sometimes he even sat on the end of the bed. I tried not to look at him, but I knew he was there. This was obviously a slightly worrying turn of events. There were three possibilities for seeing Caleb. Either, I now had the ability to see dead people, or I was hallucinating, I had finally gone mad and was imagining he was there, or maybe Guardians really were immortal and Caleb had successfully managed to reattach his head and had come back. Unlikely, but so were a lot of other things that had happened to me over the last few weeks.
One night, when everyone else had gone to bed, I decided to at least rule out one of these possibilities. So I managed to find my voice for the first time since I’d returned.
‘Seth?’
Seth sighed with huge relief that I had spoken to him, at last. ‘Yes love?’
I stared at Caleb, sitting in the window seat as I spoke. ‘Is there anyone else in the room with us now?’
‘No love, just you and me, why, did you want to talk?’
‘No,’ I said, quietly. So I had either finally gone mad, or the ghost of Caleb was going to haunt me for the rest of my existence. It was what I deserved, after all.
Seth, prompted by my sudden voice, decided to push me further. ‘How are you feeling?’
Was there one word to describe how I felt? Guilt. That was the overriding feeling. What I should have done, what I could have done to prevent Caleb and Clementine dying. And no matter what I did, no matter how many hours passed I could not rid myself of the horror that was their death. Over the last few days the anger had remained, not that blinding fury I’d had when destroying the Reapers but an anger still lay within me. Anger at the world, anger at the Reapers, but mostly an anger at myself for letting Caleb and Clementine die. But I suppose mostly I just felt numb.
I tilted my head to look at him. ‘How are you doing?’
He half smiled. ‘You’ve just been through hell and you want to know how I’m doing?’
‘It can’t have been a walk in the park for you either.’ I tightly wove my fingers into his t-shirt. ‘I’m sorry for putting you through that. What happened?’
Seth stared at me for a moment. ‘I wasn’t in here when you left. I was outside in the corridor talking to Eli, I’d left Caleb to watch over you. We didn’t know you had gone. But as soon as we felt Caleb die I slid to you. I think the rest of your guard were right behind me, but as soon as I landed I felt my connection with them blocked.’
‘They blocked our signal, they used electricity or something.’
‘I saw you on the floor, covered in blood and I thought they had hurt you. I have never been so scared, so angry as I was in that moment. I knew if I was to save you I had to stop them. I just went for them, punched, kicked lashed out at anything that moved. It took twenty of them to bring me down, they were sticking me with so many injections to sedate me.’ He swallowed. ‘The last thing I saw was you lying in a pool of blood.’
‘Oh Seth.’
‘What about you, how did you escape?’
‘I couldn’t let them hurt you.’ God I was a horrible person. I had it in me to stop Clementine from dying but I only tapped into that ability when the other half of my heart was threatened. I closed my eyes as the guilt rode through me again.
Seth kissed my forehead hard.
‘Evie I want us to get married.’
I opened my eyes and stared unblinking at the tiny cracks in the wall next to the bed. I looked up at him, at his gentle brown eyes watching me carefully. I loved this man so much, I loved him with every cell, every heartbeat, and every breath. But he did pick his moments.
‘Is this your idea of a proposal, because it’s a bit lame?’
He smiled. ‘I’ll do it properly, I promise. But we’re going to get married. If either of us are to die, we’ll die as husband and wife. I’m not taking no for an answer.’
I leaned into his neck. ‘Ok.’
I felt his heart leap against my hand. ‘Ok? As in yes?’
I smiled against him, the first smile I’d had since coming back.
Seth’s arms tightened around me. ‘I love you baby.’
‘I know and I love you so much, but I’m still really angry at the moment, mainly at the Putarians and the Reapers. It’s going to take a while to get over it all, to put the whole thing behind me and move on.’
‘Well I’m not going anywhere my love, I’m going to spend every day of my life trying to show you how much I love you, how much you mean to me. I’ll stay here with you forever if necessary.’
‘You don’t have much choice Seth, I’m not letting you go again,’ I muttered quietly and I felt him smile. I looked over at Caleb again and I saw him smile too as he looked out the window.
*
Over the days, amongst my Guardians visits, Isaac started turning up more frequently, which I was less than happy about. Every time he walked in, he looked at me, lying silently in my bed, clinging to Seth, and shook his head or rolled his eyes.
‘I can’t really understand the fuss she’s making, he was only a Guardian,’ Isaac shrugged one night.
‘I think it’s a bit more than Caleb’s death that she’s dealing with right now,’ sniffed Alexandria. From the look on her face, I didn’t think she liked him either.
‘How long are we going to let her lie here like this?’
Let me?
‘Let her?’ said Quinn, derisively.
‘As long as she needs,’ Lucas muttered, through clenched teeth. Clearly not a fan, himself.
‘But she just lies there, not saying anything, not doing anything. It’s been almost a week now…’
A week, really?
‘…She’s the Sentinel, she’s supposed to be strong. This is just….’ he gestured disdainfully towards me. ‘…feeble and pathetic.’
Quinn growled. Lucas stood up and Seth made to get up too, though I clung onto him tighter.
‘Do you think she can’t hear you?’ Seth hissed angrily. ‘She’s grieving, not deaf or stupid.’
‘Isaac, I think you should leave, it’s a bit crowded in here,’ Lucas growled.
‘But I have as much right to be here as you do,’ he protested, scornfully. He looked round at the angry faces around the room, and with another sigh of contempt, he walked out.
‘What an arse,’ I muttered.
Lucas smiled at hearing my voice for the first time and came and sat on the edge of the bed, next to Caleb. ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, gently.
‘Much the same,’ and then in his head, partly because it was easier to talk like that, and partly because I didn’t want anyone else to hear. ‘I see C
lementine murdered every time I close my eyes, I see Caleb’s headless corpse too, and I feel so angry on the inside, so angry that it burns through every breath, but on the outside I just feel numb and so very tired.’
Lucas looked pained at my explanation. ‘There’s something else bothering you as well, I can’t place it, something that you’re scared or worried about?’
I sighed, and Seth stroked my head, soothingly. ‘Lucas….’ I trailed off, awkwardly.
Lucas took my hand, encouragingly.
‘Ok, you know I have things in my head that I don’t want shared with my other Guardians?’
Lucas nodded.
‘This is one of them.’
‘You have my word Eve, it won’t go past us.’
I sighed again. ‘I see Caleb.’
Lucas frowned, slightly. ‘In your dreams, in your mind?’
I smiled, wryly. ‘Sitting at the end of my bed at the moment, he hasn’t left me since I’ve come back.’
Lucas looked down towards the bottom of the bed and Caleb grinned at him. He turned back to me. ‘That’s not that uncommon in these kinds of situations, stress induced hallucinations, your subconscious is trying to give you a message…’
‘Could it be a ghost?’
Lucas shrugged. ‘It’s possible, depends on what you believe. But either way he or it is trying to tell you something. Have you talked to him?’
I shook my head. ‘I’m scared of what he will say,’
Caleb frowned at this, as if it saddened him.
‘When you’re ready, you should talk to him, it might help.’
I nodded and Lucas made to get up.
‘Lucas?’
He turned back.
‘Has it really been a week?’
‘Five days.’
I didn’t know if it seemed longer than that, as sometimes the days dragged by, or shorter, the memories still so vivid in my head.
‘Were all the children ok, and Izri?’
