What Lay in the Dark

by Casey L. Nash

  Chapter Thirteen: The Circle

  I stared into the mirror holding my shirt up over my waist, lightly touching the jagged scar making its way across my stomach and down to my left hip in the shape of a giant mouth – a shark’s maw. The stitches stood out against my skin. It was weird to think the wound nearly killed me. Still could kill me, even. The scar, I knew, would remain forever. A constant reminder of the battle which I nearly lost.

  “You have a long way to go if you want to catch up to me,” I noticed Egan approaching me in the mirror, and turned to face him.

  “What do you mean?”

  Silently, Egan stepped back and removed his shirt.

  “I saw you without your shirt.”

  “Not in the light, you didn’t.”

  My mouth dropped open. My eyes flickered over Egan’s skin and I wondered how there could possibly be that many scars disturbing his skin. Bites, scratches, stabs – Egan had been through it all. I gently placed my fingers on one of the scars on his shoulder, softly tracing it to where it stopped by his belly button.

  “Have you ever thought maybe you’re fighting a war you can’t win?” I asked.

  “I know I can’t win,” Egan replied. “But I can’t afford to lose. That’s why hunters exist. All we do is fight them knowing they come back eventually. We banish demons in the hope it will make a difference. Ailia, I have to ask,” Egan stepped forward and lowered his voice, “Is this really what you want?”

  “Yes,” I whispered. “Egan, I want to be with you. If that means living your crazy life, so be it.”

  “I can’t protect you. I thought I could, but last night, when you were fighting that demon in the astral plane, there was nothing I could do.”

  “Egan, you brought me back. If it wasn’t for you, I might still be stuck in the astral plane.”

  Confusion registered in Egan’s eyes, “I thought you came back because you defeated the demon.”

  I smiled. “I defeated it as you brought me back.”

  “Do you mean that when you were astral...?”

  “I could feel you,” I confirmed. “Every touch, as real as it is now. I thought you knew that.”

  “When Samuel first told me about you,” Egan murmured, placing his hand on my cheek. “He told me you were my soul mate. I thought he was insane.”

  “Is it true?” I asked. “That only soul mates can...?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never really studied astral projection.”

  “I didn’t believe in soul mates,” I admitted.

  “Neither did I. The idea always seemed too farfetched. I always thought of it as comfort for people who were afraid of ending up alone.”

  “But Michael and Samuel both believe.”

  “And Mikayla.”

  “Hmm,” My fingers drifted to a scar at the base of Egan’s neck. It looked as though a demon ripped a claw through the bottom of his throat.

  “I got that when I was nine,” Egan told me. “Saved a girl I had a crush on in the orphanage.”

  I smiled, imagining a miniature Egan with a crush.

  Egan frowned. “She called me a freak and never spoke to me again.”

  My smile disappeared completely. How sad.

  “It’s alright,” Egan shrugged. “I sort of realised then I could never really be in a relationship. I accepted the fact I’d be alone forever.”

  “You’re not alone now,” I muttered.

  “No,” he whispered. “I’m not.”