The Reaper Saga [Book 1-3]

CHAPTER 17 [EDITED]

5132

TWO MONTHS AGO

The next time I woke up, there was no crazy Fredah hovering over with me with her witchy woo woo but 5133 was. Awake and apparently disoriented by the way she was kind of staring at the ceiling. Not that the ceiling was anything special. This place was shit to look at.

I couldn't keep the pity out of my tone. "You good? Need anything inspirational to hear?"

She didn't heed to me once.

Ok, fine. I could find a way out of this myself.

I looked down, finding nothing binding me to the stretcher. Ok, that was a good starter. Both of my wrists seemed to move without any restriction so I raised them only to find an invisible barrier stopping me from doing so. Oh, she didn't...

"I tried that too. Didn't really work." Now we're talking.

"What did you do to piss her off?" I asked instead. If only she bound my hands with a rope or something that I could actually see, would make this a little less miserable for me. But of course, once again, Fredah was making a point.

I was messing with something I didn't understand.

"I'm your roommate. That's enough to piss her off." 5133's lips turned into a smirk and I was instantly intrigued. She hardly talked to me since she came here. Who knew being kidnapped brings all of your vocabulary out front like this?

"I didn't choose you as my roommate."

She nodded, chuckling. "She thinks we're friends."

We weren't friends but I could imagine a beginning of a friendship right here. If she was here, we both ought to be equally crazy. We could come up with something unbelievable. Enough to outlive Fredah or any of her sisters.

"Also I have been keeping an eye on her." She added, destroying my imagination of a friendship out of this but it was still negotiable. I just had to behave myself. "They were planning something big, something that can bring the master right back here. Era got caught in the middle of it, that's why she is pissed. You and I are the scapegoats of her frustration."

Shit. "That doesn't sound good. We have no way out of this."

It took her a few minutes but she shook her head. "Actually there's a way-"

"Screaming? Hoping she forgot about us? Murdering her crazy ass?" I started to wonder and each one felt better than the other. Yes, I could be creative when I wanted to be. "Or get Byron to do it..."

"Actually I was talking about something else."

"Are you a witch?" I blurted out, noticing the way her hands moved along with her head in a weird tune. I had seen Sandy sometimes do that without even realizing and by the way her eyes widened, she didn't either.

"Yeah, I am."

That solved at least one of our problems. "Then why aren't we out of this mess yet?"

"I'm not like other witches, I don't do incantations." There we go hope. Puffed right at the edge.

"Fuck!"

"Hey! I didn't say we're completely hopeless. There are spirits all over this place. I asked one nicely to pass on the news that we need help. Magic may not cross these walls but these spirits can. Now, I asked for someone who can actually control his magic." She sounded confident, she truly did but I hated how easy it was to watch that hope crumble for someone like me. I practically invented that shit.

I leaned over as much I could dare without hurting my wrists. "Who's going to help us exactly?"

She looked away. "Just trust me."

Trust her? Yeah no.

"I need an answer, 5133. If I didn't give up the vibe that I've trust issues, I'm telling you face to face right now. Besides, you haven't told me how that doggy came into our room yet." I almost forgot about our dog but thankfully, my mind wasn't that bleak yet.

"You saw it too?" Her eyes brightened suddenly. "I thought that was a dream."

"I don't dream about doggies, only souls and assholes I'm attracted to." I had to snort at my own joke. "No, seriously, how did that happen? And you said something about found us and run."

She tried to avoid my gaze but I stared at her, almost making her uncomfortable. This was something the pill made me learn. I could smile like a dolly but feel like a puppeteer. Now that I was off of it, it made me look even crazier.

"I don't remember the part about found us and run but I had just finished lunch and the nurse told me to take a nap. I had therapy at night so I thought a nap would be good for me. I tried to get on the bed when I saw it, with its red eyes...it's not a doggy, 5132. It's a hellhound. You should have seen it. It's like I saw death right in front of me..."

The thing was I saw it.

But it didn't feel like death. It felt familiar.

"5132?"

"Yeah, I'm good. We have a hellhound as a neighbor now. What's the big deal?" I cackled, an ugly one I was sure by the way she flinched.

"It is a big deal if it attacked me-I could have died." And...that's why I didn't do friendships. The constant struggling and when to stop being myself was a war I didn't think I could win. She started saying something else when she paused suddenly, hearing what could have been footsteps. My ears also picked up in alarm. It could be Fredah coming back or worse, some nameless hellhound looking for fresh blood.

"5133?"

I heard her deep breath. "Yeah, I know."

I was expecting Fredah or someone else but I didn't expect my nose to pick up a smell of decaying flesh again. A human? No, it was somewhat different. There were no tunes, nothing to feed my curiosity. I couldn't pinpoint it. Not until whoever was coming for us tried to walk in only to stop because of the shield on the door.

"Fuck." I heard a curse, willing myself to calm down. It wasn't a human, fuck, it was something worse alright. My eyes took in the man currently trying to get in while my breath got labored, my body betraying itself. I wasn't supposed to turn right here, right now. Closing my eyes, I could feel the hunger come back tenfold harder.

"What's happening?" A voice, not mine cried out. My gaze went to the door again, to see the man with blond hair and silver eyes on his knees, clutching his head now. If my hands were free, I'd do the same thing because even I was starting to burn up, the tingling in my body making me whimper.

"Shit! Shit." I heard 5133, finding the desperation in her voice kinda new. "What's happening? Answer me!"

Before the man could utter a word, I heard some more footsteps and then someone else calling my name out. "Lana! Are you there?"

Zach.

I wanted to call out to him, fuck, maybe I did. But I could only hear another voice as he choked out. "B-Beloved. Found my beloved..."