Soulseer ✔️ *COMPLETE*

Chapter Thirty

Nothing has changed about this building at all. I swear even the litter caught under the shrubbery is the same. Anger flares up in me unexpectedly. This sameness feels like a peculiar and personal affront. How dare this stupid building get to stay the same when I've had to make so many changes?

I'm feeling so many feels, and few of them good, that I realize I may have misled myself. I was so excited to leave the Gathering and told myself it was Angus and Joel and the help they will hopefully provide. But it's possible- maybe even likely- that the real compulsion was to get here. I HATE this building. Just the sight of its beige brick is nauseating and I already feel a headache growing from the scowl contorting my face. Despise is an exhausting emotion to maintain. Not to mention a super ugly shade of purple-brown in your soul.

But.

Knowing that she's here, that she's safe? There's such a powerful lightness in that. I imagine she'd rather be out. But the first time I really felt any peace after my dad died was when they took her away and set her up in here. I'm possibly the world's most selfish asshole. But when she's here, I know that someone else, someone who isn't me, someone with some kind of training is looking out for her. Several someones in fact. And they do an infinitely better job than I did.

I press the security button at the door and stare up at the main camera, freezing with one hand ready to pull the door open, the other bracing the frame. Even once you're buzzed in, you've got to really yank on the handle.

The steady "Beep. Beep. Beep..." from the intercom lets me know that someone inside is far from their desk but madly racing to view the visitor on screen. I could be a person in need after all. Someone severely altered from the latest party drug. Or a massively depressed teenager with their wrists dripping. Even nice little grannies from the suburbs have been known to show up with personality disorders flaring up in the worst way.

The beeping continues. I keep my face aimed at the camera but let my eyes wander. Jesus. Even the posted notices on the glass are the same. There's one advertising a clinical trial that closed months ago. It's infuriating. I've probably looked at that stupid piece of paper with fraying edges and outdated information a hundred times. Why doesn't someone just take it down?

My anger is ratcheting up as the gentle beeping continues. Honestly someone could get in a lot of trouble over this - what if I'd just overdosed on sleeping pills and this was my final desperate act to save myself? The last thing I'd see would be some ridiculous poster for Xolo-something. And I even arrived too late for that! The anger swells in my soul too and I feel a subtle tugging. I don't have to look to know that it's bobbing behind me with angry reds swirling. How are we supposed to trust our loved ones to their care when they can't even keep up to date on their freaking posters?

I've worked myself into such a lather about this that it isn't until the paper is flicked off the inside of the glass and luffs to the floor inside the lobby that I realize I've just Shaped something that isn't a hammer. That's when the panic hits. I've got about seventeen cameras aimed on me and I just used my soul to pull a stupid piece of paper off the inside of the glass. Violent tremors work their way up from my legs to my torso and ripple into my soul. I've just fucking exposed myself over a sheet of paper! Fuck me!

Now my eyes are locked on the poster as it lands on the other side of - Wait.

The other side. My hands haven't moved from their ready position on the door. And the paper was hanging inside while I'm still out here with the beep beep beep of my loneliness. I smile and exhale so big that the glass steams up in front of me. I'm on camera not doing anything as far as any Fivers would see. And best of all, I have affected change. There is now a poster size stretch of clear glass on the window.