Savage Wings: Book Three of The Whitechapel Chronicles

Chapter 3

I hadn’t lain there for very long when I heard the dull groan of the door, cutting through the tomb-like silence of the small room. I raised my head, ready to let rip at Josiah with a stream of obscenities born from the very bowels of Hell itself, but instead wisps of white-blonde hair and a pair of striking azure eyes appeared in the doorway and I smiled in spite of everything.

I still found it strange that the boy who had once struck fear into the deepest recesses of my stomach could trigger such a sense of calm just to see his face and feel his presence close by.

Slipping out of the bed, I sank to the floor and gestured for Lucius to come and sit beside me, which he did with a grin, crossing his legs underneath him.  

“Where’s Josiah?” I asked, as I brushed a few stray strands of hair out of his eyes.

“He told me to tell you that he was going out, that he’ll be back soon and to remember the rules,” he chanted.

The rules. How on earth could I forget them?

Those damn rules felt like they were imprinted on me, like a hot brand to the skin. The rules were not to stray beyond the rooms Josiah had marked habitable, to do as he said at all times and to not attempt to leave the house without his strict permission. Not many rules, I grant you, but they were more than enough to remind me that I was, in effect, imprisoned here and that the suffocating bind of the contract was slowly choking the life from my spirit with every second that I remained inside the walls of the Chapel. Of course, I had no idea what was happening beyond these walls, the world could be burning for all I knew, yet I yearned for it all the same.

“He will wake up, you know.”

I turned sharply towards Lucius, feeling a spark of electricity jolt through me as I registered his words. “How do you know that?”

The boy shrugged. “He is not here.”

“Um…Lucius? He’s right behind us.”

Lucius nudged me with his elbow. “No, I mean he is not here.” His eyes flickered around the room.

“What does that even mean?” I sighed, wishing the boy wouldn’t talk in so many riddles.

“The nearly-dead like to linger close by. They don’t stray far from the body.”

“You mean like ghosts?”

He rolled his eyes. “Ghosts are dead people, Megan. They’re attached to the place where they died. The nearly-dead are attached to the body. They want to get back in, but they can’t.”

I glanced around the room, searching somewhere beyond the cobwebs and dust that hung in the stagnant air. “So…these nearly-dead people…you can see them?”

Lucius nodded. “Uh-huh. But they don’t like it. They don’t like it when I look at them.”