Hellbound - 001/Henry Creel/Peter Ballard

009

Here are 3 things that I never expected to happen. I never thought I'd be able to feel pure abided happiness. I couldn't be in a place like this, I'd made up my mind. I knew it. Two, I never expected my powers to be such limitless, such miraculous as they are right now. Three, I never even dreamed of escaping.

But here I am, doing the three most impossible things that were too unlikely to happen.

I shocked myself, everything I knew about myself was turned upside down, and weirdly enough I don't mind it, I am loving this strange situation that I'm entering because Henry's by my side.

I have one guarantee about this escape. If Henry's by my side everything will be alright. We are going to make it like we always do.

His breaths are erratic, panicked even but he is excited. I can hint at it by the upward tilt of his full lips, the gleam in those bottomless blue eyes and the hand, reaching out to mine.

I slip out of my room as soon as his fingers wrap around my wrist. There is no time to spare.

I glance at my room one last time, the only personal room I've known for the entirety of my life, my safe space, my heaven.

I look at my bed, feeling the guilt of abandoning my silly belongings behind, but I promise myself that once I'm out of here I'm going to make up for it. I'm going to create a new life for myself, one that I'm not plagued by Papa and his minions, one that Henry belongs in without the fear of being caught with me.

I'm going to build a new life with him.

I feel jitters in my stomach, the excitement wreaking havoc on my insides as we cruise past the corridors in a speedwalk.

Henry swipes his white card through multiple doors and we turn left and right every once in a while.

The lab is a maze, if not for Henry I'd be lost right now.

"You have to get the power restricting device out of me if we want this to work Eve." He says sternly. This is the first time that Henry has been serious with me.

"Okay." It's all I say. I don't dare say anything more, it feels as if I'm slowing us down.

"Thank you for creating such a perfect distraction today. Did you plan it?" He sounds proud of me and I don't want to admit that I'm not a mastermind like him, I did not plan this, it was pure revenge with nothing else in mind.

"Yes." I lie. I lie because that will make him proud of me and I'm tired of being a disappointment.

The smile on his face makes it all worth it.

"Good job Eve."

I return his smile but mine wavers. I don't like lying to him.

We don't talk the whole time we run through endless doors, perhaps there is nothing to say or we are too deeply lost in our thoughts and hopes for the future to say anything.

The silence is not deafening, it's not an awkward noose around our necks that makes me want to talk just to alleviate the tension. No. It's a silence in which a million words can be said yet nothing is spoken. It's a silence that I'm oddly comfortable and thankful for.

"I did not expect that little skirmish at the rainbow room tonight, I did not know your powers progressed so fast overnight. When this is all over I want to hear all about it." He speaks up, and there is hope in his voice, the way he carries himself.

He believes that we are going to make it in contrast to my doubts about this whole plan. He's confident in himself and maybe in his powers too once he gets them back.