Limitless

Choices

Ten minutes later, Fabian was sitting on the side of the bath in a dry pair of boxers. I had taken out potions and swabs to help fix the injuries I had inflicted. He didn't wince while I worked, instead he watched me with absolute focus. I cleaned the cuts as best I could and wiped the blood. He was covered with the beginnings of what I was sure would be a series of blue-black bruises by tomorrow.

After a few very intense looks I decided not to push Fabian's patience any further.

"I discovered something out there today..." I wasn't really sure how I was going to tell him but I what I did know what that there was no more protesting from the voice in my head.

"Yves?" Fabian said a while later breaking me out of my reverie. I looked up at him from my position beside him at the bath and I wanted to cry again but I held the tears back doggedly.

"Come." He said taking my hand and led me into the kitchen. He stood taking out some groceries I hadn't spotted before. He began chopping vegetables by hand with a very solid, very sharp knife. I watched him work for a while, trying to order the thoughts in my head. But I didn't know how to begin.

"I know who S is." I blurted into the relatively silent kitchen. Fabian's knife slowed before he lowered it and raised his eyes to mine.

"How?" he asked skipping over all the multitudes of unimportant questions, going to the true heart of the matter.

"He was watching us, or at least he has been. I caught him standing on a mountain overlooking the cave while you were still inside. I apparated to him but he was gone. I spotted him again and followed until I caught up with him, or rather, he let me catch up to him."

Fabian watched me, his face blank except for his characteristic scowl placed prominently on his forehead.

He didn't tell me that I was being irresponsible or that I should have waited for reinforcements.

"It's my brother Fabian. He's the one who has been doing this all, and he's been doing it for me, he's been trying to lead me to those pockets of power the entire time. He says that it is waiting for me, I just have to go and find it and then he will come for me." Fabian's knuckles whitened for a moment around the knife still in his hand before he placed it on the cutting board carefully.

"Ok," he said pulling out a stool for himself and taking a seat, "let's go through this slowly. I thought your family had all died in that fire?"

"So did I." I said shaking my head still a little unsure about what exactly had happened that night. I thought I had all the information I needed but apparently not.

"And you saw him? Your brother?"

"Not clearly I didn't but I knew it was him. I recognized the voice."

"Alright," he said, "we know he's been leading you to those places, at least now we know for certain why. What do you mean when you say he will come for you?"

"That's what he said." I said playing with a diced carrot on the chopping board to avoid making eye contact with him.

"Yves?" Fabian asked a little more firmly. I took a breath before ploughing on through my discomfort.

"I think he wants me to join him, he wants me to be like him. But there is something horribly wrong with him Fabian, something unnatural. I don't know how to explain it, he isn't Sasha anymore." I ended rather lamely. I wanted to describe how he made my skin crawl, how his voice had reverberate through me, radiating power, how I had felt fear as well as a desperate need to see more, how I could see the sense behind his words. But I didn't. Fabian knew, as well as I, that was what lay ahead for me if we didn't figure out a way to stop him, a way to uncover what was happening to me, that there was a chance that I could turn out to be the same as Sasha. He had seen what I had become when I touched the power, he had seen the change more than I was able to observe. I knew it was wrong but, when I was in the throws of it, I wanted nothing but that power. If I had to give myself over to it, we both knew, that the violent bloated on power mess is exactly what I would become.