Intertwined

Chapter Twenty-Five

I couldn't hear. I couldn't see. I couldn't feel. I had the oddest sensation that I did die. I'd finally passed over because it was black. The otherside was dark, empty. I was alone. So alone. There were words, but they didn't make sounds, just words on a page. I could understand them, but not hear them—the sound that comes from an emty soul. My name being repeated over and over again.

There was no doubt that it was easy here. Though I was robbed of all sensation, there was pain. Not a physical sort of pain, like breaking bones and cutting skin, but overarching pain. It wasn't there, I didn't feel it, but it existed. Somewhere in the blackness, it existed. I just wasn't able to feel it. And though the pain waited just outside my consciousness, I wanted to rest here. I wanted to let everything go. I could handle that. I could deal with this for the reso fo eternity because this was easier. Through the pain, there was comfort that waited beyond the shadowed pain. The only thing that would make this perfect, this restfulness, would be Lyall.

Lyall.

The name sparked something deep in me. A spark—A flicker of white catching my attention.

Lyall.

With that name came a flourish of images. Things that I couldn't register while in defeat. I could see Marleene, her face before she yelled at me to run. I could see Erica reading a poem at the lunch table. I could see both Mike and Jason punching each other in the ribs. I could see Mason, smiling while he looked into my mother's eyes. I could see Rosie, her hands hands combing over my back while she hugged me. I could see Marie, wiping away my tears that last day in the hospital. and I could see...

Lyall.

My body burst into flames. Heat was covering me, burning me from the inside.

The blackness was soothing, it would take me away from the fear and anxiety that threatened me from all sides. I wouldn't have to bear the pain that never relented. But I couldn't. The pain meant real. The pain meant alive. And when I was alive, there was Lyall. There was peace. Not this kind of peace, the annoying, painful peace. But the real kind, the one that came from Lyall's smile, from his laugh. Real peace was finding something to fight for. Someone to fight for.

There was pain and fire. Instead of fleeing from the pain, I pulled myself toward it, like I was pulling myself up a mountian. The pain in my head started to increase, more violent than I had ever felt it before. It would be easier to let myself fall, but the pain meant Lyall.

I searched through the blackness, searched for a sign of life, of color of anything that wasn't this suddenly eerie darkness.

I found it. Murky at first, I watched leaves pass me by. The farther we tracked, the clearer and clearer the world became.

I could see. The pain was still immobilizing but it was lessening.

"The cellar," Marleene said. Her voice was full and right next to my ear. "We need to get Lyall out of those chains. It's our best bet to protect Emerson. Do you know how long the Covenhead can take possession of Mattias's body without the blood of the banshee?"

I blinked slowly, my had hanging down. My feet were being dragged across the grass while two other pairs were running beside them.

"I don't know. Maybe when the sun comes up? We needed the full moon, so after that it should end. But it's all a guessing game. I'm not the witch," James said from the other side.

"And I'm not the one who tore pages out of my tomes," Marleene bit.

"Don't fight," I said, my voice a weak.

And then I was on the floor. They'd dropped me.

"Oh my god. Em, You're okay!" Marleene cried, pulling me into a hug.