Beyond The Walls (NOW ON AMAZON!!!)

A Return

The fragments of Hadley's mind slowly gathered and pieced themselves back together as a wall formed around her mind. She sighed, noticing that she was on the ballroom floor. All she wanted to do was fall asleep and never wake up. She was okay with that. With letting it all go. With coming to peace with everything that had happened. Her failed adventures. The daughter she would never have. The love she would never feel again. It was alright.

A good a time as any to die.

A shrill cry pierced through her mindscape and Hadley bolted upright. She instantly recognised the sound.

He was the wall around her mind.

The boy.

Her son.

And he was upset because she wasn't getting up!

She had to get up!

Get up!

Now!

"Okay! Okay!" Hadley whispered, shakily pulling herself to her feet.

Beside her was Ruqwik, her eyes closed, her face to the heavens and a huge grin on her face, savouring the telepathic destruction she wrought!

Jamila's axe lay where she'd left it when she had gone to grab the chair to break the ballroom's window. Hadley hobbled to the axe, picked it up, dragged it as she limped back to Ruq, lifted it, and swung as hard as she could.

Ruq's head fell to the ground with a sickening thud, her body collapsing at Hadley's feet, washing her in an ocean of blood.

It was like a rubber band snapping back hard!

Hadley's mind was awash with life. An electric buzz that brought it all the way back. She fell to her knees, gulping down air like she'd been in a vacuum for days. The wall protecting her mind was gone. Unnecessary, now that the vampire was stopped.

The vampire!

Ruq!

Hadley dropped the axe and picked up the vampire's head next to her. She lifted it to the torso and fit it back in place, desperate to see the seam heal!

She couldn't lose Ruq!

Heal!

Come on, Ruq!

Heal!

Come back.

Please!

It was then that Hadley noticed movement in her periphery.

She wasn't the only one who's mind had been released from the edge of blank nothingness.

The ghouls were standing up around her!

"Come on, Ruq. Heal. I can't hold them off. I can't do this!" Hadley whispered. Her voice broke as she spoke her next words. "Not alone. Not without you."

Just as Hadley was losing hope, reaching for Jamila's axe to fight a battle she would definitely lose, a group of people burst through the doorway of the ballroom!

A few were unmistakeably vampires, but one of them caught Hadley's attention.

Hadley had never seen such grace embodied in a single person. The vampire moved like lightning fast smoke, pulsing around the room, cutting down bumbling ghouls clambering back to their feet.

The vampire's name immediately jumped out at Hadley from earlier.

The one they'd been waiting for.

Kitari.

And behind her were those who Jamila and Ruq must have been referring to when they were talking about 'the others'! Brielle was among them. She walked to Hadley and hugged her tight. There were drying streaks of blood on her face, from her eyes, her nose, and her ears. This was the same on every one of their faces. Even outside this room, they had felt Hadley's power.