Out of the Shadows // Sebastian Sallow

Chapter Ninety-Eight

*Warning: This chapter contains heavy emotions, talk of graphic violence and torture.*

Sebastian's Perspective

It was dark. The whole house looked sad. Like it had been covered over with all our turmoil and tragedy and was cloaked in it.

I sighed deeply. My wife could be inside. If she could do it, then I should be able to steel my nerves and enter too.

I walked slowly up to the door. It was ajar. I pulled on it. It was stuck. Rusted open.

"Rach?" I called out. There was no response. There was a baby bottle on the counter next to a pile of dust. I thought there had been two...

I looked down. Her footprints were in the dust on the floor.

"Rachel? Are you here?" I called again, a little desperately. I could feel the emotion building inside me at missing my wife. She had been here regardless. I needed to follow her trail if I was going to find my children.

She had walked over to the bookshelves, wandering. It didn't have a pattern. Her feet went up the stairs. I followed.

I'd been here after the invasion, but the destruction still struck me. They really turned this place over. It broke my heart knowing that this was the first time she had seen this. And she did it alone.

She went into the twins' room. I pushed the door open slightly, my eyes taking in the mess once again. My throat feeling thick.

There were two big smudges in the dust on the floor. Her knees. "Oh, Rachel." I called out softly. My heart was aching for my grieving wife. The tattered quilt lay right in front of the smudges. I reached down to pick it up. It was wet. She had been crying. And suddenly, I was, too.

"Rachel. Why didn't you take me with you?" I whimpered to no one. I felt my heart aching desperately for my wife. And then I felt a spark. A weird tingle. I turned around quickly.

"Is someone there?" No response. That was really weird. I'd never felt that before when thinking about my wife. Strange.

I dropped the quilt back to the floor and followed her footprints down the hallway, they went into my office, came out and went into our room. So, I went there, too.

It was worse than when I last saw it. The winter had encroached through the broken window and there was wood rot and mold now. I sighed. She was right about it being empty for too long. We'd be lucky to sell it now in this condition. But that was highly beside the point. The status of our home was the last thing on my mind.

Her prints moved over toward the clothes spilled on the floor. Her mother's portrait. I knew that would hit her hard. Smudges. Her knees again. I bent down. There was a tattered piece of canvas right on top that held her mother's mouth and almost her whole eye.

"Charlotte. I'm trying to save her. I'm trying to save them all. I don't know what to do."

Her lips moved.

"What?" I asked her. Her eye was sternly staring at me. I looked down back at her mouth. I still didn't hear anything.

Her lips moved again. But no sound. Maybe I could read her lips.

Four syllables. Is... something... she was asking me something.

"Is what? Charlotte, I can't hear you. Is... is what?" I was getting desperate. Why had her mother's lips never moved before? And why now? And why couldn't I hear her?

Is...a ... Isa....

Oh, my god. Isabella!

"Yes! Isabella will tell me where my wife is! Thank you, Charlotte. Thank you!"