The Summoning (Sleep Token FanFiction)

XXXIII - Atlantic

I sucked in a gasping breath as if I were still being tossed around the ragged rocks of the ocean below. Though the air was crisp with fresh rain, I wasn't being drowned out. My lungs took in air faster than it could process as I came back to myself. 

You're okay, Hayley, you're safe.

I blinked up to Vessel holding me as I was half laid out in his lap. I reoriented myself and remembered the balcony. It felt like a lifetime ago that I had asked for the truth. The night caught up to me and I slid out of his grasp to stand, shivering as I glared down to him. 

"There never was a debt I could repay..." I shook my head, new tears falling over the dried ones on my cheeks. 

Hayley...

"You knew!" I tried so hard not to cry, but my voice was thick with emotion as I accused him. "You knew no matter what I did..."

That you would be mine.

Rage sparked in me like a flair. How dare you!

His eyes flashed briefly in surprise at the fact I hadn't spoken these words. 

"I belong to no one!" I glared at him, teeth clenched, as he slowly stood. I backed up as he seemed to tower over me. My mind was trying to make sense of the new information, making me dizzy as I leaned against the railing. 

What was worse, memories flooded back to me, filling in the gaps that had been taken from me. I remembered waking up in my hotel room, clothes smelling of the salty sea water, wrinkled and covered in sand. I'd been told my rental car had been hit in the hotel's parking garage. I'd had no recollection of the events the night before. I knew where I was and why I had travelled to the United Kingdom and that was it. 

What I hadn't remembered were the men carrying me back to my room, limping the car back into the parking garage and taking out the CCTV cameras to erase themselves from history. I hadn't remembered dying the night before.

We both took a few moments to allow me to get my breathing halfway under control and I remembered the morning I woke up next to him, falling out of bed after sharing the dream - the memory of that night.

"Why am I here, Vessel?"

"You fell." He had written. 

Then the low conversation he'd had with II at the church.

"I think I know why she was there that night..."

I sobbed, bracing myself against the rail. 

"Some sort of memorial trip..."

It wasn't the drunken nights trying to drown out the pain that wiped the memories from me. It was Sleep.

Vessel took a step toward me.

"Don't." I breathed, holding out a hand and he stopped in his tracks. His hair fell around his face, curling like it did in the rain, eyes watching me as though he knew it would come to this.

I yanked the knot on the coat free and it fell to the cement balcony before escaping through the door and down the stairs. 

~~~~~~~~~~

I intended to run to the street, maybe getting a car to go... where? Where would I go?

I nearly knocked over a waiter as I flew past the bar and into a dark room that had been set up for private meetings, collapsing to the floor on my knees and sobbing. 

"Oh, my God..." I heard and turned to find Isla and III quickly closing the door behind them.

"Hayley, Baby, Jesus you're soaking wet!" III took off his jacket and draped it around my shuddering shoulders. My dress was wet with rain water, hair a mess now.