ThE vOiCeS mAdE mE Do iT

Chapter Twelve

“Kenzi, are you okay?”

My eyes snapped open at the sound of Sam’s voice. He was kneeling over me, cradling my head. We where back in the common room, except we were now joined by several guards.

“Get up, it’s almost curfew. The lights have been fixed now and we have been instructed to escort you back to your room.” One of them instructed, gesturing towards me. There was ...

I looked from the guard who had spoken to Sam. I needed to talk to him about everything that had just happened, but the strength that I had previously felt was waning now and I felt my body go cold. The promise of actual sleep now was irresistible. It reminded me of how I had felt when Sam had found me in the early hours of the morning. Maybe crossing over took more out of me than I thought?

“Come on Kenzi.” Sam suggested. As he helped me up, he leaned in close and whispered in my ear, in a tone that was too low for the guards to hear.

“Just go with them, we’ll talk about what happened later.”

Any doubt that I had in my mind about him experiencing the strange vision as I just had was obliterated. It was real; I don’t think that I could dispute that any longer. This was all real, demons where real and we where the only ones who could fight them.

“Okay.” I replied, the skin of my hands tingling as he touched them. I wanted to stay with him, but the guards were already walking away.

There were four guards, three male and one female. Two of the guys looked younger, and kept looking over to the guard who had spoken to us, who had salt and pepper hair. The woman had brown hair that was tied back tightly, almost removing the wrinkles on her face. She watched us carefully, with an intensity that made me feel uncomfortable. This was more time that I had spent directly around the guards than ever before. I still wasn’t sure what to make of them

“So, how are you finding the institute?” One of them asked, I looked up surprised. It was one of the younger ones. He must have been in his early twenties, or at least he looked so with his youthful face.

“Oh, bad question I guess.” He said misinterpreting my wide eyes. I thought that they weren’t allowed to talk apart from giving out commands and instructions. I shrugged, not sure how else to respond.

“Yeah I guess that when you are working here it’s a bit nicer, but I hope it’s not been too bad.” The woman added, watching me carefully with gentle eyes.

“Oh, umm, thanks.” I replied, stumbling slightly, still caught off guards by this situation.

“Don’t worry about it. I guess that we look a little scary with the stun guns and everything, but we don’t bite. You ever need any help then just come find us.” The woman paused, her voice now edged with something that I couldn’t quite detect. “Just because sometimes it’s difficult to go to the doctors.”

I frowned, not understanding her meaning, however before I could ask her, the older man spoke up. “There you go, have a nice night.” He said to me, gesturing towards my room.

“Oh, okay.” I said as I went to my room and quickly shut the door behind me.

My room was empty. What did that mean about Chess? I was sure that I wouldn’t be able to relax till I saw that she was definitely safe, but I could hear the soft sound of breathing from the hall, telling me that the guards were still there.

Pacing around the room I tried to decide what I should do, if anything at all, however tiredness was beginning to creep into my mind along with an icy coldness. With a sigh I went to my bed, hoping that I would at least not have nightmares.