Numb Pain

Chapter 31

Enjoy the chapter and please vote and/or comment! All of your support is greatly appreciated, and I'm sad to say that our journey is coming to an end very soon:( it's going to be emotional! We love you <3

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Me. Jai wants me. I'm the only thing keeping him from the spirit world and now everything is all crystal clear.

I need to sacrifice myself.

As I glare downwards, watching only the movement of my footsteps against the concrete, the priest's words ring in my head. I do not cry, nor does my heart thud like a fledgling in cupped hands, or my stomach churn as if inhabited by butterflies of every colour and shade. What I feel now, as I walk towards a house that isn't and cannot be mine, is past all tears and screams. It cannot be altered, my fate from this point. The stars have already decided for me. Perhaps they betray me for my lack of interest in their glitter. I never was one for star-gazing; every night was so dreadfully haunted by the man I used to love, that black skies became a signal of the pain yet to come. I may be one of only few, but I can only think of the witching hours as just that. The hours of the day that keep me awake while everyone sleeps. Yet, even as the sun would finally show me mercy, I would remain awake in anticipation of the night just half a day onwards.

And yet, the stars continue to bind my fate to a burning stake. There's no way out of this and there's nowhere I can hide. I guess I've been playing this game for far too long.

There will always be winners and losers, after all.

ETHAN'S POV:

I stand at the window with George cradled in my slow-swinging arms. My gaze flits from feature to feature behind the glass: tracing the contours of hills behind the chaos of the city; finding baby pink blossoms among the green foliage of trees across the road; watching the expressions of drivers as they idly pass by...anywhere but the face of the babe I hold to my chest. He is but a painful reminder of Ellie's plagued past. While the boy's lips are the perfect rosebud - coloured dusty pink like his mothers - his eyes are as if stolen from his father's skull. Not only does the boy's likeness to his father bring Ellie's stories of abuse to the surface, it provokes a sadness and jealousy I can never admit to another.

He isn't mine.

As my mind wistfully skips over my love for Ellie, I barely catch sight of the figure stepping past the window.

Tall, slender, and moving as if something within her is missing; a perfect match with the blank, expressionless contortion of her face.

Eleanor.

It doesn't take me long to realise where the girl is heading. It takes me only slightly longer to realise I can't let her get there. I rush to the front door, George tucked carefully into my side, and tug on the nearest shoes to where I am stood. By the time I step outside, the girl is out of sight. I bring my free hand to my side, with it coming the door and the sharp collision of wood against frame.

I do not shout for I do not wish to create a scene, but rather I find myself involuntarily sprinting towards Ellie's haunted home. It takes just minutes, but when I reach her front gate, with George anxious and wriggling on my hip, a figure leans her head against the white door, legs folded against the door step. Her hands are claws against the splintered wood, yet her body is lifeless if not for the laboured sighs of her panicked breathing.

"Eleanor."

She does not move, and so I walk until I am close enough to place a careful palm on the small of her back.

"Don't do this to yourself."

I struggle to hide the shivers of my voice, yet they seem to blend with the increasingly violent tremors of Eleanor's figure. She turns to me, yet the girl looks nothing like herself. Her voice is quiet, while a few tones lower than the usual silk of her speech.

"What am I doing here?" her expression contorts to one of bewilderment, apparently unaware of the path her feet has followed.

"I don't want to be here. Please, take me away!" She grows quickly desperate.

Heartbroken by the lost notes of her words, I hook my free arm around Ellie's waist and bring her to her feet. I place my chin on her forehead and leave a kiss on her crown until her attention is swiftly diverted elsewhere.

Her head turns, and this time her voice is loud and unshaking; a definite breaking of silence in a melody I would never recognise as Ellie's.

"Wait. I know why I am here."

And this time, I see him.

The monster himself, sneering as Ellie struggles to flee my embrace and George cries desperately for comfort.

Am I going crazy?

Ellie runs towards where Jai had stood, but the apparition has faded. She collapses to her knees, the only uttering from her lips are defeated swear words.

I walk slowly towards her, Jai's sneer still replaying behind my eyes, and crouch down. I tuck a trembling thumb beneath her chin and search her eyes for anything, anything that might help me figure out what the hell is going on. Suddenly, I wish I hadn't. The hopeless stare is as if borrowed from someone else; dull, lacking the sparkling glint that had me entranced from the first day we met.

While being wary of George, I cup my palm under Ellie's jaw and bring my lips to her own. The kiss is returned yet I know she is scared. We both are. When I finally bring myself to pull away, I lean into her ear with a stuttering whisper, pleading for a promise in response,

"Don't leave, Ellie. I can't do this without you."