O U T O F T I M E
book 3 in the 'chaos series'
in which lusine returns to earth and is reunited with steve, but not everything is as it was when they said their farewells after the events of the battle of new york. with new companions in tow, ol...
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seventeen "is this what my life has led to?" -
Lusine has been left alone all day. After Olea, followed by a reluctant Florian, left their apartment, she's hardly moved since sunrise. Only leaving the chair to relieve herself, or to get food or water, or to find a book to read to distract herself from the spiralling thoughts that drag her further and further down into its depths.
The longer she sits there, the more she finds that she returns to herself.
The solitude is enough to give her room to breathe. To find her feet again. Realising that the dreams and nightmares are just that: dreams and nightmares. No matter how real they feel, no matter how they jolt her from sleep, they aren't real. They're remnants of trauma. Ghosts of her past come back to scare her into relapse.
The conjuring of the void to force her to come crawling back to its embrace of protection as if she needs it anymore only for it to clamp down hard, to never let her go again, and never let her have control of her own body ever again.
But she will always do everything in her power to prevent that happening ever again.
She's already lost so much of herself to the greed of the void and she will not lose an inch more.
After her day of rest and relaxation, Lusine at last pulls herself from the armchair and decides to venture out into the eve.
Much like the morning, the evening is cool. When she exists the apartment building, the breeze rushes to greet her, brushes against her like a cat to its companion. Soft and tender. Welcoming and yet awakening with its chill.
All at once, she is startingly alive.
Lusine wanders all the way to Steve's apartment, intending to shed some light on the situation beyond the little she'd shared when he'd last met her as a reduced shell of herself. It's the most he deserves. He apologised and insisted that he does trust her, but sometimes just hearing it isn't enough. Sometimes a person needs to see it to believe it.
But maybe explaining herself more clearly now she's calmer is at least one step in that direction.
She knocks on the door. There's no answer. Again, she knocks. But, again, there's no answer. When she knocks for the third time, she hits the wood much harder. Thudding the base of her fist into the wood several times. Even after that, there's no answer.
"He's not in," A feminine voice from behind tells her.
Lusine whips around. "Oh," She says to, who she's pretty sure is, Sharon. "Do you know when he'll be back?" She asks, though she's not sure why this woman would know, but the question's already out.
"He shouldn't be long," Sharon says, pushing her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. "Do you want to come in and wait with me?" She gestures with a thumb over her shoulder into her open apartment.
