Away From Home

Chapter 5-Grief

Heads up: Wylie deals with a lot of grief in this chapter. Feel free to skip to the next chapter. 

Chapter 5:

Wylie's POV

It's 12 pm, everyone else is sound asleep, but I'm not. I just can't let this go. I can't seem to understand this. How is that...feeling so familiar, yet so unknown to me? I'm used to light flowing through my veins, not darkness surrounding me. There is something I don't want to admit, even to myself. I liked the feeling, as scary as it is feeling watched, I liked it. It felt as if a friend was watching over me. It feels like Tam, hiding in the shadows, but of no harm. Tam. Thinking of him reminds me that Tam's dead. That I didn't save him.

Suddenly I'm on the balcony, sobbing. My legs carried me out there before I knew what was happening. I'm sobbing. Balling. I feel the entirety of Tam's death on my shoulders. I feel heartbroken, though I feel I should be strong, strong for Keefe, for Fitz, for Dex, and Sophie and everyone really, even the ones we've lost. That's when my mind reminds me that Tam wasn't the only one.

I'm sobbing again. Someone comes up behind me. Embarrassed, I suck in a breath and close my eyes as tight as possible. I take a deep breath. I don't bother to turn around to see who is behind me, I'm a mess, no one should see me like this. My eyes are as swollen as my heart, both heavy with tears and there is a burning feeling in my chest. I'm used to being so strong. My eyes aren't used to sorrow, crying makes me feel weak despite its reassurance.

"Go back to bed." I say in the strongest voice I can muster, each word quivering at the end.

"I can't. I'm an empath. And your feelings weaved their way into my dreams. I refuse to return to a slumber like that." Keefe says. How does that work? My feelings in his dreams? Slow on the uptake I realize Keefe felt every drop of misery I felt. A wave of embarrassment floods over me. Then I realize he can feel that too. Knowing that only ads to my embarrassment.

"I... I... I'm sorry." I say.

"I know. I can feel that too." Keefe says, smirking. "You know what cheers me up? Pranks! whaddya say? You in? Warning: I will prank you along with the others if you don't..." Keefe says, pulling out a glass bottle filled with purple liquid. I half laugh, half sniffle.

"And how did you get your hands on... whatever that is?" I ask.

"Mr. Dexy made it for me 2 months ago. It will change someone's hair to bright purple, but the more they try to wash it out, the longer it stays! You don't know how long I've waited for this moment." Keefe says triumphantly, tightly clutching the bottle to his chest.

"Actually I do know how long you've been waiting for this moment," I say, returning his smirk to him. I pause, satisfied with the quizzical look on Keefe's face. "Two months," I say. Keefe rolls his eyes, though I can see a smile across his lips begin to form.

"Wylie Wylie Wylie. Any empath could feel you are waaaay to satisfied with yourself, even without making physical contact." Keefe says. I roll my eyes, my lips forming a smile from ear to ear. I take Keefe by his arm.

"Are we going to do the prank or not?!" I ask, way too excited to prank my friends. But I know getting distracted is the only way I'll stop thinking about Tam. Usually if I shove all of my feelings, good and bad, they balance out without me needing to feel them. My ability to control light has always connected me to a supply of good feelings to overcome the bad ones. At night it is so much harder to connect to the light, and lately I haven't been having any fun to try to balance my feelings out.

I let myself go along with Keefe's prank, and it puts me at ease. Though I would never vocalize the realization, I actually enjoy being like Keefe. I see how Keefe survived those years with his bewitched parents. He sees the fun in things, using that ability to shove away his sorrow. I usually shove my feelings down too, just in a different way.

The prank ends as quickly as it started, but by the time it ends, I'm prepared to face a slumber of any kind. As I'm falling asleep, I let the soft snores of Dex drift me away from reality and into a slumber that takes me to morning. I never wake once in the night, the nightmares keep me trapped inside a world of pain. It's a world inside my head that sends chills to my toes. I yell and kick, sounds echoing off the cavernous torcher chamber I call my brain. In one dream I see Tam's shadows being sucked out of him and pouring into me. In another, the world is on fire and Marella is trapped in a cube of water surrounded by flames. Marella's screaming the same three words again and again 'YOU DID THIS!" These dreams continue for eternity until I see my father's mind shredded to pieces of goo, splattering me with the remains of my father's head. That is what wakes me. I sit up, drenched in sweat. A voice reminding me I'm not at home.

"You flooded the bed with sweat! Man are you alright?" Fitz asks. I blush, extremely embarrassed. Did I sweat enough to force Fitz on the floor of a hotel room?

"Yeah talk about rising sea levels. Global warming is going to be the least of our issues if we have you." Keefe jokes, though I can hear the worry in his tone. I must be in pretty bad shape if Keefe is worrying about me. I look at the drenched sheets. Well, that is embarrassing...

Before I can stutter a word, that feeling of being watched returns. I shudder.

"Was that just me or..." I trail off, already knowing what the answer is. I turn to Keefe, his face pale. Before I can ask him what's wrong he gives me an explanation that sends chills up my spine.

"It was stronger this time. Whoever is watching us is getting closer. I can feel their feelings now. Desperation. Hope. Determination. And... worry maybe? Those feelings were intertwining, making something way more complex. It can only mean one thing. More than one being-with a will stronger and purer than I've ever felt-are coming after us."