Vanished || l.h. au

twenty seven

A/N: please vote and comment :D and happy day after Christmas, this is your Saturday update :) also another long chapter

Luke.

 

“Luke!” Beth called, and I could hear the stumbles of her footsteps as she closed the front door. I usually would have lectured her about automatically calling out to me because of the possibility that her parents may be home, but they weren’t since it’s only a quarter past noon.

“Luke!” she called again, sounding more urgent. I quickly got off her bed, skipping the stairs, and appeared in front of her as rapidly as I could.

“What is it?” I asked her, questioning her urgency. Then I took a closer look at her face and noticed they were stained with dry tears and her eyeliner was smudged.

“Beth, what happened? Why are you crying?” I asked, instantly worried as I cradled her face in my hands. “Are you hurt?” I questioned, tilting her face from side to side, looking for any blemishes that may signal bruising.

She shook her head, grabbing my hands from her face and holding them in hers. “The urgent text that I got this morning was about the Holmes case.” she informed me, sniffling so that she could continue talking.

I nodded my head, letting her know that I was listening intently and waiting for her to continue.

“We got an anonymous tip of his location. He was in the cornfield, Luke. They brought me there.  I was forced inside the cornfield and I just couldn’t mentally do it. My mind couldn’t separate the present and the past.” she sobbed, the tears starting to flow down her cheeks again. She grabbed tighter onto me, pulling me close to her. “It was like losing you all over again, Luke.”

I pulled her away from her shoulders, enough distance between us so that I could keep a focus gaze on her eyes, making sure she was listening to me.

“Beth, you did not lose me, okay? Look. I’m right here. I’m still here. The incident was months ago. I’m still here.” I reassured her. Of course, I knew that reassurance could only go so far seeing the situation we are in, but I wanted to offer up any form of comfort that I could to Beth at the moment. It hurt to see her so broken and it threw me back to right after my disappearance, when I first awoke in the inbetween. Beth couldn’t see me yet, but I could see her heartbreak and hurt as she cried herself to sleep at night, and there was nothing I could do to consolidate her.

That was one of the most painful experiences I had ever had to endure.

Beth shook her head at me, indicating that there was more to the story.

“That wasn’t all. Right before he died he whispered something to me.” She gulped, clearing her throat afterwards.

“What did he say?” I questioned carefully, noticing the far off look in Beth’s eyes.

“Tick tock. Tick tock.” she responded simply, but the words hit me right in the chest. I knew what it meant. “Luke, he was assisting the doctor. He knows. He knows everything! Your time is running really short, Luke.” she cried, starting to panic again.

“Hey, it’s okay. We still have time to figure this out, we just need to --” I paused, a sick feeling forming in the pit of my stomach as a wave of nausea hit me.
“Luke?” Beth asked worriedly.

"I'm slipping.” I told her, trying to focus my vision as the scene in front of me began to blur, tilting to where all I saw were wobbling shades and outlines of objects. Then just as quickly as it came, my vision refocused, the blurriness flickering. “Something doesn't feel right." I said, alarmed as I watched my hand pass through her's as she reached for it, something that hasn't happened in a long time.