Mayhem

Ch14

The next two days seemed to fall into a rhythm. We would get the up early to start training, do some work and eat, train some more, brainstorm some more while still getting no where as deadlines approached, and trained even more. Being stuck at home while "healing" as they called it, my mind never lost track of time. It was now the sixth of April and time was taunting me. Any day now someone would get killed, and there was nothing I could do about it. I wasn't cleared to leave the house until the eleventh and I felt stuck. My nightmares have been coming back, so I've stopped taking the pills in an effort to keep them at bay. I haven't slept since yesterday, it's going on three a.m. and I can't will myself to face the darkness that awaits me. Instead, I decide to head down to the living study as Mo would call it and find a book to read. Going with an old favorite of mine that helped me cope when first transitioning to living here, I picked up a book of poems by Edgar Allen Poe and made my way to the wall bench.

I loved to read his dark and gloomy poems growing up here, they gave me comfort for some reason. They made me feel like I wasn't alone, like someone else was going through the pain and misery that I was. The goal was to read as many as it took to pass the time until Adrian was ready to train, things of course don't always go as planned. Not realizing that I must have drifted off, I was startled awake by something being placed over me. Jumping to my feet, a mirror of shock was across Adrian's face as we looked back at one another in awkward silence. "I was just..." he awkwardly said as he pointed to the blanket that was now my beneath my feet.

I couldn't think of anything to say back to him, and my embarrassment only grew. "I'll meet you down to train in ten." I rushed before taking the stairs and heading to my room to get changed. Throwing on a hoodie and tights, I threw my hair up into a tight ponytail and threw on some sparring sneakers. On my way out, I could see how tired I still was with only two hours max of sleep, but tried to hide it and pushed on. Once I made it to the basement, I began working out once seeing that Adrian was late. I got in a good fifteen minute workout by the time he showed up, and with a food tray at that. "What's this?" I questioned annoyed, hadn't he pushed us back enough?

"I'm not sparring you until you've eaten something, you're gonna end up passing out." He spoke, he sounded half caring and half demanding as per usual. Staring at the gallon of water he brought down, he smirked in return. "It's gonna be a workout." Smiling at me, I couldn't help but notice how nice it was. Settling into this new routine stuck together has caused us to let some guards down and I kind of like seeing him smile.

"We'll see who's going to actually need it." I smirked, taking some of the oranges from the tray and rolling my eyes at him as a smile slipped and I took a bite of the food he brought.

"Thank you Adrian, I can't believe how dumb I've been acting and thinking it was okay not to eat in the morning. What would I do without you?" Sarcastically sang Adrian, getting a playful glare from me.

"Thank you, Adrian." Rolling my eyes at him, the smile was hard to hide as I tried to turn away and eat without him seeing my cheesy face. Once the food was cleared away, we waited ten minutes to let my stomach settle and took that time to stretch. With some energy restored in me, we began our workout with some light sparring, easily maneuvering around one another. Without the pain meds weighing me down, I was able to think clearly and fight through the pain just enough to continue without it being noticeable. After about a good hour or so, we called it quits and cleaned everything up before making our way back to the boards we set up with all case pertinent information.

"I wish we could figure something out in order to be able to stop this next attack." Sighed Adrian, twenty uneventful moments after we first sat down and started brainstorming.

"Well we know he's recreating his kills, and...... that he kills once a month! Why haven't we written that down yet?" Shocked at the revelation, I quickly wrote it down as the clocks started ticking in my head.