WHAT COMES AFTER THE END OF THIS

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Chase's PoV

I had seen her whiz past my new office on the third floor as if she was running away from something. I hadn't known it was her then and my initial intention had been to scold whoever was running in the hallways, especially when they were supposed to, either be in a class or in the common room. 

When I had come out she was already running at full speed and what made me recognise her other than her mane of liquid night was the black  tube of the 'smashbox' lipstick she dropped behind. It fell out of the back pocket of her jeans; I had picked it up and opened the tube to find that it was the same shade of blood maroon she had been wearing when she walked into school like a boss.

This activity cost me a few minutes and she seemed to have gone further away. I could hear footsteps in the distance and had immediately thought of someone climbing the stairs to one of the battlements.

However, she did not seem to have gone as far so I turned into the hallway leading to the fourth battlement; climbing the stairs at increasing speed and upon reaching the top I, to my dismay, found no one.

 But as I neared the edge of the pillar I saw her.

 There she was dressed in black, crying in a corner of the third battlement as she played with her sleeves and arms, at least that is what it looked like from the distance. I was gazing at the view and was flabbergasted when I saw her move towards the edge of the pillar.

 I couldn't see her face clearly but it seemed to be blank. Devoid of any emotion. I wasted no time and rushed down the winding staircases at double the speed I had climbed them; I ran through the halls like a madman and upon reaching the staircase leading to the third battlement, I zoomed up the stairs, panting heavily. 

I had made it in time but just barley so. The fear I felt at that moment was indescribable, it seemed to have frozen me to the spot and my mind had seemed to be working at a thousand miles per hour. All I knew was that I didn't have enough to time and so I didn't think twice before grabbing onto her waist and midriff, attempting to pull her down from the raised edge. 

It was a difficult task because she kept on thrashing in my steel grip and I feared that the both of us would plummet to the ground, to our death and no one would have known what happened.
I have to admit though, as beautiful as she might have classified as, she looked deranged then and there; broken and perhaps even beyond repair. 

The idea that I could do nothing to help her, well obviously unless she told me what was wrong, was gnawing at my insides, tormenting me. The sapphires she used as eyes seemed to be far off, in a daze, and to me she seemed anything but alive. 

Realising that I was not going to let her go anytime soon, she sank in my arms, onto the hard stone, but she did not seem to be affected by the impact of her knees bashing into the ground.

 So I sat down with her as she cried, I stroked her hair but refrained from whispering sweet nothings like, 'it's okay' and 'it's gonna be fine.' Because let's face the facts a person as distressed would only become more agitated by this. 

Still being in a state of immense shock I almost didn't see the blood running down her arms and hands, dripping onto the cobblestone beneath us; I almost didn't even hear her whisper,

"Why?"

I was confused as to why that question was being asked,

"Pardon?"

"Why do you care?" 

She screamed the words at me in frustration, no longer whispering, her face, now ashen, was coated in salty tears and streaks of mascara and as she attempted to wipe them away her maroon lipstick smudged to the sides of her mouth.