CONTAINS CONTENT:
mild terror, violence, mild SA
Marielle’s eyes became saucers. “He?” she cried, cramming her shoes on and rushing to Vincent’s side.
He glanced at her and nodded. “Oui. In my dimension, Fade is a man.” He stretched his left arm and brought out Headhunter, practicing perfect trigger control.
“How is that possible?”
Vincent shrugged and pushed his glasses back up his nose. “I don’t make the rules.” He glanced at her. “Who’s here in the building?”
She took a deep breath in, then released it. “Uh… Sasha’s here, John, Sabine…” She winced. “I don’t know who else.”
“Mon Dieu, this is not a fight I wanted any time soon.”
She strained her ears. “I didn’t hear the teleporter. How do you know he’s here?”
Vincent still had his ear pressed to the door. “He didn’t teleport anywhere close by.” Raking his hair back, Vincent growled low and frustrated, “Which means we have no idea who is with him.” A pause. “And I can hear him.”
“You can hear him?”
“Oui. Once Hazal gets in your head a certain way, he will show up again later if you are open to it—and if he’s about to use his ability to make you experience your worst fear.”
Marielle’s face drained of color. “Great.”
Vincent flicked his gaze to hers. “What’s your worst fear, Masin? Get acquainted with it quickly.”
She thought for a moment. What was her worst fear? Why was it that she always felt like she could name other people’s shortcomings, biggest lies, and deepest regrets, but she had a difficult time identifying her own? It must be the paradox of who she was: the healer who couldn’t heal herself, the therapist who couldn’t analyze her own mind.
“You can hear him?” she repeated flatly.
Vincent nodded and closed his eyes. Momentarily, he looked possessed, like something distant but threatening was filling his head with Hazal’s familiar, echoing words: “I’m in your head.” She could hear his heart pound.
He breathed deeply, slowly, forcing himself calm. “He’s weak,” Vincent murmured, looking up and straining to hear.
“How do you know?”
“I can feel it.” He shook his head, compassion in his eyes. “He probably hasn’t slept in days.” There was another pause. “Marielle, what is currently your biggest fear?”
She stared, thinking. Then her eyes fluttered back into her head a little. “I don’t want to say.”
“If you’re caught, I won’t know how to help you.”
All she could manage was a thin, “Austin.”
He reached over and cupped her cheek with his left hand. “I understand.” Then he slowly opened the door.
“I don’t have a gun.”
He gave her Headhunter and pulled his enormous rifle from his arm. “Let’s see if we can find Sasha.” He crept into the hallway, Marielle close on his tail, Headhunter in hand.
Both of them froze when the elevator dial began moving up, recalling the other night with Varun. Had all of it really happened only yesterday?
The car stopped and the elevator opened. Both let out a sigh of relief when they saw Sasha, bow and loaded arrow already in hand. He ran to them. “I feel it, too. Are you all right?”
Marielle nodded.
“We need to stay together,” Vincent said. “The moment we don’t, he’ll have us.”
Sasha tipped his head forward, his eyes flicking one way, then the other. “He?”
“I don’t have time to explain, but Hazal is a man in my world,” Vincent said rapidly.
“Okay.” Sasha accepted that without question. “Is there anywhere safer for us to be?”
“I don’t know,” Vincent replied.
“Do we have any more weapons?” Marielle asked. “Will they do any good?”
“This bow has taken man and beast alike. I have found there is little difference,” Sasha replied, brandishing his weapon.
“I have Tour De Force.” Vincent nodded to his rifle.
Sasha smirked. “Vincent, you are a good shot, but when you can bounce your bullets off the wall, then I will be impressed.”
“But no, weapons won’t be useful here… only our minds,” Vincent continued. He turned to the other two. “Sasha, have you experienced this before?”
Sasha shook his head. “No. I’ve seen it, but Fade’s never used her—their—tricks on me.”
Vincent swallowed hard, feeling the witch get closer to them. “Listen to me now… Whatever you fear most, you’re going to have to face it, regardless of weapons, regardless of strength and skill.”
Marielle squeezed Sasha’s free hand and met his eyes. “Remember who you are,” she whispered.
“The only way to fight it is to confront that fear right now.” Vincent lifted his gun a little, and there was a tense pause as his eyes grew wide with terror. Sasha and Marielle exchanged horrified glances. “Because his first move will be to separate us.”
“Separate us?” Marielle asked, her eyes darting around the hall. “How in the world can he separate us?”
A distant and unfamiliar voice came rolling through the hall, calling out a familiar phrase. “Nightmare, take them!”
As if on cue, a gust of black, glittering smoke full of flashing arcs of violent red lightning enveloped them. Marielle instantly lost the gun Vincent had given her. Disoriented, she knelt down and felt around for it on the floor but couldn’t find it. Her heart slammed into her throat, threatening to tear out of her neck like a scene from some sort of alien parasite movie.
“Vincent?” She reached out, grasping for anything at all. Nothing… No reply… She was alone. “Vincent!”
She couldn’t find him; she couldn’t see anything. Marielle forced herself to her feet. She felt as if she were lost in the middle of a vast, slowly spinning black tornado full of veiny red streaks and silver glitter.
Putting her hands out, she tried to feel around her as she took small, careful steps forward, although she had no idea which way forward was.
“Okay, I’m alone. I’m alone,” she whispered, forcing herself to take slow breaths. “Try to make it to the stairwell…”
She went in what she thought was the right direction, reminding herself that her work with minds made her better suited to get out of this situation than the others. This gave her the courage to move a little faster.
Once she made it to the stairwell, the air cleared enough for her to see the steps going up and down. Marielle paused for a moment with her hand on the railing, taking in a deep breath and glancing around for Vincent and Sasha. She saw neither.
Then she heard a familiar voice. “Marielle?”
She leaned over the railing and looked down. “Austin?”
Austin dashed up the steps and threw his arms around her. He was obviously relieved that she was okay, so she couldn’t be upset with him anymore.
“Oh, thank God,” he whispered. “I got the alert and came as quickly as I could.” He pulled her back and looked her over, checking for wounds. “Are you okay? Is Liam here yet?”
Marielle shook her head.
Vincent joined them, making his way through the same door she’d come through. Sighing with relief, Marielle reached out and took his hand. He squeezed it, then let go, nodding toward the door.
“All clear out there.” Motioning for them to follow, he turned to start up the stairs.
“Good,” Austin replied, and as the word passed his lips, he pulled a pistol from behind his back and fired a single shot into Vincent’s head, killing him instantly.
Blood spattered across the white walls. Vincent’s body smacked into the steps and rolled down to the bottom, where it lay face up, gaping at the ceiling in contorted, unimaginable horror.
—- IF YOU ARE BOTHERED BY MINOR SA, STOP READING HERE. A BRIEF SUMMARY EXPLAINS WHAT HAPPENED IN THE TRIVIA FOR THIS CHAPTER. —-
Marielle could hear herself screaming, but she felt like she was outside her own body. Blackness and bright-red and purple flashing lines crossed her vision as long, cool fingers like death wrapped around her neck and shoved her against the wall near the door, the sharp feeling of cold steel against her throat.
Austin chuckled sardonically. The sound echoed and seeped into her pores, causing her heart to explode in terror.
“Is this really your worst fear?”
A detached, demonic voice raged all around her. She fought against the black smoke and veiny electric red lines blurring her sight. Between them, she caught glimpses of Austin towering over her, pushing the tip of the blade into her skin, one eye red with hellish fire, the other that perfect blue.
A low, rumbling laugh that filled the entire space emanated from deep within Austin’s—Hazal’s—throat. “So easy,” he hissed.
So… easy, a high-pitched whisper echoed after him.
Marielle yelled, twisting her head this way and that. Hazal was sucking the fear straight from her, and he was enjoying it.
“That’s it, Marielle, give in… Give it all to me. Come on,” he groaned. “So… so… easy. I’ve conjured things you can’t even imagine… And this?” He cackled, referring to the illusion of Austin’s face. “It’s ironic, but you won’t get to know about that until later!”
Hazal barked a cruel laugh, and his real face broke through the clouds of her mind. For an instant, she saw sickly, boyish features before his flesh melted off, revealing a rotting skull laughing at her. Then it vanished again.
She shrieked as she tried to push him off, but he was a non-thing. No matter how much she clawed at him or tried to fight her way past him, he remained.
“I’m in your head…”
Still maintaining the illusion of Austin’s face, Hazal dipped and began his merciless possession of her body. Dragging the knife down to her tank top, he made a slit in the fabric between her breasts.
“How does he want you, Marielle?” he hissed in her ear, his body tight against hers. Again, the shrill voice echoed him in her mind. She writhed, trying to get away.
“You’re not going anywhere!” he snapped, low and fiendish. His other hand squeezed her throat, then moved down to the cut in her tank top and began to tear it. Terror held her in place, and her heart pounded so fast it felt like it was about to give out.
“You’re going to give… it… all… to… me…” he seethed, the red eye flashing again. “I need it to be strong.”
Even with her eyes shut, she could see nothing except the spidery neon red lines and glittering black smoke. Fear. It was inside of her, sometimes giving her glimpses of Austin’s handsome face, and sometimes morphing into a man she didn’t know. Tall, thin, exhausted eyes, streaks of white in his feathery black hair—definitely Hazal, but as a man… A scarecrow man, sinewy and dying.
The only thing she could do was try to take back control of her own mind. Her fear was feeding him, making him stronger.
It’s not real… It’s not him… None of this is real… Vincent isn’t dead…
She glared back at her attacker, looking straight into his red eye. “And you aren’t Austin,” she hissed.
He cocked his head at her, his mismatched eyes suddenly becoming sad. Austin’s face melted and revealed his true form as the scarecrow man she’d gotten a brief glimpse of before. He was sweating, his hair damp with perspiration as he stared at her with one blue eye and one red eye. Black lipstick painted his mouth, and she assumed the dark smudges around his eyes were from running eyeliner. A single gold bar dangled from his left ear.
Something in his eyes frightened her more than the nightmarish thing that had just assaulted her: familiarity. He knew her… But there was something else as well. Was it… sorrow? Regret? He felt bad about what he had done to her—she could see the apologetic look in his eyes. Through the rapid heaving of his breath, he barely got out, “Mari…”
—- CONTINUE READING HERE—-
She seized the moment, finding the strength to phase and push herself through the closed door. On the other side of the wall from Hazal, she whirled and ran, her feet pounding against the floor, the black fear smoke slowly leaking out of her and dissipating.
The door behind her slammed open, and Hazal stood in the doorway glaring after her. “I’ll find you,” he roared, stepping into the hall. His exhausted, tortured eyes burned for rest.
“Marielle…” His echoing voice wrapped around her, caressing her, squeezing her. She instinctively reached up and tried brushing him off of her, but found with confusion that he wasn’t there.
Hoping to hide, she scrambled into one of the guest rooms. She dashed to the balcony and slid the door shut, then went to the far wall and pressed herself against it behind the blinds. There was nowhere to go. Hazal would catch her again.
“The eye,” she breathed, her hand over her pounding heart. This was the first moment when she realized her tank top was not torn. None of it had been real. “Watch that eye… That’s how you ground yourself. He can’t change that eye.”
Marielle turned, realizing that this balcony was connected to another balcony, and another. She didn’t think he’d figured out which room she’d gone into yet, so she went to the railing, took a deep breath, and crossed to the next balcony. It wasn’t too hard, but she had to keep telling herself not to look down. She was three stories up, and a fall from this height could kill her.
Once her feet found purchase on the railing of the adjoining balcony, she crept to the next one and did the same. She crossed four balconies before stopping to rest against the inside wall, where Hazal couldn’t spot her. She could feel his eyes, peering around the balcony after her, scanning to find out where she was. Was she out of reach of his ability? She didn’t know. He wasn’t just a man in Vincent’s dimension, he was a terrifying one.
“Marielle…” His disconnected voice floated around her. “He doesn’t love you, Marielle.” She closed her eyes and breathed shallowly. “He never did… He can’t love. He doesn’t know how. The only thing Chamber loves is himself.”
Is… himselfff…
“He betrayed us, Marielle… all of us.” Hazal’s voice was all places at all times, broken into thousands of little voices tickling her body, touching her intimately. She shuddered but stayed as still as possible. “We were all friends. You can’t know this… but he betrayed us. You know he’s going to do the same to you, Marielle. You’re just waiting for it to happen.”
Marielle let out a ragged breath. She waited a beat, then peeked around the wall. She didn’t see Hazal, but somehow, she knew he’d given up chasing her. Even though she didn’t know why, she could feel it. He wouldn’t come after her anymore.
This didn’t stop her fear of him, and instinct told her she was still in danger, so she crossed to the fifth balcony, then paused again. She wondered how Vincent was doing and where he was. Was he looking for her? All she could do was pray.
***
Vincent had gone to the end of the hall to look for Marielle. He’d retrieved Headhunter, but had neither weapon out at the moment, as the larger gun was too bulky to run with.
“Marielle?” he whispered, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist. “Sasha?”
No one replied. Vincent knew that this in and of itself could be a trick. Hazal had a way of making reality overlap with fantasy, fear, and dream. In theory, Sasha or Marielle could be standing right beside him, and he’d have no idea depending on how strong Hazal was right now.
It didn’t take long for Vincent to be reminded that Hazal wasn’t that strong. A lanky apparition lumbered toward him, stumbling as he went, red eye blazing, blue eye barely alert.
Vincent held his hand up. “You’re weak, mon amie. You need rest.”
“Friend?” Hazal stopped for a moment, then continued toward him, now dripping sweat. “We were never friends, Vincent. You walked away. You came here.”
Vincent slowly backed away, his heartbeat echoing in his ears. “Hazal… Please sleep,” he begged.
“I don’t know rest… I don’t know sleep,” Hazal said, his thin voice wavering as he staggered. “I only know Nightmare.”
Vincent shakily wiped more sweat from his forehead. Hazal had always been one of the only agents who could affect him because he preyed on the mind. In some ways, Vincent had mastered the mind, but Hazal’s trickery felt, smelled, and looked utterly real. It wasn’t, though… at least that was what Vincent kept telling himself now.
His hands trembled and his vision blurred; there was no way he could get a bead on Hazal in this state. “Please,” Vincent repeated. Then he slowly went to his knees, the fear in his body already taking him there whether he liked it or not. “Please… no more.”
Hazal paused, a flicker of compassion moving through his blue eye. For a moment, he seemed affected by Vincent’s plea. Then he glared down at the man before him.
“We…” he began in a deep, resonating tone as the entire hallway seemed to jerk and sputter around Vincent, causing his stomach to twist as though he was standing on the bow of a ship in a raging storm, “begged”—Hazal lifted his hands and stretched them toward Vincent—“yooooooooooou!”
The final word came out as a high-pitched, inhuman wail. Hazal’s image tore down the center, his visage falling away to reveal a small, feminine corpse in a wedding dress… her wedding dress…
She was rotting in front of him, her right eye an empty pit, the left a bright fire-red that burned a spiderweb-like hole into Vincent’s mind. Her hair was a bushy nest of maggots, twigs, and leaves, her face black and sunken, full of creases and wrinkles, flesh peeling.
The corpse lifted a bony, de-gloved finger and pointed at him accusingly. “You let me die!” it screamed, its jaw falling from its chin.
Vincent squeezed his eyes shut, tears threatening to make their appearance. He couldn’t bear to see her that way, once so lovely, now full of worms and putrid flesh. “No… I didn’t. I tried everything.”
The hallway jerked and turned rapidly. “You were never a good husband; you were never a good lover. You never loved me.”
He bent, his stomach twisting, his last meal begging to come up. “I did… I loved you so much. You were everything to me.” He pressed his forehead to the floor. “You are everything to me.”
“You loved yourself, and your fashion, and your jewels. You loved your money, and your pride.” The voice slithered around his face like snakes biting him.
He raised a pleading hand. “Please, Hazal, please. No more…”
“You stole me… You were my second choice. You’re always going to be a second choice.”
The corpse threw its head back and screeched like a banshee, suddenly sprinting toward him, darting and jerking like a rabid squirrel.
Stumbling to his feet like some kind of awkward breakdancer, Vincent ran to the second stairwell at the end of the hall, where he turned in and flattened himself against the wall behind the door.
“Hazal, please!” he cried.
“Give me your fear, Vincent.” A laugh surrounded Vincent, covering him in blackness and spidery red veins. “I need your fear.”
“I know you do,” Vincent whimpered, drawing his Trademark and throwing it down to slow Hazal. Then he lifted his hands and rematerialized Tour De Force. He held the rifle against him, embracing it… his only hope. “Please, Hazal, please,” he breathed raggedly, gently rocking.
It’s not real… It’s not real…
At that moment, the corpse bride turned into the hallway. Vincent jumped from the corner and fired directly into her. It crumbled to pieces, and Vincent smiled, bringing the tip of his gun up against his body.
“It’s a good thing that I know all of your tricks, démoniste,” he growled. Then he shook off his fear and went back out into the hall, continuing his search for Marielle. Hazal couldn’t touch him anymore; he’d regained control of his mind.
***
Marielle stood still as a statue on the balcony, waiting. For what? She wasn’t sure. It still felt to her as if Hazal had given up chase. The wind stirred her hair a little, drawing her attention in the direction it blew. For a moment, she wondered where Chamber was. Not half an hour ago, he had been here with her. Where had he gone? Could he come help them? The night was still as ever…
No… no, it wasn’t. Something moved down in the courtyard. Something human… or was it? She narrowed her eyes, watching silently, so frozen she was beginning to believe she had in fact turned into a statue.
It was a cloaked man. She could see him just clearly enough to note his sharp bone structure, icy blue eyes, and long, wavy red hair. He glided barefoot through the courtyard, his movements eerily smooth.
She covered her mouth. “Cory…” she breathed.
He hadn’t seen her. Thank God. He was coming to the facility, however, and Marielle felt her entire body clench. Did Vincent know he was here? Was Vincent okay? She had to get back into the building and warn the others.
For the first time in five minutes, Marielle moved. Slowly, she went to the sliding glass window and tried it, relieved to find it unlocked. She slipped in and closed the door gradually so as not to make a sound.
It took her a minute of standing still and holding her breath before she realized this was Austin’s room. She recognized his briefcase and a few other items, plus she could smell that frosty forest scent she adored.
Her eyes fell on something curious. There was a case she knew well on the desk… a pistol case. Austin had a pistol? This shouldn’t have surprised her, since Valorant could have given it to him. But no, that wasn’t it. It wasn’t a Valorant case.
She went to the desk and peered over the items lying around. An adult magazine with a woman that looked a little too much like her on the cover made her glance elsewhere on the desk. Under some papers, the corner of a laminated card caught her eye. She pulled it out and glanced it over. It was an ID card for Joe Henry Bargs.
She drummed her lip for a moment in thought. “Okay… He’s government, so this might not be as strange as it looks,” she whispered.
But then she realized she needed to get out of this room, find Vincent and Sasha, and warn them about Cory.
Where in the world was Vincent? Where in the world was Sasha?
***
Sasha had no idea where he was. He had no bearing, no way of telling what was up and down, although he assumed his feet were planted on the floor. He didn’t know where Vincent or Marielle had gone. He didn’t know anything… only that he wasn’t entirely alone.
The world around him was dark. Blackness enveloped him, and a familiar feeling haunted him: he was being hunted. He sensed it from all sides, all corners. His skin prickled with awareness, causing the hairs on his arms to stand up and his breathing to slow.
He was used to being prey, so he knew how to keep his heart rate down. That didn’t mean he wasn’t afraid. He was so afraid his thoughts were scattered. Even though he’d seen the Hazal he knew use all these tricks before, it felt real.
Sasha closed his eyes, straining to hear over his own deep, steady breathing. There was no wind. There were no scents to pick up. Only blackness, and the occasional glitter of something in the dark.
He turned and came face-to-face with a standing cheval mirror, which made him lift his arrow and point it at himself. He dropped the bow and leaned in a little, staring at his reflection. Then his jaw tensed as he realized it wasn’t his reflection. His fake eye, which he’d had since the accident many years ago, but often forgot about, was glowing red…
The glass started to crack in a spiderweb pattern, and Sasha took a step back, narrowing his eyes. It shattered, and the mirror image came at him, knife in hand, slicing through the air as Sasha stumbled backward, tripping and falling on his back. He put his hands up and stopped the assailant mid-fall, holding him and the knife at bay with little but the strength in his arms.
“Who are you?” The voice slithered up his legs in hundreds of places like fast-paced slugs, causing sweat to seep from his pores and his groin to tighten. Staying silent, he focused, glaring back at his attacker. Their eyes locked on one another.
“Who… are… you…?” The voice was like an icy wind moving over him, tearing tiny holes into his flesh.
Rolling, Sasha maneuvered the doppelganger beneath him. Neither let go of the blade, however, and now their situation was merely reversed.
Sasha’s lips pulled back a little, baring his teeth. “Leave me alone, Hazal. You will not make me your prey today.”
His mirror image smirked sardonically. “You’re already my prey, you and Vincent… and her.” Sasha gritted his teeth at this, but the voice inched its way around the hairs on his body and into personal places that made him shudder and shake. “I’m having so much fun with them in the other rooms.”
“I’ll bet you are,” Sasha snarled, jerking back and taking the blade with him. He took a defensive stance, and the apparition came after him. They circled each other, step, move, step, move, like two cobras swaying their heads, daring the other to strike. Sasha felt his entire body clench and tense in torment. “The monsters you command are imitations at best,” he growled. “You don’t frighten me.”
His mirror image grinned wolfishly. “Who are you, little Sova?” His double cocked his head at him. “You don’t even know anymore. You can’t figure out how you couldn’t have known that you weren’t unique… that you weren’t the only one. That you are, in fact, nothing… but prey…”
The image of his face began to peel back, revealing something that looked like him, but dead and beginning to decay. Sasha’s lip curled in rage, and he stuck his chest out.
“I… am the hunter!” he wailed, lifting his bow and shooting an electrified arrow at the rotting doppelganger.
It struck true, and the double’s head fell forward as though dead. The apparition turned to ash and began to crumble away, carried off by the wind that Hazal took with him as he left the area.
When the air cleared, Sasha found himself in the kitchen. He took in a deep, shaky breath and squared his shoulders, then ran to find Marielle and Vincent.
***
Vincent searched the halls, his gun at the ready. It was silent as a graveyard at midnight, which made him weary. His heart was beating more steadily, but he was desperate to find Marielle and know that she was okay, and safe in his arms.
Popping his head into the stairwell, he took a moment to listen but heard only the night. He closed the door to alert him if anyone showed up, then went back the way he had come, wiping the last drops of sweat from his brow with the back of his wrist.
A small, ragged breath from nearby made him jerk to a stop. A shaking hand reached out and up from the lab doorway. He rushed to it and hovered over the frail man who lay sprawled on his back there.
Hazal’s hollow eyes rolled back into his head, his ashen skin slick with perspiration. His face was gaunt, skin clinging to bone. “You’re better,” he wheezed. “You’re all just better.” Vincent fell to his knees and cradled Hazal’s head against his chest. “I’m dying, Vincent,” he said, tears welling in his two-toned eyes. He gulped. “I’m dying.”
Vincent nodded. “I know, my friend. I am so sorry.” He combed some of Hazal’s sticky white hair off his face.
“I c—” He coughed several times, panting for breath. “I couldn’t hurt her anymore. I couldn’t do that to her.”
Vincent’s face twisted into pained compassion as he brushed more of Hazal’s hair from his pallid face. “I know. You loved her.”
Hazal sputtered, wincing and grabbing at his side. “Oh, God…” He gagged. “Why was I the worst?”
“Probably because your powers are literally inside of you.”
Hazal looked down at himself, his sinewy body, his own trembling hands. “I paid a heavy price to commune with Nightmare.” He coughed again, hunching in on himself in a fit of pain.
“Yes, you did,” Vincent whispered, his hand flat against Hazal’s bony cheek.
Hazal met his eyes, quivering in fear. “Can you ever forgive me?”
Vincent forced a small smile. “There’s nothing to forgive.”
Hazal clutched his collar. “Everyone’s afraid of something,” he heaved. Then he paused, his blue eye distant, as if watching a memory of some kind. “Do you know what my worst fear is?”
Vincent face twisted. “That you’d never find him.”
“And I never will…” He looked into Vincent’s brown eyes. “You understand that, don’t you?”
Vincent’s dark eyes filled with empathy. “I’m so sorry.”
“I love him… I love him, and I can’t do anything to help him.” Another coughing fit seized him, each outburst growing more violent and filled with death. He winced, pain threatening his final breaths. “I don’t want to go to sleep, Vincent. I don’t want to be alone in the dark!”
Dragging a hand down his face, Hazal sobbed in terror. Vincent could tell he was starting to lose his grip on reality, a child reaching into the void for a father he couldn’t see. “Please, please, don’t leave me. Baba, please…”
Vincent’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m here,” he rasped. He thought for a moment, looking down at his own strong arms, then nodded decisively. “Maybe if I get you to the lab, I can…”
He started to help Hazal up, then paused as his face drained of color. Straightening slowly, Vincent stared forward and froze. The hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention. A feeling like that of a million buzzing wasps surrounded his body, silent but there all the same.
He closed his eyes. “You brought him here,” he breathed raggedly.
“I didn’t. I swear I didn’t.”
Vincent gently laid Hazal’s head back on the floor and told him to rest. Then he pulled his rifle out again and turned to the stairwell.
Silence engulfed the space like a black hole… except for the faint sound of breathing as a gliding, hooded figure made its way toward Vincent.
The figure stopped and pulled the hood back, revealing pale skin, a smattering of freckles, icy eyes, and long, wavy strawberry-blond hair. He looked Vincent over.
“You’ve seen better days,” the man purred in a strong Irish accent. His voice was shockingly sweet and calm, and his big eyes looked around curiously. He seemed ancient, yet somehow bore all the wonder of an innocent little boy. His glassy eyes glinted in the dimly lit hallway.
“Go home, Cory,” Vincent said through gritted teeth. “You don’t belong here.”
“No more than you do.” Cory looked one way, then the other. “Where’s Marielle?” Vincent was silent, pinching his mouth shut. “Oh, you don’t know,” Cory said quietly, cocking his head to the side. Vincent tipped his weapon forward and aimed it at his head. “Vincent, don’t be glib. I’m not here anyway. You know that, boyo.”
Cory bent to Hazal. “I told you not to come here,” he murmured sweetly, putting a hand on the dying man’s cheek.
Hazal closed his eyes. “I know… I had to.”
Cory nodded understandingly, a sickly-sweet grin coming over his face. “I know,” he purred. “We’ll go home now.”
He stood, eyeing Vincent, who was still aiming the weapon at his forehead. Cory looked down at the skeleton of a man on the floor. “I’m only here for him.” He flashed icy eyes at Vincent. Vincent glared at him, hating the fact that his ability allowed him to affect things directly around him, but shooting at him would do nothing at all. “But after this… It’s game on.”
With that, Cory picked up Hazal—who was the taller of the two—shouldered his weight, and hobbled him out of the facility, his eyes on Vincent until they passed.
“Don’t you dare stop,” Vincent hissed.
Hazal gave him a final, sad expression over Cory’s shoulder that pleaded for help, but Vincent could do nothing.
Cory paused only for a moment. “Not tonight,” he whispered, and he gave Vincent a small, friendly smile. “You’ll sleepwalk another day.”
The pair disappeared down the stairwell and into the night. Vincent didn’t drop his rifle until they were gone, and then he went to his knees, shaking violently before he fell into his arms face-first and sobbed.