Page 16

How long had I been asleep?

I sat up in bed and found that my body didn't protest as much as it had the last time. Everything came back quickly, my mind not as jumbled as it was before. I knew where I was, and I knew I needed to find Polly... or find out what had happened to her. I tried to push the last thought away, telling myself to be optimistic, but it had already sunk its claws into me.

I slid off the edge of the bed, trying to move as quietly as I could. Fortunately, walking was no longer a struggle. I could stand easily, without feeling like I was about to collapse. My body had fully healed, though I didn't really understand how.

The deep rumbling next door told me that the Beast was still lurking nearby, but it stayed where it was, in my bedroom... it seemed what Luc had said was true; it couldn't come in here. For whatever reason, he was keeping it out.

Now that I knew exactly where it was—and knew that it couldn't jump out at me at any moment—it seemed a lot less threatening, like a tiger in a cage. For the first time in what seemed like ages, I wasn't worried about it.

Instead, I had Luc himself to worry about, and I had no idea what to expect from him.

Of course, I was still wary of him, but.

.

.

everything about him just didn't seem to fit together.

Did it really matter though?

I could worry about his motivations later, when I—and hopefully Polly, I thought as a lump formed in my throat—had escaped.

As I crept to the crack in the door, about to step forward, struggling to come up with an escape plan, I realized that I was dressed in only an oversized white t-shirt.

The blood drained from my face, horrified at the idea of him dressing me. For a second my mind swam, and I felt faint, but I forced the thought from my mind. I couldn't dwell on it at the moment. I needed to find Polly.

My eyes adjusted to the bright light as I pushed the half-open door aside and crept forward into the main room. The kitchen was a mirror version of my own, but the living room was significantly shortened by the wall-to-wall curtain that separated the "work" area from the rest of the apartment.

Fortunately, there was no sign of Luc. Perhaps he had already left for the day.

In the small space, it only took a few more steps to find Polly; she was stretched out on a futon sofa, which had been converted into a bed.

I exhaled deeply with relief, rushing to her side.

She was definitely alive; her chest rose and fell with each breath.

But her eyes were closed, and she seemed to be deeply asleep.

I saw the remnants of her wounds as well; the large gash on her forehead was now knitting together well, with a large expanse of pink, papery skin stretching over top.

She had other scrapes and bruises, but those were barely visible now.

And, to my surprise, I noticed that the cast was no longer on her leg.

The simple plan of just grabbing Polly and sneaking out immediately came to mind. I sat down next to her on the edge of the futon and gently grabbed her shoulder.

"Polly!" I hissed, quietly as I could, as I shook her shoulder. "Polly, wake up! We have to leave!"

But she didn't move. Her eyes stayed firmly shut, her chest rising and falling evenly as ever. I shook her harder and harder. The more I tried, the faster my heart beat. She may be alive, but why she isn't she waking up?

Her injuries seemed to be healing, but maybe there was something wrong internally.

Was she in some sort of coma?

If she was, she needed to be in a hospital.

So why wasn't she in a hospital?

Any sliver of appreciation I felt towards Luc for helping us disappeared. He was keeping Polly here when she needed serious medical attention.

I couldn't hesitate any longer. I needed to get help. But as I stood, my head swam again. Christ, what was wrong with me? Maybe I had something wrong internally as well, like some kind of head injury. It was like I might pass out at any moment... but that wasn't an option.

I couldn't let myself falter again. I had to get help. Pushing myself forward despite my sudden dizziness, I stumbled through the curtain, heading for the door. I wasn't exactly dressed for going outside, but how I looked was the last thing on my mind; I needed to get out of this apartment and get her—us—help before he returned.

The door was just a few feet away from the curtain, almost immediately within reach. I charged for it, ready to wrench it open and run screaming into the street, desperate to find someone, anyone, that would help. But before I reached the handle, someone gripped my wrist and pulled me back.

"Let me go!" I shrieked, fighting against the iron hold on my arm.

"You can't leave," Luc said, calm as ever. "It's not safe."

Finally I threw off his hand and tried to make another attempt for the door, but like lightning, he was between me and the exit.

"Didn't you hear me? That thing will attack you the second you step outside."

That stopped me in my tracks. "What?" I whispered back, struggling to keep my knees from buckling beneath me as my head bobbed like a buoy on a raging sea.

"My apartment is protected. This is the only place it can't come in," Luc continued. "And that thing is through with playing around. If you leave here, you will die."

"So, what, now you're holding us hostage?" I shouted as my mind raced with the horrible things he could do to us. That thing might get me, were I to leave, but in here we were trapped with a different kind of monster.

"What? Hostage? No, that's not what I meant—" Luc stuttered as his face contorted with confusion.

"What do you want with us? Do you think this is fun, torturing girls?" I staggered away from him, and jumped when I collided with the edge of the breakfast bar.

Suddenly, just like before, I felt myself weigh down with exhaustion.

That moment I was sure that this, the strange overwhelming drowsiness, was his doing.

"What... what are you doing to... me...?" I mumbled as I fell to my knees, trying my best to ward off the overpowering need to sleep. "Stop... it..."

Luc stooped down to me, his face close to mine. "You need to calm down."

"Why...?" It felt like my body was pulling towards the floor, like gravity had doubled only for me. My head took another woozy dive.

"It's a charm, an amulet, that I've put on you." He pointed at my neck. "It's for your own good. If you start panicking, it makes you sleepy. It was to stop you from getting yourself too worked up until you were properly healed."

As he said it, I was suddenly aware of a delicate chain dangling from my neck. I ran my fingers over it and then, with a swift tug, snapped it off.

Instantaneously, the sleepiness subsided and my energy returned. I shot a quick glance at Polly and noticed a similar amulet around her neck—and not just one, but two. Suddenly being unable to wake her made sense.

I shoved him away. "What the hell is the point of all this? If you want to kill me, just do it, stop torturing me! And leave Polly alone! Let her go! She's done nothing to you."

"I wasn't trying to... I'm not trying to hurt you," he replied, his voice distressed. His eyes tensed and his brow peaked upwards, scrunching into a look of painful remorse, like the night he had done that dreadful reading for me.

"Then what do you call this?!" I screamed, throwing the broken amulet at his face. He dodged it effortlessly.

"That wasn't meant to hurt you." He looked sheepish as he corrected me.

I glared at him.

"Look, they're just charms! I sell them!" Luc babbled, seemingly anxious to calm me. "It was lucky I even had a few of them on hand. I sell them to people who struggle with anxiety and insomnia, and I figured they'd work for this situation too... I just didn't want you to get spooked when you were injured and get yourselves hurt by acting rashly..." he motioned towards the door with a nod, "...before you understood."

I just stared at him. He tried to move towards me, his hand outstretched like I was a feral animal, trying to get me to believe he wouldn't hurt me. But I cringed away, my disgust distorting my features.

His hand went limp, and he retracted his arm with another pained look. "You really don't have to worry. Even if I wanted to hurt you with my... my magic—which I don't—I can't. I can't even use it anymore. Your spell worked. My powers are gone. Honest."

I narrowed my eyes, examining him with a careful gaze. His shining green eyes bore into me, a look both pleading and earnest. He looked a little panicked, like a boyfriend whose partner was angry at him for reasons he didn't understand.

But there was something I couldn't quite understand either...

I could hear the clicking of the Beast's claws on the floor next door, its snarling growing louder with every step. It was in the living room now; it had followed me from the bedroom, mirroring my movements on the other side of the wall.

Wasn't he using magic to summon that thing? If he was telling the truth, if he was truly powerless, then...

"How is that thing still here?" I wondered aloud.

Luc's brow furrowed. "Isn't it obvious?"

I just cocked my eyebrows. I didn't understand anything about magic, how was I supposed to know how these things work?

He sighed, closing his eyes and running his hands through his wavy black hair in exasperation; it gave me an involuntary pang of attraction that I immediately chastised myself for.

"I assumed you were just confused yesterday, that you were... out of it from your injuries, and that was why you were accusing me of this. Rachel—your name is Rachel, right?—I'm not the one who sent that thing after you."

I couldn't think of anything to say, so I just continued to glare. How could I know if he was telling the truth?

Luc sighed again. "But I can see why you'd think it was. I understand why you got someone to cast the binding spell. Because you thought it was me after you."

I only nodded in response, still sceptical of his assertion that he was powerless.

"Alright, so this isn't as bad as I thought it was." Luc smiled at me, sending another surge of foolish desire through me. "I apologize for my attitude yesterday. I was upset. I had just lost all my powers, and... and it was alarming, to say the least. But now that you understand, we can fix this! Just tell me who you got to do the spell, and we can get them to reverse it."

I hesitated.

I wasn't eager to really trust him just yet, but the look of relief on his face was so genuine, it made me once again doubt that he was somehow evil. After everything I had seen of him—actually seen, not just assumed—I just couldn't picture him being the kind of person who would attack someone unprovoked.

And I hadn't done anything to him... not before we had stolen his powers at least. Even now, he didn't seem angry that we had done that.

But as I started to form an answer, a different kind of dread that crept up my spine. Suddenly I couldn't bring myself to meet his eyes.

"Rachel?" Worry stared to slip into Luc's voice.

"Uhm... we did it. Polly and I. We cast the spell," I mumbled, my face now burning with the shame of it. I snuck a look at him, hoping that it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. "Next door."

Luc's face changed. The man who I thought could be calm in the face of everything suddenly lost it. His eyes settled into a furious glare, and his features flushed with the heat of anger.

"So that's why... that's why you were over there?" It was obvious he was fighting to keep his voice quiet and even. It only made it scarier. "I thought... I thought you had just gone home, thinking it had worked. I didn't realize... Oh God... Oh no..."

I cowered under his gaze.

"Someone... someone gave us a book, and told us there was a spell in it... and..." I could see him getting angrier and angrier as I floundered, his fists clenching in his lap until his knuckles blanched.

"We couldn't think of anything better to do! We didn't have any other options, we were desperate!" The more I tried to clarify, the more foolish we seemed.

"Do you know what you're playing with?!" he spat. "You can't just dabble in this shit. Don't you realize what it can do?" He pounded his fist on the wall between our apartments and the Beast snarled in response, emphasizing his point.

"I didn't—we didn't... no idea..." My voice trembled.

"This stuff can kill," he said, his voice low and fierce.

I had been in fights before, the usual verbal altercations, but this was different.

When someone who was generally temperamental, like Polly, got angry, you sort of expected it.

Dealing with it was easier.

But when a usually calm person lost their cool, it was always so much worse.

I felt like a child who had been caught doing something horribly dangerous, who didn't understand how bad it was until they saw how upset their parents got.

Breathing irregularly, Luc got up off the floor, and started pacing. His hands tore through his hair, as he tried to calm himself down.

"I'm sorry... but we really didn't know what to do..." I said.

"Sorry? Sorry? Do you realize what you've done? You've just robbed us of any chance of protecting ourselves. You were right. We are hostages now, hostage to that... that thing!" He picked up a glass that was on the kitchen counter and threw it at the wall.

It ricocheted, almost repelled by the wall itself, before exploding into a thousand pieces.

I shrieked and ducked from the rain of scattering shards. Horrified, I looked back at Luc expecting to see a look of intense hatred. Maybe he hadn't been planning to kill me before, but I wouldn't be surprised if he had changed his mind.

His expression had transformed, but it wasn't hateful or even angry. He looked ashamed of himself, of his outburst, but primarily... he just looked devastated. His eyes were distant, far away, like he was thinking of something else, of another time.

"I... I apologize," he whispered. He didn't look at me, continuing to stare off into nothing. It seemed that he was lost in his memories, obviously tortured by what he saw. "I shouldn't have acted like that. But you have no idea how dangerous this stuff can be."

"I'm sorry," I muttered again. I couldn't think of anything else to say, though I wasn't sure he could hear it, it was so quiet.

"I shouldn't have..." His voice trailed off, soft and weak. "But we are truly trapped here now. And I don't think we'll be able to leave for a very long time."

With that he disappeared into his bedroom, locking the door behind him.

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