Through Glass(50)

“Don’t ask him to Sadie’s, Lex. That would just be weird.” I jumped at the voice, the same voice as last time; young and perky. Just hearing the phrase sparked the memory of that day, hot like a branding iron to my heart. The day I asked Cohen to that dance, the warning she gave me only moments before.

It was just like before, when she’d talked about the date; her voice was more of memory than of repetition. Yet she had said it. I had seen her lips move. Fear snaked up my spine as I stared at her, her eyes moving in and out of focus quickly.

“Sarah?” I asked, careful to keep my voice low and hesitant.

She looked at me, her eyes drifting back into focus as she did. Her eyebrow rose in confusion.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked as if she was oblivious to what had just happened.

“Yeah. I’m fine.” I tried to smile, but I don’t think it really took. I could still feel the fear as I tried to figure out what had just happened.

I couldn’t count it as simply being a fluke anymore, her voice was too perfect, too much the way it was. Then, to have it happen twice.

I swallowed heavily as I tried to control my panic, the fear that I had been controlling so well was coming back as quickly as if someone had just flipped a switch.

I watched her as I leveled my breathing, trying hard not to let my panic show. She sat in the darkness, holding herself like she was cold, her eyes darting around as if she expected something to jump out at us. Her actions reignited the warning lights I had been trying so hard to ignore and I leaned over to grab the torch. I couldn’t sit here in the dark anymore, something was wrong.

“You don’t really need that,” she spat, her voice hard and angry. It hissed through me like a snake, the tone sounded feral and uncontrollable. I froze at her voice, my body leaned over precariously as I fumbled toward the plastic piping.

“They don’t attack us anymore,” she continued, her words sending a wave of ice over me, her hard voice triggering something deep inside of me. I froze for only a moment before I tried to brush her words aside, but they wouldn’t leave. They only sounded more like a warning, a warning that was screaming at me to run.

“What do you mean they don’t attack us anymore?” I asked, my body moving up only enough so that I could look at her. “I was attacked last night.”

“Here? In this area?” she asked, her eyes wide in disbelief. “This area has been empty for years. They declared it safe after they cleared it out.”

“Who cleared what out?” I asked, my eyes narrowing. She said it so off handedly, like everyone should know. As if I should know. Maybe I should, but I couldn’t help feeling like I was missing something.

She’s not a threat, don’t attack. I didn’t take my eyes off her as the ridiculous words entered my mind; my more logical side was desperately begging me to think rationally.

“They cleared out all the Ulama from this area. There aren’t any more monsters here.”

I looked at her as she spoke. Her fingers kneaded into her sides while clinging to the fabric of her shirt. Her actions flamed the fear in my chest

“What are you talking about, Sarah?” I asked, trying to keep the panic out of my voice as my hand moved to grip the bed rail tightly. I hadn’t even realized what I had done until I felt the hard edge dig into my skin. “I saw one yesterday. Two. They attacked me, but I scared them away with fire.”

“I saw him at McDonalds last night, so don’t try to tell me…” she said, my whole body jumping at the sound. It was that same recorded voice before she continued on as if nothing had happened.

“They are gone.” Her voice was hard and angry again. It was nothing like what I had remembered, nothing like the sound a girl her age should be able to make. Nothing like how she had been only moments before. This voice was different and dangerous.

It wasn’t just her voice that had changed. I stared at her through the dark as my hand kneaded around my rail, she looked nothing like she had a moment before. Her skin looked even greyer, her eyes too dark.

I stared at her, my heart rate picking up as everything tightened up in fear. This was worse than I had thought. My brain screamed at me as my heart picked up, everything tensing until my muscles were rocks and my shoulders one solid mass. I needed to get out of here. I needed light. I said nothing as I leaned toward the torch again with my eyes refusing to leave hers. I was suddenly scared what she would do if I turned my back on her.

I was scared of her.

My hand reached blindly toward the torch, my fingers grazing garbage before finding the end of the pipe. That’s when her hand shot forward and wrapped around my wrist, holding me in place against the hard floor, her body right alongside mine.

“Don’t. Light. The. Fire.” Her hand tightened around my wrist, the hold painful as she began to pull me toward her.

“Sarah?” I asked, my voice shaking, before she pulled me to sitting. Her arm returned to her side and my hand moved right back to wrap around the bed rail I had laid across my lap.

I stared at her, trying to regulate my breathing, trying to convince myself not to run and not to attack, that she was safe. That she was only Sarah. She stared into me. Her gaze was hard and uncomfortable. I looked away, knowing I needed to run. My eyes fell on her wrists, the joints she was trying to hide from me. I could barely make them out from underneath her arms, the dark, black lines that circled the skin barely visible. They almost looked like scars from here.