CHAPTER 2

Watching

Age 4.

Charon sat comfortably on a rooftop, his legs hanging freely over the edge of the roof while he smoked a cigarette. His posture was relaxed, hunched forward so that he leaned one of his elbows on his knee. His long ago acquired black sheriff's hat shaded his eyes from the setting sun. The modified shotgun laid next to him.

His eyes looked down at the streets below, but he wasn't seeing anything there. His mind was preoccupied seeing elsewhere, looking at the world through the eyes of someone else. Someone small.

The child sat in the middle of a pile of junk, her small and sloppy hands trying to assemble a broken toaster. She bit her lip while she worked, humming to herself, the melody unfamiliar to Charon. Her smooth and delicate forehead wrinkled into a serious grimace while she concentrated, her eyes focusing on she small screw she was trying to put into place. The screw was supposed to hold the heating element in place, but it kept slipping from her untrained fingers before she managed to use the screwdriver at all. Eventually, the small screw fell out of its hole and disappeared into the pile of junk. There was a second where the girl stared at the toaster, her mind completely still, and then she furiously threw it away with an angry and girlish squeal.

Charon chuckled silently. She was an impatient little thing.

The girl rose to stand and walked away from the pile of junk. Her toys, really. The only toys her caretaker could give her. She was still angry, and she kicked a few of items, making them skip over the dirt with metallic clanks. She kicked another item, and this one made a small spin when it landed. Her eyes focused on the thing, and then she hurried to pick it up, without hesitation putting it between her lips.

Charon flinched when the harmonica gave off a sour and terrible sound, the girl exhaling hard into it. Then she inhaled, still making the harmonica complain in disharmony. The sound was horrific and unpleasant, making him clench his teeth, but still with a smile on his lips. The girl cared very little that the harmonica was broken. She kept playing on it, dancing and twirling around her pile of junk, as if she was preforming in front of an audience.

"You knock that off, or I'll come out there and make you!" an angry male voice shouted.

The girl immediately stopped, cutting the sound short, and turned, hiding the harmonica behind her back while she looked wide-eyed at the shack door. The door was closed, and the girl's eyes stared at it for a long time, holding her breath while she waited for it to open. When it didn't, she exhaled and retrieved the harmonica from behind her back again, looking down at it.

Charon felt her sadness. A childish sadness, but heavy and dark, and very painful. He swallowed the lump he knew was forming in her throat, suppressing the cry that threatened to cross her lips. Inhaling deeply, exhaling slowly, he felt the girl calm down again. And then he withdrew from the bond, his eyes seeing the street beneath him again.

Taking a deep drag from the cigarette, Charon frowned. He knew he shouldn't have helped her the way he had, should've just stayed out of it. Should've just let her die when she had the chance to do so relatively peacefully. But he'd found out very early how difficult it was to ignore her when he could feel her fear, or when she was in pain. He couldn't help it, watching over his soulmate became an instinct too powerful to ignore. And she was still a small child. She was an innocent who didn't deserve anything bad happening to her. And bad shit was bound to happen.

The girl's caretaker, Eric, wasn't a good person, but he kept her safe enough. Charon didn't like the way the man treated her, but he wasn't able to go get her and take care of her himself. As long as the man wasn't beating the crap out of her, or attempting some perverted pedo-stuff, Charon left him alone.

Preferably, he should leave her alone as well.

He wasn't sure she sensed him. It didn't seem like she even knew he exited, or that he was looking in on her from time to time. And honestly, that had him feel like a creep. He was invading her privacy and looking at her world through her eyes. He could feel her and everything she felt.

Taking the final drag from the cigarette, he flipped the stump away, watching it swirl down towards the street far below him. He grabbed his shotgun and rose to his feet, shaking away the remaining feelings still coming through the bond. Years of conditioning and mental training had enabled him to thin the bond to a very minimum, and he usually kept it like that. Closed shut and sealed.

Charon hadn't decided yet if he wanted to approach her, sometime in the future. He was a bound man, always employed, never free. Not the kind of life a soulmate would want. Not the kind of life that would ever be safe.

…

Age 9.

The girl was shooting at bottles behind the shack, the hunting rifle heavy in her hands, and she used a barrel to lean her elbows on. Her aim was impeccable, her hands were trained and efficient when she reloaded. She exhaled slowly before each shot, and her pulse was lazy and calm. Charon took a moment to admire the way she felt, relaxed and soft and very at peace, the feeling coming through the bond and making him relax as well.

His anger had sparked the very moment he'd reached for her, immediately feeling the pain in her lip and cheek. The man had hit her again. Something he did more often now. Charon couldn't be there all the time, so he had no idea what had happened, but he knew it was the caretaker who'd hit her.

But then her current state of calm soothed him. She wasn't afraid, she didn't feel traumatized, she wasn't badly injured aside from the bruised lip and cheek. If anything, she was cold and collected, and she had all of her attention on the bottled targets far away, existing just in the moment.

She fired her gun, another bottle exploded on impact, and Charon hummed approvingly. The girl flinched and lifted her head.

"Hello?" Her voice was slow and wary. Charon froze, holding his breath while the girl scanned her surroundings with her eyes. Had she just heard him, or was it something else? Could she feel him?

"Someone there? Eric, is that you?" The girl took her rifle with her, and walked towards the shack, rounding it to the front, eyes darting around for trouble. "He's not supposed to be back for another two days," she said warily.

Charon withdrew from the bond, exhaling a shaking breath. He had to be careful. She couldn't know. Not yet. Maybe never.

…

Age 12.

She was pacing, back and forth, inside the shack. Her heart was racing, and she looked towards the door, waiting anxiously. She'd been doing that for days now. Wandering, unpacking and repacking her backpack, checking her weapons, counting her ammo, eating the food she was supposed to take with her.

Charon wanted to speak to her. To tell her that the man wasn't coming back. Not ever.

But he didn't. He remained silent, only allowing his feelings slip through the bond and into her; urgency, calm acceptance, no grief. She had to leave soon, or she'd be starving by the time she found people.

The last time her caretaker had beaten her, brutality had taken over and he'd lost control. She was still recovering from a broken rib. Charon had made sure the man would never lay a hand on her ever again. But that wasn't the worst part of it. The man, Eric, had been dealing with slavers for some time. And he owed them money.

Charon took care of the problem before it became an issue. But the girl couldn't stay there. She had to go, and he was trying his best to influence her without revealing himself to her. She was stalling, reluctant to leave behind the only person she'd ever relied on in her entire life. The only person she'd ever trusted.

When she eventually left, Charon exhaled in relief, and he allowed that relief seep through the bond, to reassure her it was the right decision.

It was still far to early to approach her, but he would try his best to guard her like this. Silently influence her the only way he could, help her in the invisible ways he had done before.

…

Age 18.

He could see her hardened small hands turn the pages of a book, her eyes focusing on the words and sentences, her lips moving while she wordlessly read the page. The only source of light was a small candle on a table, but in her peripheral vision, Charon saw the many shelves filled with books around her.

Was she in a library?

He focused on the words in the pre-war book in her lap, recognizing the medical terms she attempted to pronounce. She read a few more pages, annoyance building in the back of her head.

Alarm crept into him, and he focused on how she felt. Was she ill? He hadn't checked in on her for a while, his own work taking up all of her waking hours. In fact, he was surprised to find her awake now, in the middle of the night. Her muscles were sore, especially her neck, from her hunched position over the book. But she didn't feel sick. She felt… supple and strong.

He redirected his attention to her vision, the girl lifting her eyes from the book in her lap to scan the ones scattered on the floor around her in a circle. How long had she been there?

The building annoyance inside her surfaced, and she threw the book away from her lap. She rubbed her temples with a sigh, the annoyance settling into determination, and then she rose to stand.

She walked between the shelves, her fingers brushing over the ruined books while she read the titles of the intact ones. Several books were missing, but by the look of the pile she'd gathered on the floor, she hadn't moved them far. She paused and read the title of another book, pulling it out to take with her. She took several more books with her and carried them back to the pile on the floor, opening the one on the top.

Charon watched with apprehension while his soulmate searched the library. It took her hours, almost the entire night. The pile on the floor grew into large stacks, her reading more and more frantic, close to desperate. His frown deepened a little when he understood what she was looking for. A chilling sensation settled in his gut when she found the first of what was going to be many books on a particular topic.

"Severe mental disorder, often experienced as a difficulty of distinguishing between reality and imagination." She read the words out loud. Charon closed his eyes, listening to her voice. "Feeling watched, having thoughts that's not one's own… Hearing or seeing things that's not there… Lack of concentration and sleep."

He wanted to stop her. Wanted to open the thinned bond and stop her right there. But that probably wasn't a good idea, since she now was considering the possibility that she was mentally ill. He risked frightening her, risked that she'd react very badly, possibly injure herself. The chilled sensation in his gut spread up his backside when her eyes narrowed on the diagnosis she'd just given herself, her index finger tapping on the word while she pronounced it slowly.

"Schizophrenia." Her voice was a hoarse whisper.

Charon withdrew from the bond, slowly, reluctant to leave her alone. If there had ever been an appropriate time to go and find her, this was it. But he couldn't. He was employed by one of the worst men he'd ever laid his eyes on, and he had no idea what that man would do if he caught word of Charon having a soulmate.

Gripping his shotgun tight, he promised to himself he'd find her the moment he was sure it was safe to do so.

A/N: I should probably say this.. The title of the story is heavily inspired by Shinedown's song State Of My Head.

Also; I realize that I have aplologies to give. I'm painfully aware that I've pretty much butchered the diagnosis Schizophrenia, and I mean no offense to anyone suffering from that illness. I'm a student of psychology, and I work every day with people really struggling with this diagnosis, so I know exactly how much I've carved it down to the bone. Sorry about that.