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Oh my goodness, I totally didn't expect the reviews for the last chapter. I'm super excited about this story and it makes me that much more excited to write, knowing that people enjoyed the first chapter. I really hope that everyone likes this newest installment. Thanks so much for sticking with me!
Leave the Light On
Chapter Two: Battling Demons
Silence.
It was the utter quiet that was most unnerving, Paige found as she floated there, staring at the abyss in front of her as if it held every answer for every unasked question she had ever thought. The rain pounded relentlessly against the windows, and the man did not emerge from where he retreated.
However, the quiet around her was completely subverted by the pounding chaos that inhabited her thoughts. She could not quite pick out one thought from the other. Most of her thoughts were a jumble of words, mismatched and confusing and nonsense, all interspersed with the name of the man she had been charged with bringing to the Other Side.
Seth Rollins.
Pale fingers clenched beneath the long sleeves of her cloak as the wind whipped her clothing around her thin frame. She so wanted to feel the pain in her palm, anything to snap her back into reality, but was unable to do so. Had been unable to do so for quite some time. She had never missed it until now.
Another thought, following his name like it belonged there.
He's alive.
The dark-haired Reaper wrinkled her nose as she stared ahead, unseeing and yet seeing. She couldn't decide what to focus her gaze on - the way the rain pattered against the glass, the way the light streamed from under the door where he had disappeared, the way she wanted to feel the cold - to feel anything else other than the mind-numbing shock of what had just occurred.
This man, this Seth Rollins, the supposedly unremarkable human being, was supposed to take his life. It was written. There was no way to subvert it.
And yet, he did.
There it was, a cold chill shooting down her spine. For something she had wished for only moments earlier, she really regretted wanting to feel the ice pricks along her skin, itching their way beneath her muscle and lodging within the marrow of her bones.
Another thought, plucked out of the fray.
What is going to happen now? What is going to happen to him?
Really, Paige hadn't the faintest clue, as was evidenced by her slack-jawed expression. She continued to stare ahead, and was only interrupted when a sound from below jarred her back into reality.
It was him, again, briskly walking out of his apartment and into the night. Alive and breathing and moving about like nothing happened before. As if he hadn't nearly ended his life.
Nearly.
Paige was not sure what this meant for him, or for her. She had never heard of anyone defying the odds like this before. She was sure of one thing, though. Seth Rollins was supposed to be dead. His living, breathing body was blasphemy enough. No one was supposed to defy Death once their number was called. And yet, the tortured-looking man with the soulful eyes had done just that.
Before she could realize what she was doing, she felt herself floating to the ground below, her robes billowing softly around her. Her mind blank, she floated just inches above the ground, tracing his steps with invisible ones of her own. This was stupid, she knew. Stupid and foolish, to get more involved with a charge than was necessary. But this was necessary.
She was slow following the young man, taking her time and trying to collect her thoughts. She would certainly have some questions to answer when she got back to the Other Side. Difficult questions, she knew. Questions that really had no answer - and, if they did, she was certainly not privy to it.
Paige found herself focusing on him as he walked briskly through the town, following the two-toned man with little thought to where she was actually going. She watched as Seth raised a hand and hailed a cab, the yellow vehicle coming to a stop remarkably quickly considering the city they were in, and climbed in.
She could have followed him, but something told her that she might have an answer to his state of mind if she backtracked. Paige floated higher, the raindrops falling thickly through her ethereal form, and drifted back to his apartment. The image of his window was now permanently etched into her mind, so she had no trouble finding it and passing through the panes as easily as if they were opened.
Her feet pressed firmly on the carpet and she took in her surroundings. The place had the tell-tale signs of someone who had just given up. A mess, through and through, and though she had seen messier, there was just a certain kind of air about the place that signified something dark had been taking place for the longest time. As she moved from the bedroom to the other rooms of the apartment, she found an unmade bed, dirty dishes in the sink, clothes piled in the corner, old pizza boxes stacked next to the already full trash can. Every room was in complete darkness. The television was on, however, showing some crime show, but the sound was drowned out by the glaringly violent music playing on his radio.
Paige paid no attention to this - or, at least, she tried not to. The music brought forth something familiar to her, something that she had enjoyed before in her human life before it was cut short. The nostalgia was almost suffocating, and she felt the urge to scream and throw the offending item out of the window and to the rain-soaked concrete below.
As she scoped out the apartment, her eyes drifted to a picture on the small table by the couch. Now that she thought of it, she saw another picture of the same woman - this time accompanied by Seth himself - on the nightstand beside his bed. The woman was beautiful, that much was certain, with hair the color of cornsilk and a smile brighter than most, in her arms were a bouquet of sunflowers and the blue of her sundress brought out her eyes. And, as far as Paige could tell, there was no other evidence of a woman's touch in the place, other than the decorative pillows on the couch or the dustruffle on the bed.
Something like despair clutched at where Paige's heart should have been, and she whispered, "Roman."
The word cut through the barriers between the Living World and the Other Side, reaching the other Reaper in no time flat. It was a little gift the Reapers shared, being able to call upon help in times of need. If this wasn't a time of need, then Paige wasn't sure what was.
Roman materialized beside her, his presence automatically felt. Paige did not turn to him, did not hide in his chest like she so wanted. She stood, tall and straight and serious, like a statue that had seen so many things throughout its existance, but never something like this. Never something this pivotal.
"What is it, baby girl?" Roman's voice addressed her after a while, concerned.
Paige didn't know how to address the situation. Every time she tried, her voice seemed to stick in her throat. It was odd for her, a completely uncharacteristic action for someone so sure of herself, for someone so...
Detached... the word floated across her mind, unbidden, like someone hissing a horrible secret.
Roman's large, warm hand pressed against her shoulder. Paige neither leaned into his touch nor shrugged it off, content to let him comfort her in his own way. She took a deep breath, never taking her eyes from woman in the picture, and said the words that she hadn't wanted to believe.
"He's alive, Roman," she said, her voice quiet but strong. She had never not been strong - at least, not since her death. "He's still alive, and I don't know what to do."
"What?" Roman stated, his voice shocked despite his best attempts to sound nonchalant. "How..."
"I don't know."
"Well," he said, "that's kind of a pickle."
Paige snorted out a laugh, something she had forgotten she was capable of in the past few minutes. "Kind of," she mimicked. "Brilliant wording there, Reigns. Absolutely brilliant."
A smile split his face. There it was, the most comforting thing she could see at the moment. It put her heart at ease, to see her best friend looking so completely comfortable in such a bizarre situation. He looked as if he didn't feel the sense of dread that encompassed her the moment Seth Rollins dropped the gun - and she had no reason why that dread was necessary.
"I mean, it is already known," Roman said, his voice dropping a bit, his eyes shooting upward. "Everything is known up there."
Paige nodded, her head suddenly feeling heavy. "For some reason, I'm exhausted," she commented. "I haven't felt exhausted in decades."
"We'll figure it out," Roman said, his voice calm and confident and somehow soothing. He always knew what to say to ease her mind, and this time was no exception. If he believed in something, it was hard not to believe with him. He was that earnest, he was that good, and it was odd how he managed to be caught up in this business, if it could be called that.
"Yeah," she agreed, though she hardly felt it. "Yeah, we will."
Outside, the rain began to ease before it finally stopped altogether.
End Chapter Two.
