Chapter 25

Elliot

Guilt? Regret maybe? Or maybe it was the cold hard reality of it all hitting me right where it hurt most?

She left me. I was meant to feel angry. But any anger in me was directed at myself rather than the real offender in this case. And what was I doing this for? Revenge? To show her that I wasn't the powerless weak little boy she'd thought I was?

"Move out of the way Elliot."

I was tempted to do as he said, but remembered my game and stood my ground.

"Go around me like a normal person, Sanchez," I muttered, as my eyes wandered to the trolley he was hauling, bearing a plate of cheese and cucumber sandwiches and water. She hated cucumber.

"I'll take that," I blurted out. "Save you the effort of walking all the way around me." Sanchez scowled at me, but abandoned the trolley anyway, skulking off to do whatever people like him did in their free time. I gulped, fingers tightening around the handle of the trolley as I pushed.

It was time to confront. And she better have answers.

I knocked softly on the door, before remembering that I was the one with the key. Turning the key in its lock, I gave the door a push, as it swung back obediently.

The room was so painfully lifeless that I was almost tempted to abandon all hope and run away.

Only cowards run away. You're not a coward, Elliot. You're a warrior.

Where had those words come from? Because they obviously weren't mine. The voice in my head, the one that constantly offered motivating advice- it was not mine. I knew my voice; the one in my head was foreign, yet it had been with me forever, even though I could not remember what forever meant. It was the only element of my life that felt familiar. That voice and her face. But her face brought pain too. And I didn't like pain. Pain hurt. It hurt so bad it made you want to wrench out your insides and abandon them, fleeing away from your aching feelings.

Was she even here? Was the food even being delivered to her? I'd just taken it without casting a second doubt, hadn't I?

All because of what?

Because I wanted to see her face? Because I wanted to remind myself of all the nights I'd cried myself to sleep?

No.

Because I wanted to show her that she couldn't hurt me anymore.

"I brought food."

I decided that this simple comment was introduction enough and strolled into the room, kicking the door shut behind me. Don't show them you're afraid, Elle. Never let them see that you're afraid.

Same voice.

But like all the other times, I listened to the voice obediently, smoothening my expression before turning around and greeting her with the coldest of smirks.

"...Elle?"

The same voice.

I'd promised myself I would remain sturdy, hard-to-read, firm. Cold. It was never a problem for me anywhere else. But when I made that grave mistake of looking back at her, perched at the edge of the bed, large brown eyes blinking at me in bewilderment, I wanted to cry more than ever.

So I did. Just like the coward I was.

And despite everything, two warm inviting arms pulled me into the most comforting of embraces that I should have refused. But I instead I cried into her shoulder.

Zachary

Two days.

She hadn't been seen for two entire days. And I hadn't slept or eaten properly in two days.

I had no idea where she was, the small and beautiful and completely clueless bundle of joy that was my soulfinder. And despite what anybody tried to do to reassure me, I was still breaking inside, tearing into shreds. I couldn't close my eyes for but a second without seeing her smile float into my mind's eye, the way her eyes crinkled and shone with glee and the way she bit her lip when she was nervous and tucked her hair behind her ear and couldn't wink to save her life...

But they were still searching. She had literally just vanished. But I would know if my soulfinder just vanished like that. I couldn't contact her via telepathy but I could feel her there, on the receiving end, her presence drumming desperately against some kind of impenetrable wall.

The wall that me, being the hopeless excuse I was, couldn't get through.

Victor had reached the conclusion that they were not doing this as revenge on us. If so, we would have received some sort of phone call or warning. This wasn't a ransom abduction. Had she even been abducted? It should have been me. Not Alex. Never Alex.

"Zach...?"

I was sitting by my windowsill, what had been my alcove of refuge for the past two days, and my eyes were fixated on the faraway twinkle of an emerging star in the background.

I didn't even notice that my bedroom door was opening.

Zed didn't say anything, and I couldn't be more grateful for that. Instead, he sat beside me, facing the black sky that glared back through the glass of the window, my pathetic reflection just about visible.

"We're gonna find her, you know."

I broke down crying.

A man wasn't supposed to cry. Men were supposed to be courageous and firm and emotionally-stable, all the things that I was proving not to be. However not too long ago, a beautiful girl had told me that emotion wasn't just reserved for females. Emotion was universal. She 'd held my hand and told me that it was okay to cry when you were sad and laugh when you were happy. If you didn't, were you human at all?

Zed didn't say anything while I cried. He just put his arm around me.

Men weren't supposed to show affection.

It was all a damn lie. However, the one person who had made me realise that, was nowhere to be found, and had left a huge void in my life.

"What am I going to do?"

There were a few moments of silence as I violently wiped the streaks of tears from my face.

"I love her."

Zed doesn't seem surprised. He sort of smiles at me sadly, his smirk now lopsided.

"I love her so much."

"We will find her. Sometimes faith is the one thing someone needs to keep them going."

Alexandria

"I hate you."

The most painful thing was, that I was not the least bit surprised.

"I wish I never had to see you again."

Truth was, I was thinking the same things.

I hate me too.

"Shut up, shut up, get out of my head!" Elliot shouted, pushing me away. He covered his ears and screwed his eyes shut. He used to do that a lot when someone said something that confused him.

He was hurting. But weren't we all?

I can't, Elle. I tried to get you out of my head too. It never works.

"You left me!" he spat. "You left me for dead, you traitor!"

The words still stung, although I still had no idea what he was talking about. Images were suddenly reeling in my mind, flashing purple and red as I blinked them away

and still they came back to haunt me.

Seeing Elliot again, wasn't helping that cause.

"I'm not a traitor," I tried to say, although the last of my words died out mid-sentence. I was crying too now.

"Leaving me to die wasn't betrayal enough for you?"

His words may have made no sense but that look he gave me

that cold callous scowl

it was enough to kill me.

Elliot

Once I started running, I couldn't stop. One after another, my feet kept padding on the carpeted floor, fast enough to get me out of there, without another glimpse back in her direction.

She had the exact same voice.

The same voice that I had found courage in for the past, God knows how many years. Even that had been a lie.

It was making me wonder what truth my life actually held. If any.

Still, I was running

until I wasn't.

Because I was hearing voices. But they weren't the voices that were in your head.

These were the voices that you weren't supposed to hear, spoken in hushed tones so as not to arouse the ears of passers-by. Unless those passers-by had unusually sensitive ears for a human. Though not so unusual for a savant.

My ears immediately pricked up when they mentioned her name, the voice drenched in the foul tone that clearly had Daniel Kelly's name written all over it.

Closing my eyes, which I usually found were a barrier to my ears, I pursued the voices, until I reached the small crack of bright light spilling out from a room, that I had never chanced upon in all the time I had explored the hotel.

"Just kill her already," someone was saying. "She's a waste of both time and space." My muscles tensed, my mind too late to force myself not to react. She wasn't mine to protect. I hated her.

"And if you don't do it, I will." Stupid Maria Kelly, with her stupidly devilish ideas.

"Shut the trap, Maria," Sean spat, seemingly on edge. "Dad says she'll be useful to us."

Useful? I hadn't been told anything about useful.

In fact, I don't know what I was thinking we'd do with her once we'd brought her here.

Kill her?

Like I had the nerve to do that.

Like I'd ever let anyone touch her.

"Believe me, she's useful, alright." I tensed as soon as Kelly's voice boomed over his ignorant sidekicks'. The man may have been repulsive, but his brain was a thing to be admired. Even if I hated the guts that fuelled it.

"And how exactly is that?"

"Every savant-born has a gift, ever since birth, am I right?"

I could already hear Maria rolling her eyes.

"And why is this of relevance?"

"Everything is of relevance in this world, Maria," Kelly said, before continuing. "But our captive, the Alexandria girl you seem to be so keen on ridding, doesn't exactly follow these norms."

I gulped, dread churning in the pit of my stomach. My heart, already knowing what he was about to say, began racing, although my mind was brimming with bewilderment.

"She has more than one gift. In fact, she has a multitude of them. So many that the numbers don't even add up. As each day passes, her gifts increase," Kelly exclaimed. "One might even call it magic."

Magic.

It didn't exist. Magic wasn't real. But then again, I had supersonic hearing and I'd come back from the dead a year ago. Reality wasn't always what you thought it to be.

"She's only 16, an underdeveloped savant, you may say. But when she grows, give it another two years' time, she will become the most powerful asset we could ever have hold of."

Silence followed. Silence that was far too deafening for my liking. I could already hear the slow worn-out gear of Sean's brain turning and Maria's mind completely clueless.

I wish I was like that too.

"Soon enough, we're going to make her one of us."

One of us.

That was when I realised what that meant.

She's going to become like me.

Zachary

It was the morning of the third day when I finally came downstairs.

Nothing had changed. Same old living room with the same family. But when they saw me, although they tried to say nothing, their pitiful glances were all I needed to spear my chest. It was as if they were trying to act normal, trying to make it seem like I wasn't dying inside.

"Zachary." That was all my Mum said, and I immediately collapsed into her embrace. It felt good, all this comfort, but it still didn't hide the fact that I was losing my mind. "We'll find her, Zach," Mum said and I nodded, trying to believe her words.

"We will."

That was when Victor assumes it is the right time to barge into the room, the door almost beheading me with its abrupt force.

"Geez Vic, try to take my head off, will you?" I snapped, however Victor let my remark pass, and turned to look at me, as if he'd been wanting to tell me something for a very long time.

"We have a witness," he said, and my mind immediately forgave him for anything he had ever done to annoy me in the past. Right now, he was my saviour.

"They saw what happened? They know who it was?" I immediately began bombarding him with questions, until it took me a minute to breathe and let him respond.

"That's generally what a witness is, Zach," Vic replied, then softening his tone, said, "We're working on a sketch."

"We're actually getting somewhere," I whispered, expecting Vic to look relieved, however his expression didn't assure me one bit. "What's wrong?" I asked.

Vic sighed, rubbing his neck, a gesture that we didn't often see from him. He was nervous.

"Her mother.." he trailed off. "She's in a really serious state." My eyes widened.

"She'll make it, right?"

"I don't know," he said, his tone unsure. "But she asked the doctors to see you."

So I haven't updated in forever and have been neglecting fanfic for forever. Well never again! (Hopefully) I will definitely finish all of my stories, in time, but they'll be finished. I recently updated my other story Exposing Truth, if you guys want to check it out. I am so grateful for all your reviews- they are honestly amazing and make my day, so please keep them coming and tell me what you thought of this chapter xxxx

To Llamacorn: I just remembered the time I posted the last chapter and it was all the way in the summer holiday. Wow, that took forever. Anyway thank you for being so amazing and being ths huge motivational spur for my writing xxx

To Guest: Yeah don't worry I will definitely finish this and I'm glad you like Elliot's POV too. It's very different form Alex and Zach, but I actually like writing from his perspective, because he's this very vulnerable character who's been forced to be strong and firm by those around him. Anyway thanks so much for reviewing xxx

To i'mjustdancingintherain: I actually did check out your story btw and it's really good. I love it! Thanks for such a sweet review and I really hope you enjoyed this chapter. Your writing is so good too and I really love it xxx