Hunted

Twenty-Eight: Strength

Charlotte sat with her legs folded beneath her, watching Edwards as he slept. She had been awake for over an hour, watching him with a cold expression. If anybody had witnessed her, they would have thought she was in a trance, her eyes glazed over, lost completely to her thoughts. To the untrained eye she seemed to be daydreaming, but Charlotte was in the middle of a covert attack, trying to bring her enemies down from the inside.

Charlotte's alteration was firmly attached to Peter Edwards, though it was not forcing him to endure his fears. She was not projecting an imagined reality about him in an effort to break his mind, not yet anyway. Instead she was observing his paranoid thoughts, working hard to twist them, to bend them to her will. Fear is a wonderful thing, she thought with a wide grin, a grin that managed to reach through to her entranced form, sitting calmly in the prison opposite the sleeping Edwards.

Edwards was unsettled, even in his sleep, and that made her happy - in fact it made her ecstatic. The unease that he exuded made her alteration hum with anticipation of what was yet to come.

Little had happened since she had been imprisoned in the room with Edwards, her constant and short-tempered roommate. She had received small amounts of water, and more than a few broken bones, but nothing else.

The Charmer seemed to be unrelenting in depriving her of sustenance. If she wanted to eat, she was definitely going to have to beg him. It was a prospect she was not relishing, so for the moment she forced herself to eat nothing, to ask for nothing. It was painful to say the least, and she felt permanently weak and tired, but she had to wait, she had to hold back on pleading for a meagre meal, she had to hold back if she wanted her plan to work.

Edwards tossed his head in his sleep and Charlotte grinned, resting her head against the wall. Her alteration thrashed its tail, its delight palpable. She had always known that she was capable of planting fears, of creating them, but she had never really tried it. She had planned on developing Elmhirst's fears, but she never had the chance.

It was tricky creating fears, because she had to make it seem real, gradual. If she was too intense in her infiltration of Edwards' mind, she was in danger of destroying her chances of escaping Nicholls. She needed her progress to remain unnoticed, especially when staying in the same house as The Charmer. If she attacked Edwards straight out, she knew she would be caught, but The Charmer would hardly notice her infiltration, or at least she hoped. Though after days of test runs he seemed none the wiser.

As Charlotte watched Edwards tossing uneasily in his chair, she could clearly sense the dreams that tormented him; she could feel the doubts that she had planted deep into his mind. Edwards twisted his head and the words that had never been spoken filled his mind. Charlotte closed her eyes, wanting to see the fears that were growing inside him, the paranoia.

"I'm sick of Edwards being used against us," The Charmer hissed, his form solidifying in Edwards' thoughts, though his surroundings were blurred, unfocused.

"There's nothing we can do," The Puppeteer replied. "We can't get near him; we can't attack him – he will defend himself the moment he senses a move against him".

Charlotte grinned again as Edwards mind morphed the idea that the other altered were trying to end him. He tried to reason with it in his dreams, to reassure himself he would sense their attack. He could sense their alterations, but he couldn't sense hers. That thought made her grin even wider.

"One day I will see him dead," The Charmer growled. "I just hope I will get to do it with my own hands".

As Charlotte observed the nightmare plaguing Edwards' mind, he seemed to take control, his own form appearing between them, his face twisted in fury.