The Creation (Book III)

(23) Present: 2024

(23) Present: 2024

I stood in the hallway for three seconds trying to figure out what to do. Three seconds, yet I knew it was longer than I should have waited. Assuming Xavier had heard Liam, it would take Xavier about a minute to burst through the backdoor. Assuming Xavier had heard Liam, it would be impossible to rip Xavier out of his rage. I realized, during my short time of internal screaming, I had clenched my phone so hard I cracked the screen.

What should I do?

I was torn between two actions: run towards Liam and Joanna to warn them about Xavier, or run towards Xavier and try to stop him. Both were unlikely to end on a happy note. The decision came on the third second of standing there. I thought maybe, just maybe, I could stop Xavier. Maybe I'd reason with him and get him to calm down? After spending nearly a century with him, it seemed unlikely, but I had an inkling of hope.

My shoes made a slight screeching sound as I took off running towards the backdoor, eyes wild with panic. It wasn't like I could go back there, lock the door, and try to calm Xavier down by speaking to him through the door. But if I could catch him outside, I might be able to lock the door behind me to at least keep him away a few second more. That was the plan, at least, as I was running down the hall at full speed.

Bam!

The impact was similar to being hit be a car, which I have actually had happen before. I bounced backward and fell against the wall, my mind spinning from the collision. When I looked up to see what had happened, I met the dark eyes of my creator, also on the floor from the collision. Clearly neither of us had expected to literally run into each other in the hall, which actually came to my advantage because Xavier was definitely distracted for at least a few seconds.

"You can't," I whispered, shaking my head furiously as I crawled towards him.

His wild eyes narrowed and quickly looked towards the end of the hall, searching for Liam, no doubt. "Where is he?" he demanded to know through clenched teeth.

"Don't do this to me. Don't you dare," I pleaded, reaching towards him in hopes my touch would calm him.

Xavier looked at my hand, almost seeming mesmerized by my action. The distraction was for only a second, because that was when something made Xavier remember his mission.

"Lucy?" Liam called from the other room.

Xavier became someone else then, someone I hadn't seen since 1937.

His eyes somehow became darker as his expression hardened into a snarl, and as if to make the memory of the night of Axel's death more realistic, he spoke the words I remembered so clearly I almost felt the same wave of terror I had felt that night, "Lucy, get out of the way."

I almost did. I almost did the exact same thing I had done that night and locked up in terror. But the difference between that night and tonight was the person I was trying to protect from the monster was the monster himself. I wasn't about to let Xavier destroy himself, destroy us, in one fowl swoop. I narrowed my eyes at him and tightened my muscles, ready for a fight if that's what it took. "No," I responded through my clenched teeth.

Xavier was only temporarily astonished by my fierceness, but ultimately went back to his mission. He lunged forward, not towards me, but towards the direction of the library. I, too, lunged forward, but at him.

We collided once more, only this time I practically wrapped my whole body around his and forced us both down onto the marble flooring. It definitely hurt to crash against the hard floor, yet the pain wasn't even acknowledged by Xavier. He immediately pried my limbs off his body, not fiercely or in a way to cause me any harm, before he attempted to take off running once more.