Torn Asunder

Chapter 4 Valentine

"Shite, we've gotta move her now!" Caleb called out to the others, moving farther away from biting range. Not that I was gonig to try to take a chomp out of him. And not like he hadn't wanted me to do it anyways.

"What? Why?" Luka asked, remaining calm, but as his bestie I knew that he had to be confused and angry. At least he didn't have this gnawing, driving, needing sickness rushing through him like I was dealing with. I felt like something inside me was being torn to pieces and reassembled into a strange, new and horrible form.

"She sent out a Call." Ixchel replied, calm as she handed Caleb a pair of heavy duty handcuffs. "Here, these should hold her until we can move her."

I let out a snarl that was in no way, shape or form human sounding. Whatever those handcuffs were, something inside me recognized them as being more than just braclets. Ixchel gave me a grim smile, seeming to know why I'd reacted that way. "Yes, the Shadow Blood affecting you recognizes these doom cuffs. See, on a normal human, they're just handcuffs. On anything else, and they're much much more uncomfortable. It should help you keep the Hunger down." she explained, watching Caleb calmly click on shut around my wrist.

"Don't do this to me." My voice squeezed out, the words not wholly my own. The dark wrongness in my chest was trying to stop the last cuff from going on. Caleb looked me in the eye for a moment, apologetic and not at the same glance. He wrapped his strong grip around my wrist and forced my wrists together so the last cuff could go on, without ever releasing more than one of my wrists. They weren't risking the chance I'd make a break for it. As soon as the cuff clicked closed, I felt that clawing wrongness fade back, pushed away to a corner of my mind. I was lying there, panting and weak suddenly.

"Pick her up, I don't think she's up for walking around just yet." Ixchel commanded, suddenly the person in charge. Luka glared both Andros and Caleb away from me, not trusting them to behave themselves while I was so out of it and in their arms. I couldn't even wrap my arms around his neck to help hang on, the freaking cuffs were too damn heavy for me to move! I felt like the stereotypical damsel in distress, and the sad fact was that was EXACTLY who I was being! Not even by choice!

"Can someone explain to me what, exactly a Call is?" Andros asked, not being shy about pulling a black gun from his waist band. How had I not seen that earlier?

"Grab everything you need now and I'll explain it as we go. Just move!" Ixchel shooed him off, flying out of the room as Luka carried me after her. Step one was to set me on the couch where I stay sprawled in a listless daze.

Step two involved bags and strange supplies. I tried to make sense of the items Ixchel was bringing and what ones she wasn't, but there was something dragging my attention away. A strange sense of looking inwards to look outwards washed over me, and suddenly I felt the weight of my twin's passage through this city, weeks ago now. Like a strange ghost I could mentally follow a flash of his footsteps as he'd passed by near here so long ago.

"What else can you remember?" Andros prompted me and I realized that I'd been babbling my strange vision the entire time. My eyes opened and I looked at him, starting to have trouble telling what real and what wasn't right now.

"He's not there now. I don't know where he is. I need him. I need to find him. He was so near to here but gone..." I trailed off, knowing the words didn't make sense.

"Shhh..."Andros cooed, running a fingertip across my bottom lip to silence me. "We'll find him." he said softly to me. I couldn't help but notice that Caleb was watching us as Andros comforted me, and Caleb's eyes were dark and guarded.

"If we let you follow this echo of his, do you think you could track his movments?" Ixchel asked casually, but I could see the gold pulse in her core that was her heart beating rapidly. The Hunger was trying to rise up again, fight back against the soporific effect of the cuffs.