We Who Are Jaded

Chapter Thirty Two

You know when Nate said vulnerable, Evans, he really mean't weak.

That was what the voice in my head said, as clearly as if I had said it out loud myself. But I hadn't; that wasn't how this game worked. 

I picked myself up from the door and onto the bottom step in the stairwell. The metal of the railing was cool against brow, comforting as I processed the madness of this. Sure I talked to myself often enough inside my own head but not like this, not as though a second consciousness had set up resident. I'd sent this voice packing once before when I'd found myself waking up in a lonely hospital bed.

That's why Kieran left you – he craves power and strength. 

I dug my hand into my back pocket and searched for loose change. Praying I had enough to take me where I needed to go. The penny's weighed heavy in my hand and I knew I had, not what I wanted but what I needed. 

No amount of counselling will help a psychopath like you, Evans, might as well do everyone a favour and die. 

I closed my hands around my ears – not wanting to hear the words being so harshly whispered inside of my head. I closed my eyes and willed the voice to leave me be. 

We'd played this game before and I had won.

You still jumped off that bridge though, didn't you?

"Leave me alone." My head throbbed and when I pulled my hand free from my eyes shapes swam into one another, colours spinning in dizzying whirls. 

I did not recall how the voice had sounded back then; the voice from before I'd jumped but the one in my head now felt steadily more and more unlike me. It was literally as though I was sharing my conscious with someone. 

What if..?

Surely Nate hadn't meant for this to happen to me, his manipulation leaving me open to this torment. I wanted to believe this wasn't some sort of trick, harmless even if somewhat cruel. Perhaps this was Devon, he'd had controlled me too. That must have been it, it had to be.   

But the voice in my head was female and never had I been told that Red or his minions had the power to intercept the mind – only the Indigo's.

What if this was Anya? 

You are weak. In fact weak isn't even lowly enough. Pathetic, is more befitting.

"Are you alright hen?" I started as the real world came crashing back. The woman from down stairs and proud owner of umpteen cats was peering at my through the banister. She was stood in a pink dressing gown cradling an unlit cigarette between her fingers. While I had heard concern, there was a entertained gleam in hey eyes, as though she wanted her crazy to become acquainted with mine. 

"Yeah I'm fine," I said through gritted teeth, flinching as a bolt of pain shot across my brow.

Liar.

"Well then, going for smoke, fancy one?" I glanced at the cigarette in her hand, apparently tempted as my fingers itched in the want to take it. 

Kill yourself fast, kill yourself slow, little old Christine Evans has no where else to go. 

The voice was singing, a sinister and shrill sound. 

"No thanks." I gulped back the fright in my voice.

"Suit yourself." She shrugged, the skin around her neck wobbling as she did so and walked away. 

I needed to breathe. I was going to be fine. Any second now the world would fall back into solidity and I would take the first and hopefully last step to secure my sanity.