Incarnadine

Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

There must be worms in my bloodstreams.

Or beetles. Creeping beetles with a thousand legs.

The sensation made me feel like my skin was rippling. It was a ticklish sensation. Strange. I tried to fight it, but I found it hard. The itch increased, and I finally gave in to the urge to scratch on my arms.  Pain struck me, and I looked at them in surprise. They were bleeding. I'd accidentally scratched them with my claws. The rest of me was still human.

"Duane?" I called out. The room was dark. I wasn't even sure it was a room. But everything was too dark to make out anything at all except for the shape a few feet away from. "Duane! Duane!"

No one answered me. Until I saw a flash of red hair in the dark.

"Armand!" I sighed in relief, rubbing my arms. "Thank God you are here. Where are we?"

Armand didn't smile back at me. When he stepped forward, suddenly around me were white walls and a row of bright lights. He frowned, and half of the lights dimmed out.

"We're inside you."

I blinked. "What do you mean?"

"I'm in a spirit form, and so are you. We're inside of your consciousness."

I laughed. "Like hypnosis?"

"No. More like possession."

"You're kidding me. You're telling me now that ghosts—"

"I'm not talking about ghosts, Elena." Armand took another step closer to me and gripped me by the shoulders. This wasn't the easygoing school bad boy that I knew. This was a god-knows-how-old shifter, The Keeper.

"Er, Armand—"

"Listen, Elena. We've got to be quick. Where are you right now?"

"Here," I answered automatically, bewildered. "With you."

"I mean your physical form, Elena." He shook me a little. His proximity was making me hyperventilate a little. His stance said violence.

"What do you mean? I..."  I frowned. "I don't know? How can I not know?"

He shook me again.

I pried his hands off me. Again, I'd forgotten the claws. It was fascinating to watch how his wound close up immediately as soon as the blood oozed out. He let his arms fall to his sides.

"Elena, this is important. Please, try to remember where you are before you're here."

He looked so upset, so unlike his usual playful self, that I complied. The last thing I remembered was...

"I was talking to Mr. Harrington about my essay," I said.

Armand nodded. "We already figured he's involved. He's just been recently cast off from his position as a Vigil for being a mole. After that?"

A flash of needles. "He had a tranquilizer." A flash of chains. A flash of another sets of needles, bigger ones.

"Hey," I said as the thought occurred. "Why have you never told me that Nick is a vampire?"

"They got Nick, too? Well, where were you guys held at?"

"I don't know...I just woke up there."

"Describe the room to me."

"Well, it's...like a dramatic dungeon. But a spacious one. Five walls." I grimaced. "Nick said all the windows and the doors had this electrocution system. Silver chains. A square ventilation above." I watched Armand's ever shifting expression. "So. Do you know where it is?"