heartbeat // zayn malik AU

chapter eighteen

"This is going to break me clean in two.

This is going to bring me close to you."

- The Fray [She Is]

Everything was dark.

Not really dark like night, or even dark like a room without light. It was pitch-black, completely devoid of color.

Soulless.

Just like Kordin's eyes.

It took me a moment, then, to realize I was staring into Kordin's eyes. The demon materialized before me as if spun out of thin air, hissing low in his throat. A gaping wound still hung in his chest, where Cyphus had stabbed him, but he was very much alive.

And he was advancing towards me. Steadily, menacingly, slowly.

Feeling my breath catch in my throat, I stumbled backwards. Where was my barzilai sword?

"You're going to pay, Valarie." Tasha's voice suddenly cut through the still air, and seconds later, my blonde sister emerged from the shadows, standing alongside Kordin and Klaus--who had also made an entrance. "We had big plans... you could've been a part of them... but you chose against it, and now you're going to die!"

I screamed at her words, a mangled scream that was cut off as Kordin attacked me. I could feel his hot, poisonous teeth tearing into my flesh, breath wet and unforgiving on my unprotected skin. The air stank of that all-too-familiar rank scent, the scent of the killer plague. 

There was only this; pain and sickness and the cruel laughter of my sister and brother, and there was no one else to hear me screaming.

This was it. I was going to die, and-

"Valarie!" 

The voice shattered the realm of my dream so quickly that I hardly realized I'd awoken. Sweat had soaked my clothes, causing them to cling to my skinny body like a wetsuit. I gazed about myself wide-eyed, taking a moment to realize I was in Zayn's hospital room, in his cot, once again. That was odd. Who had brought me here?

Outside, the sky was a sea of navy blue; moonbeams of ardent silver sliced through the window, lighting on a shadowy form sitting beside me, the same person who'd yelled at me to wake me up from my grippingly vivid nightmare.

"Oh Zayn, I just had the worst nightmare ever-" I broke off, falling into his arms almost helplessly, giant gasps for air rattling my body. I wasn't exactly crying; in fact, I had no idea what the hell I was doing, in my panicked state.

He held me close, and would've held me for longer, had I not pulled away, becoming suddenly aware of what a sweaty, utter mess I was. "H-how did I get up to your room?" I asked breathlessly, my voice equivalent to that of a frog's, in all its croaky dryness.

Flushing, Zayn murmured, "You kinda fell asleep at the table in the cafe, so I carried you up here."

Blinking, I said, "Where are the others? Louis and Renee and Cyphus and Astral?"

"Renee's working the nighttime nursing shift, so they decided to help her--though they're probably just fooling around, to be honest. The hospital needs extra helpers to deal with all the plague patients. And I'd help but..." He gestured regretfully to his bandaged state, and I bit down hard on my lower lip as I remembered my dream about Kordin, and just how vicious the demon could be.

Eyeing the bandages on Zayn's wings and arms, their frayed edges stained red with blood, I muttered, "Shouldn't those have been changed?"

He winced. "Yeah, but all the nurses are busy with the sick angels, so..."