Fighting the Losing Battle

Chapter 15 - Do Your Duty

Another update! Two in one night! I'm surprising myself!

As always, any comments are hugely appreciated!

Enjoy! x

Kira POV

Time seems different here. Warped, somehow. It confuses me. Days and nights blur into one. There are periods when the minutes seem to drag, and then others when I barely notice the hours racing by. I drift in and out of a dreamlike state, often dazed. There hasn't been another vision since the dark room. My food is delivered at intervals, although I rarely see the deliverer. Occasionally, in a state of part-consciousness, I feel his presence, briefly, or catch a glimpse of those dark eyes, wary and guarded and controlled, before he quickly retreats. Ever since that day when we locked gazes, he has been distant, has offered no sign of recognition or emotion. If he feels anything for me, it can surely only be contempt, like all the others. He gives nothing away.

This should make it easier for me, but somehow it doesn't. Somehow, despite everything I've repeatedly told myself, it only makes me more determined to believe that he is different. Despite every logical thought, I can't shake him. He remains in my subconscious, lurking like a plague, tormenting me with impossible futures, with 'what if's and 'maybe's.

My heart can't accept what my brain tells me to be true.

Stupid, really. I'll only end up hurting myself.

It's inevitable.

*

I fall into a strange, twisted routine. I sleep, I eat, I stare at the door, then feel guilty. I try to think of escape plans, I fail. I wait for a vision. I keep waiting. And waiting. I sleep, I eat....

It's been days since I last saw him properly, consciously. It's hard to tell what's dream and what's reality, but I remember every second of his eyes on mine. No matter how ashamed I feel of my automatic reactions to him, my mind still travels back to replay that moment on a loop, like a broken record.

I can't seem to distance myself.

Not that he can ever be allowed to know that. It's one thing to feel this way. It's an entirely different thing for me to feel this way and for him to know it. I will never willingly give them a hold over me. They mustn't know my weaknesses. At any cost.

*

And then one day, something changes.

I awaken, and my tray isn't sat by the door, as it usually is. This makes me wary. Have they decided to stop feeding me? That can't be a good sign...

If they have decided to starve me, I'll stand even less of a chance of escaping than I do now. I'll quickly lose my strength – they've hardly been feeding me enough as it is – and I'll be unable to fight even one of them off. I'll be doomed to a brief life of imprisonment, and a prolonged painful death-by-starvation, or a sudden painful death-by-bullet, should I attempt to escape. Either way it's death...

Before I can ponder on it too much, however, the drowsiness takes over, and I fall asleep once more.

*

Lukas POV

Over the past few days, I've been good. I've followed my rules. I've barely been into the tower room, only to deliver her meals. There have been no messages to give her, so I have managed to avoid speaking. Straight in, and straight out. No complications.

That isn't to say it's getting any easier. I can barely look at her. But I'll have to eventually, if I am to complete Adrian's task. I'll have to get close to her one day.