Colourless Skies

42. Wake Me Up

Orion scrambled away from Alex, seeing how aggravated the latter was was. He looked around haphazardly, and then the open door came into his peripheral. Seeing his chance of escape was only inches away, he took it and sprinted for his life.

But that one chance would become the mistake that led to his doom; for from behind him, seeing him trying to weasel his way out of the situation, Alex was provoked. He angrily yelled "Radaycia!" channeling his power onto Orion, who stumbled down and burst into fits of screams and gargled yells of agony.

As he writhed in pain, Alex spared him a fiery glance, his shining gold eyes burning madly. He wanted to hurt Orion more, Alex wanted to skin him alive and break every bone in his body to make him pay. But he knew someone much more important needed his attention, and he didn't waste a single second, even if it went towards beating up this lowlife. So he held his breath and walked out of the room, his footsteps drowned by the howls in his wake.

Few minutes that felt like suffocating hours passed, before Jay looked up at Alex, his eyes depicting worry. Alex knew whatever he was about to say wasn't good news.

"She's not gonna wake up."

Jay looked away and thought hard for a second, before his eyes shone with realisation.

"Not unless..." He didn't finish, because Alex was already gone.

Gone to pay someone very deserving of it, a visit.

Blood trickled from Alex's forehead, staining his hair and dripping onto the left side of his face. Numerous more wounds bloomed at various places on his body as he fought Sebastian's henchmen one by one, owing to the fact that it did not matter to him that he was hurt, but getting to the man behind all this horror as he fast as he could, did.

"Never thought I would be seeing you again after what happened last time, but it seems like you don't learn, do you?"

Alex mocked as he walked closer, and the addressed boy almost shook in fear. Almost.

"Oh come on Alex, is this a way to greet me after what you did last time?"

"You're right."

"I should have gone straight for ripping out your throat."

Sebastian cackled. 

"We both know you won't hurt me. You simply lack the nerve."

"That was before you went this far."

"After we're done here, you're going to wish you lacked the nerve, of kidnapping her and hurting her."

He wiped the blood trailing from his lips, bared his fangs, and sprinted towards Sebastian, seething with revenge.

It was dark outside when Leah awoke and sat up, looking straight at the window in front of her, coughing blood into her hand, battered and bruised from head to toe. She considered herself lucky when she looked around a bit more, and was welcomed by the magenta coloured walls and furniture, having finally broken free from that horrible, horrible basement.

When she finally reconciled with her senses, she realised she was in the same bloody state she last remembered herself in; her wrist, which was still caked with blood beyond view, was stinging, her head pounding, her throat so sore and dry it hurt to swallow, and her clothes dirtied.

The bedroom door at her right opened, and two very familiar, somehow comforting faces walked in. While Jay smiled at her and breathed a sigh of relief at seeing her awake, Alex observed her quietly, his face pulled into a mediocre expression, both of them leaning on each of the bed poles in her line of sight.

The room was silent. No one said anything, and for some reason neither of them seemed to mind it, although it did direct Leah's attention towards the boys' physical condition; their clothes were filthy too, as if they had wrestled on a begrimed floor. Since Jay's sleeves were rolled up, she could see bluish red spots flickering here and there on his skin. Bruises. While his face looked fine and apparently unharmed, Alex's position was quite the opposite.

Thick trickles of blood left their marks from his forehead to his cheek, while a huge cut adorned  his lip. She couldn't see his fangs but the skin around his mouth was a faint red, so she knew they had been used. His clothes were in a worse condition than both Jay's and Leah's combined, his shirt looked as if he stretched so much as a muscle, it would rip.  Dried blood painted the wounds that were almost everywhere on his body.

Alex caught her staring and she looked away.

Before the silence could get stuffy, Jay broke it. 

"God, I am so glad to see you up. We have been waiting for hours."  He shot a pitiful smile at her, but she didn't quite know why.

She gazed at her shirt as she tried to remember what had happened, what had gone wrong this time. But all she could reminisce was a cold, wide room, a jagged knife shining in dim lights, and the awful sound of skin slicing.

She shook her head hard, and looked up to find Alex peering away, either thinking or trying not to think, and Jay fiddling with his hands. Both of them were avoiding her gaze. Something was very wrong.

"W-what... what happened?"

Her words came out brittle and hoarse, worse than she had expected. While Alex quickly took the chance to busy himself with getting her some water, Jay looked at her meekly and heaved a long sigh. He was stressed. Leah had always seen him anything but.

"You don't remember what anything before you...blacked out?"

Her 'no' came as a whisper, and she was thankful when Alex handed her the glass.

She gulped the water down hungrily, not daring to look up at any of them, fearing for the worst. Alex still, was avoiding catching her eye, and thus, Jay knew he had no chance but to answer Leah's inquiry.

"After... after Sebastian drained your blood into his vials...", he trailed off, glimpsing at Alex who was looking towards the door they had walked in from, his eyes glowing red. He wanted to leave, he didn't want any part of this conversation knowing he might not be able to control his emotions and stop them from causing harm.

"You fell unconscious, and then Orion... he..." 

Whatever it was, it became obvious Jay couldn't bring himself to say it. The room was dead silent for a good minute, the atmosphere thickened with tension. No one wanted to confront it but all of them it needed to be.

It frightened Leah, it made want to yell at Jay even though it was nowhere near his fault. It was her, who was sickened with anxiety.

"Say it."

"Please." 

His next expression delineated a worried face of an old man, as if years of untreated grief and never ending problems have piled up and sucked the life right out of him.

"He... he tried to rape you."