“She’s hurt,” I verbally observed.
Not only was she hurt, but something prohibited her from lifting the window more than a few inches. I could almost taste her fear and frustration as she crouched down and started yelling out at us.
“He’s trying to kill me! Please help!” her voice was raw and hysterical, carrying up and down the street.
“We gotta do something!” Dion boldly exclaimed.
Before he could take any more than two steps, I was grabbing his shirt to pull him back.
“Excuse me, we don’t have to do a damn thing. She could be faking it.”
“Huh?” he looked down at me as if I were insane. “Does it sound like she’s faking it?”
“A little bit.”
It didn’t. I just wasn’t going out of my way to save her. She’d be dead when I got there and all those wasted minutes could have gone towards getting back the girls. Since Dion may have been useful later, I couldn’t let him throw on a cape to go be a hero either.
“Lana. We can’t let her die.”
I ignored that and began walking again, dragging him along with me. “That’s exactly what we’re going to do because we don’t have time for this. Do you see how high up she is?”
When he didn’t reply right away, I took the initiative to keep speaking.
“Whoever is trying to get in that room she’s in will have done so long before we could.”
That may have been harsh, but I didn’t have a morsel of patience left to fake empathy or understanding for a whole new batch of strangers. The woman’s screams ceased seconds after my logical explanation, proving my point. I released my hold on Dion’s shirt, happy when he continued to walk alongside me.
“How’d you know that would happen?” he asked quietly.
“I told you, I’ve been through this before.”
“You really know this place then,” he said after a minute, a noticeable tremor in his tone.
“I don’t know anything. I just want to find who I’m looking for and get us all out of here alive.”
A small part of me wished I could give him more of an answer than that. But what would I even say? I had no idea what the point of all this was or why my family was involved. That woman being here made me even more confused. Who was she and how long had she been trapped in this city?
Spotting the street sign for where we needed to cross, I slowed down and tapped Dion’s arm. He nodded he understood, and we continued wordlessly, reaching the school almost as soon as we turned the corner.
It sat at the very end of the road and looked exactly like the kind of building anyone with common sense and who valued their safety wouldn’t enter.
Not only was it huge, but majority of the windows were covered entirely with what looked like black paint.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” Dion asked.
“There’s a big sign on the lawn that says Abyss High.”
“Yeah. I guess I missed that before.” He let out a nervous laugh, adding under his breath, “All we have to do is stay alive.”
I silently weighed the pros and cons of divulging that was not all we’d have to do, ultimately deciding that wouldn’t be beneficial for either of our mental states.
I didn’t know him well enough. I mean, I didn’t know him at all. He was already shaken from the few things that’d happened up until now. I wasn’t going to risk pushing him over the edge. I couldn’t deal with something like that on top of everything else.
I had my own lengthy list of issues to deal with. Bellicose demons were clawing at my chest and creating havoc inside my head.
I wouldn’t be any good to either of us if I let them have the control they’d been coveting since this all began. The best thing I could do for our wellbeing was keep myself in check and focus on the hazy path ahead.
“Hey.” I nudged him gently. “It’s not in my plans to die tonight. I’m sure I can manage to keep you alive too, but don’t quote me on that.”
He cast a skeptical eye my way, probably trying to determine if I were telling the truth or not.
“Come on.” I slipped my hands into the back pockets of my shorts and started up the first set of stairs.
“For what it’s worth, I got your back too. I know we don’t know each other but I would rather have you with me than be by myself.”
Would he still say that if he knew who I was? Or was he saying that to try and break down one of my stone-barred walls?
I forced a small smile and went to the left. There were three sets of double doors on the front of the building. I took my time walking by each one of them, peering inside. I didn’t see anything or anyone, so I chose the pair directly in the center.