“Didn’t you just tell me fuck society? Then claim your men, just not mine,” Layne suggested with a shrug like she didn’t put in a quick warning.
I couldn’t argue with her point though. The only one holding me back from taking what I wanted was me. I’ve already reclaimed my body, now I just had to allow myself to live my fucking life. It was hard to let go of all those years of being forced into a tiny box, not allowed to do a single thing properly.
Fuck my past, though, I couldn’t let it ruin my future. And Layne shouldn’t either.
“Go get your man too then,” I challenged. “Or are you afraid of some feelings, Layne? You know just because you pretend they aren’t real, doesn’t make them go away.”
“You’re my friend, not a therapist,” Layne grumbled as she pulled on her clothes. I didn’t bother saying anything else because the last thing we needed was to fight right now. Layne was teetering on the precipice of different emotions, and I didn’t want her sent away for a few days on my account.
By the time I’d gotten dressed and threw our towels in the laundry room, Layne was already out of sight.
The rest of the floor was quiet again when I came out. It was a Thursday just before dinner so it wasn’t all that surprising. Everyone kind of disappeared to recharge after school and sessions that felt redundant and useless. And if it was a hard session, this place was like a ghost town.
“Harlow.” My name being called had me freezing. The voice was low and echoing, like a distant whisper. Glancing around, I expected shadows, a figure, anything. After the ups and downs of my conversation with Layne, it wouldn’t surprise me, but there was nothing there but dingy walls and dusty art, the worn furniture of the common room, and the distant sound of the nurses’ station as Nurse Drew hid in the back room again.
“Who’s there?” I called back, my voice quiet so I didn’t draw attention.
“What’s going on?” The sound of Roman’s voice had me jumping, and I spun around in time to see the elevator close behind him.
“Something’s calling me,” I admitted without thinking. At this point a strange feeling filled my gut, like I was being yanked upward.
“Harlow,” he demanded, and I turned to him to find his gaze focused on me. “There’s nothing here. I don’t hear it.”
“Harlow.”Again the drawn-out call happened, and my feet were moving before I could stop them. Roman slid into the elevator beside me and raised his eyebrows when I hit the sixth floor. I had a feeling sneaking around wouldn’t be as easy, and I frantically tried to think of something, ignoring the random questions from Roman as I did.
The moment the elevator opened, I started to step off but was yanked back. I looked toward Roman’s face but I wasn’t focused on him, the need to get to the roof was so strong now that I couldn’t think of anything else.
In the back of my mind, I knew something wasn’t right, that this wasn’t normal, but I couldn’t do anything to stop it.
“You can’t be up here,” a nurse said as she rushed forward, pulling a phone from her pocket.
“Nurse Drew asked me to come up and ask if you wanted to place a coffee order. She’s getting ready to go on break and needs a coffee,” I said without skipping a beat. How the fuck I pulled that out of nowhere without a reason I’d never know, but it worked.
“Oh my goodness, she’s too sweet. Can you tell her to grab me a mocha latte? Susie is down the hall in room seven, go ahead and grab hers too, I have a patient to deal with down the hall.” She ran off and disappeared in a room, and I snuck down the hall in the direction of the staircase.
“You know they’ll be angry at you for this,” Roman warned. “I can’t save you from punishment.”
“I don’t need saving, Roman. Go back to our floor, I don’t need help,” I said. Internally, I knew that was a cruel thing to say to a protector like Roman, but it was as if my body was functioning on autopilot. As if I were merely a puppet and someone else was pulling my strings.Kind of like when I went to the roof that first time.
Roman didn’t follow me farther, he retreated to the elevator, and I couldn’t blame him. He had Hiro to protect first and foremost, and he couldn’t exactly do that in trouble. He’d be putting them right in Vane’s office.
There were no interruptions as I made my way through the floor, up the stairwell, and pushed open the roof door. It would have been easier if the other floors had access to the fire escape, but I guess they couldn’t monitor us here like they could the elevator. Not to mention free roaming patients did not need access to the roof in general. That was a liability waiting to happen.
Vane thought his threats were enough to keep me from breaking the rules again. Even the threat of solitary couldn’t cut through the trance though.
The moment I was outside, the door slammed behind me. The feeling was gone now, and I panicked, trying to pull it open to no avail.
“It won’t work until I allow it.” The woman’s voice had the same familiarity I’d felt at the sight of Helheim, and I knew that I was finally hearing the voice of the woman I saw in the garden. Her tone was strong, yet feminine. It demanded my attention effortlessly.
“Hel?” I questioned as I turned around to face her. She was hauntingly beautiful. And terrifying. Half of her face was a skeleton, blue runes etched into the bone itself as fire burned within the empty spaces, much like Monty and the other demons. The other half of her face was pretty. She had model-like looks and her pale face was accented in the same blue as the demon’s fire and the brief flashes of her realm I’d seen. As far as aesthetics went, she was killing it. The dress she wore flowed around her, made of white and silver fabric that billowed as she walked forward.
“Yes, Harlow,” she answered with a smile that might have been kind on anyone else but the skeletal face shifting made it downright unnerving. “I think we have some things to discuss.”
“Like why I was drawn up here?” I started but she cut me off with a dismissive wave of her hand.
“That was me. How much do you know?” It was frustrating that she was so quick to talk over me, but I had a feeling Hel wasn’t someone I wanted to piss off so I answered.
“That I’m crazy? That demons are real and you’re allowing them to feed here on these patients?” As I said the last part my anger flared and manifested in my tone.