by Neha Yazmin
Chapter 20: Possessed
No one at The System knows where I am right now. Mac and Lydia are under the impression that I’m in the US, lending an invisible hand in cleaning up after a messy mission. If in the unlikely event that either of them enquires about me, they won’t be surprised to learn that the US HQ hasn’t seen me – they’re not supposed to.
As for Darryl, Lydia thinks he’s tracking Kristy, that the unattainable vampire has led him all the way to Australia. Actually, he is in Sydney, and I am shielding him from Lydia’s foresight, but I told our top agent to have a little holiday so I could come after Kristy instead.
Now though, Kristy is the last thing on my mind. Ellie, and how to unite her with the man she loves, is the new mission I have assigned myself. A mission that will be much simpler and easier than the one I have abandoned for the time being. Once I pinpoint Ellie’s whereabouts, learn the identity of the individual she loves, I will get to him as soon as I can. Then, it’s just a case of using my biggest strength – my invisibility cloak, as Ellie called it – to abduct, bite, and create a vampire out of him. Simple.
Just as I run through these plans for the hundredth time and decide that I should allow myself to finally seek Ellie out through our connection, a strange crippling feeling knocks the breath out of me. I swear, if I wasn’t sitting down, I would have fallen again.
This time not from pleasant loving feelings, but from sheer dread.
Such acute fear, I choke on it.
Of course, it’s not my own fear. I am not afraid. But Ellie is. She is absolutely terrified.
And that horrifies me too.
I don’t need to close my eyes, think of her, concentrate on locating her, focus on seeing the world through her eyes. I don’t need to find her. She finds me.
She becomes me and I become her.
I see and hear and think and feel everything she is seeing and hearing and thinking and feeling at this precise moment. Unknowingly projecting all of her on to me, Ellie momentarily possesses me, simply because she is experiencing something so intense and overwhelming that it spreads through our bond.
Mentally and spiritually transported to where she is, I try to hold onto myself but I can’t.
I’m gone.
Somehow I am still sitting. I’m the only one sitting. The entire train is on its feet, slowly and determinedly converging towards us.
Towards me.
“Its okay, Ellie,” Aiden says to me. “Kim, Amber, and you, will be no match for them. Amber can knock them all out in one go.” He turns eagerly to his sister. “What are you waiting for?”
“You think I haven’t been trying to send them flying backwards ever since I saw Marcus make the decision?” she retorts angrily. “It’s not working! They’re all wearing protection charms – my protection charms – as well as taking power boosters. Kim won’t be able to defeat them by herself. And Ellie…” She looks down at me despairingly.
I know she can’t read my mind or see my future, but she obviously saw something that told her that I wasn’t going to fight these innocent people. Yes, they are innocent. Soldiers following commands from high above.
They’re not evil.
I can’t kill them. Because to fight them, even to defend myself, is to kill them. One punch, one kick, perhaps even a slap to their faces, will crush their bones.
I wasn’t born to harm innocents, but to protect them.
This instinct is so strong that I cower backwards across the seat, in fear of hurting people I shouldn’t, until I hit the window behind me. This is the last thing I should be doing.
I know what I ought to be doing, but to do that I need the train to stop. A few more minutes…
“It’s going to be alright, honey,” mum finally says to me. “I won’t let them touch you.”
She takes one long stride and positions herself between me and what’s coming. She doesn’t take out any of the weaponry she brought with her, which makes me think that she really doesn’t want to kill these council members either.
Amber and Aiden go and flank her as the ambush approaches. My hands reach towards Aiden, wanting to pull him to me. Hold him within my arms, shield him with my body. Can he fight? He has no supernatural abilities so he shouldn’t be involved in this.
“Aiden,” I hiss, getting to my feet.
His head turns to me immediately but quickly looks away.
“Come and stand behind me,” I urge him desperately. “I’ll protect you.” I want to put myself between him and anything that wants to harm him.
His reply is just the movement of his lips but I can hear it clearly. “The three of us can handle them.”
“But these aren’t the only ones,” I argue. “There’s more.”
They’re waiting for me.
I need to get off this train! Then I have to run. Not as fast as I can, but as slow as I can. At human speed, if I can manage it. I’ll have to manage it! I can’t afford to be invisible. The soldiers have to see me. See me so that they can follow me. Chase me and leave behind my mother, my new friend and would-have-been-protector Amber and my… my Aiden.
Aiden.
Just thinking about leaving him here unprotected sends a shiver down my frame. But I can’t protect him by being here. I can only do that by leaving him.
Leaving him so soon after finding him.
Only by letting The Council’s fighters think that they can catch me, do I stand any chance of luring them away from Aiden, his sister, and my mum. I’m certain that every single one of those brave warriors on the train, and the ones waiting for me on the platforms in London, will come after me. Even if they wonder why I’m not running at the speeds I can achieve, they’ll know better than to think that killing me will be as easy as catching me.
Of course I won’t let them catch me, but half of me thinks that I should let them. At the end of the day, I am a creature that shouldn’t exist. If I were to die, it would save everyone I love.
Surely, The Council has no enmity with mum or Amber or Aiden, and once I’m gone, everything can go back to how it was. It would be as though I’d never come back home. As though I died the night Christian made me.
I should have died the night Christian made me.
Should I die today?
“No,” says a voice in my head but I say, “Yes” in return. “No,” repeats that strange voice which must surely be my survival instinct, because it’s definitely not me.
Those assassins are nearly within a yard of the front put up by the three people intent on protecting me. I don’t think my bodyguards stand a chance against this army. All three of them might die, and if The Council ordered their fighters not to kill any Council members, then mum, Aiden and Amber will still get hurt in shielding me.
What if I stop the fight from ensuing in the first place? What if I just did The Council (and The System) a favour by ripping my own head off?
I’m pretty sure I can manage it. While my loved ones freeze in shock and pain, the soldiers will come at my beheaded body like a swarm of bees attacking a honey spill and chop me into smithereens.
Then they’ll set fire to the train, burning me to ashes so I can’t put myself together again. Of course, they’ll save themselves from the flames, taking mum, Aiden and Amber with them, and that will be that.
The end of me.
“No!” cries a voice in my head and I get the strangest feeling that it’s a man’s voice…
It can’t be. I’m just anxious about my suicide, that’s all.
It’s not been a second since I thought about how close the army had come to my friends and family. Thanks to our brains being able to work so fast, I have managed to plan my next – and final – step before all the humans took a breath.
I take one last, long intake of breath myself and silently say goodbye to everyone.
Jake. Heather. Mum. Amber.
Aiden.
And even Christian.
As I prepare to cut myself
off from the world, from the people who care about me, I hope they forgive me for this.
I hope they understand. I’m doing this for them.