7. - – Mackenzie
CHAPTER SEVEN
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MACKENZIE
“Mac, please? Just come with me. Pick me.” The voice sounds so desperate to my ears that it pulls my blinking eyes to his. I frown at seeing I am outside Killian’s office with voices coming from behind the door.
“I’m meant to have an appointment?” My brows start to burn from hiking them together for so long.
“What?” Elijah looks down at me, then reaches out to stroke down my cheek. “You always pick him over me. Please, just trust me.”
Elijah pulls on my hands again, making me take another step away from the door. His shoulders drop as if me taking a step has just lifted the world from them. He wiggles his eyebrows at me and then winks. “I’m much better looking than he is. Come on.”
He pulls on my hand, forcing me into a fast run.
Both our feet echo down the hallway; I’m trying to follow his steps.
My mind replays the wiggle of his eyebrow and his words.
Have I seen him do that before? I must have done; Elijah has been my friend in this place for months.
Then why does it seem odd to see him look at me like that?
My feet crunch on hard rocks that make my body wobble unsteadily from side to side. Elijah leads me into an abandoned room with graffiti all over the walls. My eyes zone in on a pentagram made of black vines and roses. I step over to it, lift my hand to run over the curve.
“What is this place?” My is a voice, a low whisper that has to push the word out past the lump of fear stuck in my throat.
“It’s an old part of the hospital; it was shut down a few years ago.” Elijah’s voice makes my eyes clamp shut, and my heart rate picks up. My mouth opens, and I speak the next part just as he does.
“I read that there was a gang of inmates who got together to overthrow the doctors and nurses.” I spin to face him. “They say they all died. One doctor went crazy and killed them all,” I finish for him.
Elijah nods. “So you have heard of this place? Do you know they also say it was some fucked up murder-suicide?” His voice has an edge to it that makes an odd feeling tickle on the inside of my mind; it’s like I’m trying to click pieces together, but the screen is black.
Looking around the room again, I shake my head slightly. “Have you brought me here before?”
“Have I?” The way he answers my question with one of his own, and the way his head is tilted to the side, makes nerves twist in my stomach.
My feet move me slowly closer to him. “Elijah? Don’t play games with me. Have you brought me here before?”
His eyes bore into mine, his mouth a tight-lipped line. Seconds turn into what feels like hours when he finally nods his head. “Yes, we have been here every day.”
“Have Been? Because you brought me here before?” I ask, lifting a brow. He says nothing and just stares at me, gray to my brown. “Elijah, don’t lie to me.”
He sighs, then steps closer to me, taking both my cheeks in his hands. “He doesn’t want you to get better; he wants to keep you here all to himself.”
My brows knit together, and I open my mouth to speak, but E.J beats me to it.
“I don’t want you to get better; getting better means saying goodbye.
” His last words sound so broken that I almost forget about my confusion and wonder why he sounds so sad.
Neither he nor I are leaving here anytime soon.
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving you.”
He nods slowly, then lowers his head to whisper in my ear. “I’ve never had a girl like you, one I’ve wanted to be more than friends with, but you want him over me.”
He pulls back, then lifts his finger to my lips. He strokes over my mouth, pushing it to the side from his pressure before letting go.
Stepping back from him, I turn to face the art on the walls again. “I need you, EJ. I will always need you. I just can’t love two like you want me to. Killian won’t share me.”
He won’t; he has made it so plainly clear that he would kill anyone who wants to touch me. “Elijah, I love you.” I spin around fast and frown, seeing that he is gone. I rush forward to the space where he should have been standing and shake my head in disbelief.
“Again?” I say it out loud. My mind isn’t quite believing what I am seeing and feeling right now.
Have I been here before? The whole day?
Footsteps echo in the distance, and I know I’m going to get into trouble if I get caught here. Turning, I rush down the hallway towards the main lounge area, my feet stomping hard on the wooden floor as my breath rushes in and out of my lungs.
My head turns back, seeing nurses chasing after me. I push my steps harder until I crash into something solid. My hand comes up, and I smack it onto the white door, pushing it open into the dayroom.
Chairs are scattered around, the room full of patients waiting for their meds. I walk over to the window chair and slump down, needing to catch my breath.
My eyes flutter closed, needing just to shut the light out for a second.
“Why did you let him touch you like that?” Elijah grumbles next to me.
Every single muscle in my body tightens like a snake wrapping me in its tight coil, intent on killing me. My eyes snap open, and I turn my head to face Elijah, who is staring off into the distance.
Tick tick tick…
My head slowly turns towards the clock on the wall; the second hand is frozen just past twelve pm.
Time is frozen, and something about that seems so familiar to me.
I slowly stand and make my way over to the little hole in the wall where they are giving out our daily meds.
I can hear EJ still talking to me, but his words are muted lower than the pounding in my heart that’s telling me something is wrong.
My body jerks to the side, and I almost lose my footing before I right myself and look down at the giggly Maggie. “Have you seen what we are doing this afternoon?” she asks excitedly as she jumps up and down.
“Didn’t we already do that? The paintballing?”
She frowns, then swats my hand. “No, silly, that’s today.” She bounces to the front of the queue and throws her pills back before skipping off towards the door.
My feet shuffle me towards the window. The nurse hands me a cup of pills and a cup of water. My eyes flick down to the little multicolored meds, and I frown. “I throw up after this?” My words are so soft that I know only I can hear them, but the realization is still all the same.
I’ve done this before.
Tilting the cup back into my mouth, I lodge them under my tongue, then open my mouth wide to show her they are gone. She nods, then lowers her head back to her notes.
Twisting my body away from hers, I make my way toward the bathroom, my feet carrying me on autopilot.
Getting to the bathroom, I freeze when Elijah comes and stands next to me. I tilt my head up to him, my eyes flicking back and forth over his face before I whisper, “What do I do now?”
It’s a question I’m sure he has no idea how to answer; I’m the crazy one who feels like I’m living my own Groundhog Day. He is going to think I’m nuts.
His head tilts to the side just as his fingers reach up and trace along my cheek, not touching me. It’s like a cool breeze on a winter’s night.
He has never touched me like this.
“Swallow them, beautiful.” His voice is so low that I can hardly hear it, and the cool trace of his touch runs from my cheek to chill over my lips. “Swallow.”
His voice is louder this time. My chin lowers once in recognition before I open my throat and gulp the pills down.
Elijah grins sadly, “I will always be with you.”
My head shakes from side to side, not knowing what he is trying to say. My mouth opens to speak, my throat bobbing up and down as I try to push sound out of my mouth. It’s taken from me the moment Elijah fades slowly before my eyes.
“No? EJ?” Tears gather on my lower lids before they spill down my cheeks. My body spins frantically on the spot, trying to find where he has gone, and it’s nothing. Just space. “You said you would never leave me, you promised me.” The words burn in my throat as I scream.
My mouth opens to yell again; it’s hauled as my world shifts hard to the right, and bile gathers in my throat, threatening to spill out.
My arms fly out to the side, grasping for something to hold me steady.
My vision keeps shifting, the colors all blurring into one, like I am on one of those fucking teacup rides.
Taking a step forward, I whimper as my eyes flutter closed.