9. - – Mackenzie
CHAPTER NINE
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MACKENZIE
Tingles run along my fingers, prickling me as if I’ve just touched a spiky Catus.
My fingers curl into my palm, trying to get the feeling back into them.
I’ve kept my eyes closed, fearing that if I open them, the smell that has been my total comfort will leave me again, and I’m not ready for that. Even if he did fucking lie to me.
“Are you dead?” I whisper, praying to my soul that he answers me. My breath halts in my chest, the pressure building as hope slowly dies the longer I wait.
“Yes.” His deep voice releases my lungs like he is the dam that’s keeping the storm at bay.
I suck in a huge breath, filling my lungs with him. “Why did you lie to me? Why didn’t you tell me?
Chills breathe against my arms; my skin erupts with tight little bumps. “Because you wouldn’t believe me. The drugs he gave you kept you here; I was only living in your imagination,” Elijah says, making my head whip to where I can hear his voice.
“What? You took me to that room, you told me that story about the people hanging themselves, you…” my voice trails off when what I am saying starts to play in my head, the symbols of the wall, the letter E in the center.
“It was you.” My eyes slowly peel open, but the bright white of the room makes me squint away from it.
“Yes, you saw that sign every day, and you still let me in.”
My vision settles; I turn to find Elijah sitting in the chair in the corner, his leg outstretched and his face looking bored.
Just like the day we first met.
“How long?” My voice shakes with fear that Killian has been drugging me longer than I know.
“Since you came back from his office, when he carved the letter “I” into your thigh.” His voice is deeper, laced with a level of anger that I don't recognise. My soft Elijah sounds pissed.
“I’m confused. I’ve been out of this room, ran down the halls with you.” My wide eyes track his movements; his steps are slow, careful as he makes his way over to me.
My eyes run from his head to toe; he never looks like a ghost. I expected them to be see-through, or still bloody from the wounds they had when alive, just like on TV. Elijah looks alive.
“This can’t be true, this can’t be happening.” My voice is clouded in disbelief, and my head shakes lightly from side to side.
“Mackenzie, I need you to listen to me.” Ice cold freezes along my cheek like I’ve been touched by an icicle. Blinking my eyes open, Elijah is looking down at me with so much love and care in his eyes that I can feel my heart shatter in my chest.
I love him; I need him. Something about the way he is looking at me sets fear ablaze in my soul.
“Killian will not stop. I’ve seen him ruin other girls like this. I don’t want that for you, beautiful. I don’t want you to stay here any longer.”
He is speaking, but none of what he is saying makes any sense. I know what I’ve felt with Killian, and it’s not this; he wants me. I’m different.
“He is not what you think. He is a liar and a snake, Mac, please listen to me,” he implores. My eyes lock with his, and what I feel in my heart, in my darkened soul, has me slowly nodding my head.
“I will take them.” Wetness slides down my cheeks, followed by more. Tears escape from my eyes when the realization hits me. “If I take my pills, I’m never going to see you again, am I?” The question burst from my lips with tears streaming harder down my cheeks.
Elijah’s mouth pulls up softly at the corners before he lowers and places his lips softly to mine.
“I will be with you always, I promise you that.” His lips are on mine again, his kiss cold.
Not from a lack of feeling and heart. Elijah’s touch is dead.
Something I shouldn’t be able to feel, but I can.
Deep in my soul. “Think of me always, beautiful.”
He pulls back and smirks down at me as he lifts his finger to my lips. He pushes my pills between them, and I nod my head, sobbing because my only friend in the whole place is about to be gone, and there is nothing I can do about it.
Letting a man like Killian get to me is something I promised I would never do the last time I slit my wrists. He has lied to me, and I believed him.
Sobbing, my head bobs up and down just as I push the pills to the back of my throat and swallow them down.
“Good girl, beautiful.” Elijah captures my mouth again. The kiss is so light that it makes my eyes flutter closed, wishing that it won’t end.
Warmth stings along my lips as they open, and a wail of defeat is ripped from my lips. My eyes snap open, and I am alone.
Elijah is gone.
My body shakes as my devastation racks through me like an earthquake set on ripping the entire world apart. My world.
Tears continue through the night, knowing that for the first time, I need to get better for him.
For my best friend.
For the man I wish I could have loved more.