Chapter 41 The Disciple of Silver
Sapphire
I wake to Niklaus stroking my hair. The tickling sensation feels so nice, I smile and hum as chills sprinkle across my upper back.
It’s hard to tell if he’s fiddling with my hair in his sleep or not.
His fingers are precise and tender as they’re utterly careful not to comb through the tangles and hurt me.
A feathery light touch that sends my mind drifting in and out of euphoric sleep.
I pay close attention to the soothing rhythm of his breath. His heartbeat that thuds against my cheek. The permeating heat of his skin that forms a protective cocoon around me.
It could be the middle of the night or early morning. There would be no way to tell without windows. But I feel well-rested. Or at least, as well rested as I can be on the asylum floor, in shackles, starved, and suffering the aftereffects of extensive electroconvulsive therapy.
“I don’t want to wake up,” I whisper, unwilling to open my eyes and possibly remember what happened last night.
Another memory gap. It’s there somewhere under the surface of my scattered, worn-down thoughts.
But just out of reach. Like a dream that begins to slip away from recognition after you finally wake up.
“I know,” Niklaus responds in a hoarse morning voice. “We can stay asleep.”
But he isn’t fooling me. I can sense his lingering discomfort from this position.
We’re lying on the cold hard floor. Our backs are stiff and aching.
Necks rigid. Muscles taut. I thought the mattress in my room was uncomfortable, but its firm build is nothing compared to this.
Though he won’t admit that he’s in agony, will he?
“I don’t remember why we’re in here,” I admit, small and wounded.
“Not remembering is probably for the best.”
Niklaus flexes and adjusts his arm underneath me. I realize it’s most likely numb, so I roll onto my side, snagging his left hand and tugging it with me so he’ll roll too.
“What’re you doing?” he asks.
“Readjusting so your arm can wake back up.”
“Oh.”
Niklaus is hesitant with where to place his other arm. He hovers it over my side, studying my shape and wondering where he belongs against me. I don’t guide him or offer an appropriate placement. I wait.
After a moment, he hooks his arm around my waist, sliding his hand up my stomach between my breasts, and over my chest to pull me tighter to his body.
The act is too intimate to be normal for either of us.
It buzzes down to my toes as he buries his face into my hair and takes a long, dramatic breath.
The fluttering sensation reels through my fingertips. His nose nuzzling in the back of my neck dissembles me.
I may have forgotten small moments in here, but I remember who Niklaus is to me. I remember the horrors I’ve endured at his hands growing up. So, I must be deeply fucked in the head to be shamelessly experiencing these intense feelings from his touch.
“We’re delirious, I think,” I mutter, closing my eyes as the feverish bliss of being held takes hold of me.
“Why do you say that?”
“I—because.” What was the question?
“Mmm-hmm?” He holds me closer.
“Because—I want to keep feeling this…”
Niklaus breathes against my hair, slow deliberate breaths. He thinks about this for a long moment. It’s seconds longer than I anticipate, making me think I’ve broken the spell for him.
“It’s all I’ve been thinking about,” he finally admits.
My heart stops. I can’t even take a breath.
And the door opens, disarming us of this moment, breaking my train of thought and probably losing it forever.
As the orderlies collect us to return us back to our rooms, I think about how I should be relieved.
Niklaus is the last person in the whole world I’d ever want to be forced into this ominous situation with. Cuddling? Traumatized? No.
But as they pull me away from him, gripping my elbows and forcing me upright like a used-up marionette, Niklaus snaps forward, restrained, the muscles in his jawline pulled tight, and a look of desperation and panic written in cursive across his face.
I’m used to that expression of boredom and annoyance toward me.
This…this isn’t that.
It’s a glimpse of protectiveness.
And he’s never looked at me like this before.
The storm in him stirs as their hands bruise my elbows, and I’m dragged away from him like a prisoner being paraded and stoned in the streets. It’s the edge of possessiveness that I’m unsure if I’m seeing right. Like these orderlies are touching something that is his.
In the hallway, steps away from my room—I can tell it’s too early for the Intricate Section to be bustling with busy conformists and crying patients. The sun is probably just noticing the sky as it peeks over the horizon, and yet there he is.
At the end of the hall, a man I recognize immediately.
Light strands of silver on the sides of his slicked jet-black hair. A cleft chin. Five o’clock shadow. A tweed three-piece suit.
The man studies a patient file vigorously, flipping through papers and biting his lip in unshakable concentration.
My orderly fidgets with my clipboard as he takes his time unlocking my door.
My vision is blotchy with sleep and the blur of my neuropathways being distorted, yet I know him. Maybe I haven’t had as many interactions with him like Niklaus in the future…but I know him. And I know he knows me.
From what I was told, he was a savant of the Crimson Kres Colony—studying the words and stories of the prophecy like a vital piece of scripture.
He’s Aunt Marilynn’s brother and knows just as much as she does.
Could that mean he will know that Niklaus and I are time travelers?
Does he know and is unwilling to help us?
“Let’s go,” my orderlies commands, heaving my arm like a dog on a leash.
The man’s head snaps up, and our eyes collide.
“Judas!” I cry out, pulling forward to reach him. “Judas! Do you know who I am?”
Judas’s gaze flips back and forth between my different colored eyes—he raises his eyebrows and drops the stack of papers he was holding. And the recognition is there almost instantly. But that spark of acknowledgment quickly morphs into a look of horror.
“You know me!” I gasp, breathing hysterically, as I pull harder from my orderly, using every bit of strength I can summon without fainting. “Please, Judas! You have to help us!”
But something terribly strange takes place. Something shocking and unforgivable.
Judas quickly shakes his head at me. He kneels to gather the patient file he dropped and tries not to make eye contact.
“No,” I mutter, confused, betrayed, astonished.
Is he…running from me?
“Look what they’re doing to me!” I yell at him, whimpering as my orderly snatches a handful of hair, cutting into my scalp with his overgrown nails. “LOOK AT ME!”
Judas glares up at me from his kneeling position on the floor. And I can’t quite tell if his eyes are watering or if it’s a trick of the light.
“How…” My voice cracks. “How could you let them do this to women? Would you care if it was your sister?”
Marilynn, I whisper to him with my eyes. If you’re doubting yourself for even a second, just know that I know your family. Something I’m sure you’re used to going undetected.
“Would you care if it was your mother? Your daughter? Your wife?” Blood rushes to my head like a catastrophic dustbowl.
And I have to suck in a deep breath to keep going.
“Look at me, Judas! They’re starving me!
They’re strapping me down and are forcing seizures!
How much do they pay you to look away? How much will they pay you to look away from our children after us? Our grandchildren?”
Arms around my brittle ribs. A hand attempting to cover my mouth. But I scream. I give it everything I have because he’s walking away. Judas is leaving. He’s leaving me here!
“Goddamn it, please, please don’t leave us here!
Judas! Please, God! You know me. I’m someone’s daughter.
” I buck and thrash, but he keeps walking, and they’re dragging me away, back into my room.
“Every time you look at one of those patient files, every time you witness these treatments—you are just as guilty as the hands that have held me down since I got here!”
Just as I give into my orderly and another that arrived from the screaming, I hear someone snapping their fingers.
And just as I look up through my hysterical sobbing, Judas steps into my room’s doorway.
He holds a hand up to the men restraining me, and takes three steps over to me, leaning over to my cheek and whispers in my ear.
“Your mother is here,” he says, far too quietly for an orderly to hear. “I’m so sorry. But it won’t be long now.”