Chapter 5

Chapter 5

My brain feels fuzzy.  I really don’t like the shot they gave me this morning.  It feels like everything around me is muted.   I am Dorothy before she enters Oz: black and white and a little out of focus.  Not just my ability to conjure the elements is affected, but my entire thought processes feels sluggish and dampened.  I am impaired.  Professor Anders says that will go away with time.  How much time is she talking?  I don’t want to think how long I will be kept severed from my element.  I feel like I am missing a limb not being able to reach out for it.  The feeling is more torturous than anything Professor Anders or Chancellor Maynard can do. 

“You alright?” a voice to my left asks. 

I turn and am surprised to see Sam standing there.  Sam…the boy I had just tried to kill.   He is my guard?  Isn’t there some sort of law that prevents situations like this?  It has to be a conflict of interest.  I step back, away from him.  I’m not going to escape anywhere if Sam decides to take revenge on me for what happened. I attacked him.  He can’t possibly be cool with that.

“Wait!  It’s okay,” he says, reaching out and grabbing my bare arm.  In a flash, I feel him calmness.  It is light, almost like I am remembering it and not actually feeling it.  He wants me to be calm.  He isn’t going to hurt me.  That is about all I get from our connection.

“Wow, you’re really drugged up.  I can hardly feel you.  I don’t…I don’t think I like that.”

“How can I feel you?” I ask groggily, pulling away.  This connection is a mystery that scares me almost as much as my current predicament.  “I still don’t understand.”    

“I asked Professor Anders, she said she would look into it, but had never heard of anything like what we have.  Now we wait and see what she finds.”

I don’t like Anders knowing this about me.  My own mother doesn’t know I can flash on someone’s feelings and emotions by touching them.  Well, not someone’s…just Sam’s.

“Come on, let’s get you to your dorm.”

“I’m going back to my dorm?”

“You’re getting some things to bring back to the infirmary.  For now you will be allowed to go to class, but at night you are to return here.  My classes have been switched around.  We share everything but our elemental training.  You won’t be going to your elemental training for the time being.  I’ll drop you off at the infirmary then.”

“You should have just killed me, fire user.  It would have been better than this,” I whisper, stepping away from him so he won’t try and grab me again.  The feeling is strangely addictive and I don’t like that. 

“You don’t mean that. You’re grateful to be alive.  I felt that when I touched you.”

I look at him sideways for a moment.  Did he really felt that?  After everything that has happened in the last twelve hours, I’m not so sure.  Who knows what else Anders has in store for me?

Sam stares at me for a moment and I feel my face burn.  Why is he staring at me?  Is he thinking that he wished he could just kill me so he doesn’t have babysitting duty?  No, it is something else.  I almost reach out to touch him, but refrain.

“Delilah…” he starts, voice dropping an octave. 

“What else did you feel?” I ask cutting him off from whatever he is about to say.  Something about his tone sends alarm bells off in my head.  I don’t want to hear what is about to come out of his mouth next.

“I felt your fear.  That—that you didn’t want to do this mission.  I felt that you aren’t a killer.”

“You don’t know me,” I snap.  “So don’t pretend that because you felt a fleeting emotion from me you know how I feel about my assignment.”  I am grateful to do my job.  How dare he imply I’m not?  My hesitation the night before has nothing to do with him.  Plunging a dagger into someone’s heart for the first time would give anyone pause.  He just got the better of me before I could get over it.

“I know you could have killed me, air user, but that you didn’t.”

“I almost did.  I should have plunged that stupid dagger right into your stupid heart.”  Clever.  I can’t seem to focus enough to insult him properly.

“You don’t mean that,” he utters.

“I do.  If I hadn’t hesitated I would be home right now.”

“To Jason?” he asks.

I flinch.  How much of me did he read?  I only got a few glimpses from him.  My eyes narrow at him.  “How do you know about Jason?”

“When you were unconscious I felt a lot come off from you. I couldn’t exactly help it.  I had to carry you to the infirmary.”

I feel violated hearing that.  God only knows what else he knows about me. 

“Delilah, you’re safe here now.  No one is going to hurt you or make you do something you aren’t ready to do.”

“Safe?” I scoff.  A blind rage passes over me and this time I grab his hand.  Pushing past the grogginess, I focus on what happened when he left me with Anders and the chancellor.  This time he pulls away first. 

“They shouldn’t have—“

“Save it,” I snap.  “They’re monsters.”  My skin prickles remembering those awful hours.

“You truly believe that.”  It isn’t a question, more of an astonished statement. 

“Of course I do.”

“You have no idea.”

I don’t know what he is talking about or why.  I don’t care.  I just want to sleep.  My body hurt all over from the abuse I took.   No.  I shake my head.  I need to wake up and start thinking of a way out of this.  The longer they hold me, the worse this will all get. I’ve already failed in my mission.  I need to retreat before things got even shoddier.

We make it to my dorm and pack up my things.  I have to tell Sam about my bags that are waiting by the gate.  They hold most of my clothes and everything that is important to me.  Sam carries my stuff back for me.  I feel so boneless I probably wouldn’t have been able to do it myself anyway.  Whatever was in that shot Anders gave me is powerful.  We make it back to the infirmary and Sam explains briefly how this will work.

“I will get you in the morning for class.  I will bring you back at the end of the day.  When Anders thinks you have earned it, you will be allowed more time on campus.”

“Really?  I can hardly contain myself.” I respond dryly.

“Look…we’re not all bad, Delilah.  Give us a chance to prove that to you.”

“You’ve proven it,” I mumble.  “We don’t torture people.”

“You don’t?” he questions, though it sounds like he knows something I don’t.

“We don’t,” I reply firmly.

He reached for me, gently taking my arm.  He must have focused his thoughts on something specific like I had with him because I’m not hit with his emotions and immediate thoughts.  Instead I feel like I am watching his memories.  It is almost as if a movie was playing in my head, a foggy, colorless movie.  A woman, young and very pretty is strapped to a chair in a destroyed living room.  The room has blood everywhere.  Mom.  She is my mom.  No wait…she is Sam’s mom.  And she is dying.  Sam must be around twelve or so.  He steps forward and grabs his mom’s hand.  It is slick with blood and missing fingernails. 

“Mom?” little Sam cries out. 

“Run, baby, before they come back,” his mother whispers to him.  Her voice is so hoarse the words are hardly audible.   

“No.”

“Go, baby.  Go now.  Tell them…tell them…Abusers…it was the Abusers.  They came…”  Her voice drifted off as her eyes suddenly glossed over. 

I jump back, yanking my arm free.  Tears running down my cheeks and a sob escaped my throat.  I fall down on my bottom, legs too weak to hold me up any longer.  The feelings are so raw…I don’t know how I could have stood without the fogginess to dampen some of the emotion.

“They tortured her because she had something they wanted.  My mom wasn’t a fighter.  She wasn’t even a very strong elemental.  But they tortured and abused her because she was on the wrong side of their war.  So don’t tell me Abusers don’t hurt people.”

Sam’s eyes are filled with tears as well but he quickly turns and leaves me that in the infirmary.  I can’t stop crying. Despite the guards just outside the room, I feel suddenly very alone.