“You should only be focused on me,” he says, so I put my trust in him and let him pull me into the hallway. We start running before I sense someone to my right and yank Ellison back. I grab the man by the back of the neck and slam him into the wall.
“Don’t hurt him. It’s a guard being controlled,” Ellison says.
I throw the attacker to the ground, hoping we’ll be gone by the time he gets up.
“Come on,” he urges as I realize how strange it feels to have someone to rely on. To work with them when they’re helping me… I don’t have to waste moments questioning how he might stab me in the back. It’s not my first time feeling this way when it comes to this group, but I’m still not used to it. I’m not used to having someone to rely on, so it makes me want to protect them all the more.
“I don’t like leaving your body in that room,” I say.
“I’m fine.”
“And if you’re not?”
“Asmodeus, do you not trust me? I can use this illusion and I can pay attention to my other illusions at the same time, you know this.”
I want to fight him on this, but I’m also aware that I have to stop the woman doing this so everyone will be safe.
“We’re going through a doorway here,” he cautions as he slows me down. “Step up. There’s an edge. I’m not good at describing the path.”
“I’m not worried,” I say while I step over the rise in the floor and move inward. His arm guides me to the right when I hear another noise. I draw him closer, well aware his illusion can’t get hurt, yet still, I want to protect him. I pull him back as I sense a weapon moving through the air. I canhearit. I can feel the wind of the weapon whistling by my face, but I can’t see it.
I jerk back before I hear the weapon slam into the wall. From the sound of it, it seems blunt. Maybe a pipe. It’s disorienting, but I listen to their steps and know that they’re coming from the right. Shifting, I dive in, wishing I had a weapon of my own. I slam my hand into what appears to be a man’s face, ramming the palm of my hand against his nose. I hear bones break and sense the weapon coming from my right as I narrowly avoid it. Liftinga hand, I’m able to feel up his arm, using his own momentum to drive his arm down and back. It forces him to loosen his grip on the weapon until I feel something I’d never heard slam into my back.
“I’m sorry, I never saw the second person. I think their power is to move quickly,” Ellison says, but I hesitate and listen to the attacker make that momentary step they take between leaps. And just as I hear them blur past me, I shove the first guy toward them, pulling his pipe free from his hand and smashing him on the side of the face hard enough he goes down while I wrap an arm around the second person. My arm tightens around their neck and the instant they stop struggling, I drop them to the ground.
“Fuck,” Ellison whispers.
“More?” I ask.
“No… I just… you sure you couldn’t see them? You move like you have perfect sight.”
“Positive. If I could, they’d have both been down within three seconds. You’re the only man I know that I can’t lay down in seconds.”
“Is that a sex joke? Because if it is, you really need to work on your sex jokes.”
I smile, thrilled with my joke as he wraps his hand around mine and leads me forward. “This feels like a date. I’ve never been on one, but this feels like a date.”
“I have been on dates, and I can assure you, this feels nothing like one,” he says, pulling me down the hallway. “I think this is the west wing.”
“So, I just smack the fuck out of anyone I see?” I ask.
“No, how about we make sure we find the right person.”
“That sounds boring,” I complain as I’m brought to a halt.
“There’s a woman in there who’s very focused on something. I think this is the room. What are you planning on doing with her?”
“Not sure,” I say before darting through the doorway.
“Who the fuck are you?” she asks. I hear her scramble off her bed, and I throw the plastic fork with enough force that it embeds in her forehead. She screams and reaches for her head, which gives me enough time to thwack her in the back with the pipe. Then I scoop her up and pull her into a choke hold as the darkness in my mind threatens to consume me. I can hear my victims blaming me for their deaths.
Too bad for her I was born in darkness and know just how to deal with it… which I do by twisting the fork in her forehead while choking her out.
As she claws at my arm and tries to fight back, the darkness in my mind begins to melt away until she’s unconscious and I drop her to the ground.
“That was fun,” I say.
Ellison raises an eyebrow. “Please don’t tell anyone else that.”
