The Outcast and the Survivor: Chapter Twelve

“Get off,” Brogan shouts as he pulls her away and tosses her to the ground.

Helena continues yelling as Kat helps me up. I immediately turn toward the center of the room where Brogan is restraining Helena and forcing her to stay down. Kat goes over to hold her more firmly while Brogan ties her wrists with a thin, white wire that clicks as it tightens and pulls her hands together.

“Don’t do this to me again,” Helena starts crying, momentarily giving up her fight.

“We’re here to help you,” Kat says softly but firmly, leaning down and kneeling by her side.

“No, you’re not,” she whimpers. “You never are.”

Brogan and Kat both look up at me like I am supposed to understand what is going on, and to my surprise, I think I do. That mysterious man wasn’t just imprisoning Helena here. He was tormenting her in ways so cruel and personal that she doesn’t believe what’s happening, though I’m left wondering what he was trying to accomplish through it. Whatever it was, he has pushed her beyond the breaking point and taken her hope away. I never could have imagined her like this. It tears me up inside, but maybe there’s a way to convince her that what she is seeing is real.

“Do you remember that time Cassandra put lemon into Mariam’s milk?” I ask softly, placing my hand across her shoulder and gently squeezing to relieve my aching heart.

Silence follows. I stare at the dark hair now covering her face from all her lashing, unsure of just who is underneath it. Is it the sister I always admired and looked up to, or has this forlorn place shattered who she was beyond recognition?

I cry quietly as I think of the hurt she must feel and then consider my own transformation in the months since my exile. There is something strange at work inside of me, dragging me into darkness, and the more I feel it, the more it seems like it’s actually been there for a long time. Like an infection of hopelessness, one that’s only getting worse.

“She didn’t speak to us for a week,” Helena whispers, looking up at me with a smile I have so desperately missed, temporarily pulling me from my sorrowing.

I spring forward and throw my arms around her.

“This is real,” I say through joyful sobs, my emotions so powerful that I start to shake.

She squeezes me back firmly, and we embrace for a moment of pure peace, one I don’t want to let go of. I feel her warmth filling me like a fire in the cold of winter, making me squeeze even tighter. If only this could last forever.

But it can’t. It is a lie. We are encompassed by darkness, which I am reminded of as gunfire starts echoing above us.

“This reunion will have to wait,” Kat says as she pulls us up together and then cuts the bonds from Helena’s wrists.

Brogan is already halfway up the ladder by the time we start climbing. I go first, then Helena, and finally Kat, who helps support her. I move as quickly as I c

an and am surprised as I look down and notice how well Helena is able to move and keep pace. Her body hardly doesn’t seem weak at all, like the suffering she experienced was only in her mind.

The gunfire continues louder and louder the closer we get, but then suddenly ceases. My heart stops, fearful of what the break in action might mean.

“Sounds like we pushed back the first wave,” Brogan replies encouragingly, pulling me up the final steps. “We’re almost through this. Just a little more to go.”

I turn around to watch Helena, who shines in the flicker of light despite the dreariness all around. I don’t understand how she’s transformed so quickly. She seemed so dark and empty just moments ago. Then again, she always radiated hope, even when we were young. It’s what once connected the two of us so closely. Now, it seems like she’s the only one of us who possesses it, making me feel estranged, even ashamed. I was foolish to have trusted the Necromancer, whose twisted influence I now feel pressing upon my soul.

“Are you okay?” I ask, pretending that I’m fine.

She pauses in front of me and stares, her eyes penetrating mine as she sees through the wall I’m trying to place between us. I remember Julianne mentioning

that it can be deciphered where power and influence comes from, or I suppose at least the nature of its source. An unmistakable peace emanates from Helena, and I imagine that she can see the opposite in me.

“Are you?” she replies perceptively.

I look away from her, feeling tender like the pain that comes when someone jabs intrusively into an open wound. But then sound of gunfire returns, and I welcome it, turning sharply toward Brogan, who prompts us forward.

“We can check the other tunnels to see if there’s another way out,” Kat suggests to Brogan as we start to run. “Or find a place to hide until it’s safe.”

Brogan nods at her, but I can tell he’s unconvinced. I doubt Kat believes it either. We will be trapped here, just like the man said, unless we can fight our way out the way we came.

Moments later, we make it back to the open room where the rest of the soldiers await us. Their guns are inactive, the room’s many corridors empty save for a few bodies of the creatures who had already tried to get in. Yet, more gunfire sounds from the entryway above us. Without a word, Kat already seems to know what’s going on.

“They sent another team after us,” she says, her voice hot and bothered.

“Does it surprise you that Lionel would send them?” Brogan replies softly.