Emma found herself admiring the stranger’s brain, her thinking patterns, the way she focused wholly on her work.
The latter was researching a disease, seemed obsessed with finding a cure. Perhaps that was why she often found her in the dimly lit room, covered in blood, her hands buried deep within a body. She was conducting experiments.
It didn’t excuse the abomination of what she was, but Emma could admire her single-minded purpose. She was able to put aside her need for sleep, for sustenance, for long periods. She felt her need, but she concentrated so wholly on what she was doing, she didn’t seem to recognize her body’s cries for normal care.
And she was everything to her. Her Savior. Her tormentor. Without her presence, without touching her mind, Emma would have been completely insane, and she knew it.
The lady unwittingly shared her strange life with her, gave her something to concentrate on, a companionship of sorts. In a way it was ironic. She thought her locked underground. She thought herself safe from her vengeance. But she had created the monster, and now she was keeping her going, her strength growing with every touch to her mind.
Emma found her again a month later, perhaps a year later, she didn’t know, didn’t care. Her heart was pounding in fear. So was hers. Perhaps the overwhelming intensity of her emotion woke him. The pain was excruciating, the hunger engulfing her, yet her heartbeat was frantically matching hers, and she could not find enough lung power to breathe. She feared for her life.
Someone was hunting her. Perhaps the others who had helped betray her had now turned on her. Emma gathered herself, waited, blocking out pain and hunger as she had learned over the years to do. No one would harm the woman. She belonged to her. Only she could decide whether she lived or died, no one else.
If she could manage to “see” the enemy through her eyes, she could destroy them. She felt her power swelling in her, her rage so intense, so potent at the idea that someone might take her from her that it astonished her.
The picture was clear. She was in a shelter of some kind, clothing and furniture overturned all around her as if there had been a fight or someone had searched her belongings. She was running through the rooms, grabbing a few things along the way.
Emma caught glimpses of wild black hair, silky soft, vibrant. She wanted to touch that hair. To sink her fingers into its thickness. To wrap it around her neck and strangle her with it. To bury her face in it. Then the image was gone, her strength drained, and she slumped impotently in her prison, unable to reach her, to help her, to see that she was safe. That added to her torment of agony and hunger. That added to the debt she already owed her.
Emma remained quiet and slowed her heart until it barely beat, only enough to allow her to think, to gather herself for one last try. If she survived, she was going to bring her to herself. She would not allow any more attempts on her life. If she lived or died, it was to be her decision alone.
It was at this thinking moment that she realized with a jerking speed the eyes of her obsession. Blue. Blue like the ocean. It was then she realized that her obsession was a man, a man with long hair. A man that was searching for her too.
****
Emma awoke with a start, her body trembling and her head pounding voraciously.
Oh god. She muttered, wondering how the agony and pain that had assailed her in her dreams had followed her to the physical realms.
Was there even something like that? She wondered, letting herself ruminate on the dream that still caused a bunch of chills to splatter across her skin.
She had been kidnapped. She had been tortured till she had almost gone insane, but for the stranger.
Emma knew it was Derek, but she won’t bite her tongue out, before she could admit it.
Yet, she wondered if the dream was a future prediction, or one borne out of hunger. Somehow she knew it was the latter. She needed to train.
Gone were the days of denying that she wasn’t a human.
No, she will embrace her supernaturality if it will protect her from whatever that was hunting after her.
She remembered Margo. Margo who had warned her at first.
Emma soughed, her mind for an indescribable reason, heading to Annabel, the friend who she had made on the plane. Annabel, who she had thought had been talking jitters due to the pain, and the anomalies they had seen on that flight.
Yet now, Emma wondered if all that could be true. She swung her legs over the bed, and reached for her phone. She needed to call her friend.
Having sat up on the bed, her hand flew to hold her head, as if to stop it from falling from her neck. The headache was that bad.
She opened the phone, taking note of the time. Five pm.
She pulled up her contact list, about to dial Annabel’s number to know if the latter had reached her destination, when she suddenly heard her sister’s voice. Amelia’s voice in the passageway.
Headache momentarily forgotten, Emma dropped the phone back on the dressing table, and hurried out of her room.
“Amelia!” She shouted, laughing wildly when her sister who had been on her way to the kitchen stopped in her tracks, and turned around to face her.
“Emma!”
There was a 360 degree very long hug, during which their father sood by the side watching them, with a blank look on his face.
“When mother called me to let me know that you were back, I rushed home immediately. But then you were asleep, and I had to wait. I didn’t want to disturb you. It’s been so long. You are looking very beautiful. You even got a white strand on your hair.” Amelia paused now, and sunk her fingers in Emma’s hair.
“You dyed your hair?”
Emma shook her head, a bit numb from Amelia’s words. The white hairs were back? She thought she had cut them off.
“You look so beautiful too…” She finally settled on complimenting her sister.
They babbled like children as they retired to Emma’s room.
Mr. Jason turned and looked at his wife.
“Can’t it wait till tomorrow? After her birthday?” His wife inquired, sorrow riding in her eyes.
“You know that we can’t do that, and you know the reason too. All will be fine, my dear.” He said, dropping a kiss on the woman’s forehead.