The Soul Catcher (Harry Styles)

35 - Hope

“She’ll forget she talked to you when she’s being pulled back, but when she steps back into our realm, she’ll remember,” Maria added instantly.

“You want us to talk to her?” Elaine asked, her eyes briefly flicking over to me.

I tried to let all the information sink in. I felt like I needed to take a deep breath, but I knew that we were running out of time, and it seemed like we were sitting in a sinking boat.

“You want us to convince her to keep fighting.” I meant to make it sound like a question, but the second the words left my lips, I knew they were true.

That was our new assignment. We didn’t have to catch a soul, we had to save one.

At least, we had to help her stay alive long enough until she could be saved from a family member, or, more likely, a doctor.

“Exactly,” Maria confirmed.

“Talk to her like you would talk to someone trying to kill themself,” Juliet spoke up, “and try to convince her to keep fighting.”

I was truly overwhelmed. Never have I ever thought I would be put into this position.

Elaine nodded. “We will.”

She didn’t give me a chance to add anything as her fingers wound around my wrist to tug me right behind her. She dragged me to the bridge and we swiftly crossed it, the movements all too familiar.

“This is so… I don’t even have words for this. I’m scared,” Elaine whispered.

We stepped on concrete and faced a nice neighbourhood. From the outside, it nearly seemed like an impossibility that any kind of crime could happen in this place.

I spun around and faced a cute blue house with white windows, the face of the building looking proper and clean.

“How are we going to find her?” Elaine asked, but I was already up the stairs to the porch of the house.

I couldn’t explain it, but I just felt this weird pull. There was no doubt in my head that Katlyn was in this house. Not wasting a second, I rushed into the house and quickly looked around, before hurrying upstairs and running over to a closed door.

Stepping into a cluttered room, clothes piling on the ground and books framing every inch of the shelves on the wall, my eyes fell onto a pale figure lying on a queen-sized bed.

Curly blonde hair fanned over a pale pink pillow and her clothes were wrinkled. She wore a light blue dress that fell to her mid-thighs, her feet bare. I noticed a thin silver bracelet on her left wrist, but otherwise she didn’t wear accessories or make-up.

Her right hand was clutching at an orange bottle of sleeping pills and I detected another one next to her hips. A frown settled on my face as I stepped closer, only slightly relaxing when I saw her chest rising and falling slowly.

I felt Elaine’s presence behind me before she spoke up. “Is she still alive?”

Knowing her eyes were on me, I nodded. “Barely.” Her breathing was irregular and would pause momentarily, before it picked up again.

“It’s only a matter of time,” she whispered. I could hear the sadness in her voice and turned around to face her.

Elaine’s eyes were on Katlyn, her lower lip trembled. She had her arms wrapped around herself, as if she were cold. Although the view really shocked me and made me sad, too, I felt like it was even harder for Elaine.

The heels of my boots clicked against the laminate as I walked over to the shivering girl and wrapped my arms around her shoulders, hauling her into my chest. My hands rubbed up and down her back, trying to calm her down as we waited.