No Control (Chris Motionless)

Chapter 48 - Spaces Between

Then, finally, I begin to make out words.

"Why are you making me do this?" A voice laments, so thick with tears that it's difficult to understand. "I don't want this! Who the hell would want this?"

"It isn't about what you want." Another person answers in a cold tone, just outside my door.

I scoot myself back on the ground with my hands and feet, trying to be as silent as possible as if they don't know I'm in here. My back bumps into the rough stone wall after barely a foot as I realize how small the space I'm trapped in is. With only my ears to go by, I can tell that they stay with whoever else they have held hostage as I continue to hear their voices.

"Why is the vessel still aware this close to the rebirth?" A female voice questions from the other side of the wall to my left, telling me they were inside the room next door now.

"He'll probably come in and out of it all the way up until the actual baptism is completed." The cold voice explains.

"But shouldn't this one be more dormant by now?"

"That isn't for us to question," He hisses swiftly before attempting to be reassuring, "The New Lord knows what to do. Our job is to trust him and do as he bids."

"Where is she?" A third voice speaks up, sounding weak but undoubtedly familiar at this close range. Chris had been the one pleading. "Is she alright?"

"That's none of your concern." They both reply at the same time.

"What the fuck have you done with her?" He demanded before an uncharacteristic sob ripped out of his chest. "Oh god, what did he make me do to her?"

A harsh thumping noise suddenly echoed off the stone walls, followed by a small fit of coughing that brought the shouting to an end.

"We aren't going to get anywhere with the vessel being aware. Let's check back later." The woman suggests, and then the sound of footsteps retreating tells me that they were leaving and before they were entirely out of earshot, she says, "I can't believe you hit him. Roy would be furious if he knew."

As the dead air pressed in on my ears, I fought with the idea of calling out to Chris. I pressed my palm to the wall keeping us apart, unsure if I was grateful for the barrier or not, as I asked, "Can you hear me?"

"Amber? Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine," I reply simply, unwilling to own up to how frightened I am, knowing that my heart will be torn from my body by the very man I am speaking to. "Did they do anything else to you?"

"Other than manhandle me, no." He replied and then let out a heavy sigh. "I'm so sorry about this. You wouldn't be here right now if I had been more honest since the beginning."

"How do you figure that?"

"I started hearing him right before I had even met you."

A moment of silence fell over us, and all I could hear was my frantic pulse screaming at him as if it was demanding to know why he had kept this from me.

Since it was clear to him that I wasn't going to respond, Chris continued to explain, "I had thought it was just because I wasn't getting enough sleep while touring with my band. I was forgetting things and having migraines more frequently than I ever had. So since I knew we would be taking a long break before hitting the road for the next tour, I decided to stay in the UK, saying that I needed a vacation and alone time to work on my book."

He let out a disgusted little laugh before adding, "And then I met you at that last show. I should've told you then that I remembered you even though I shouldn't have been able to. I could have warned you that something was going terribly wrong inside my head right then, but I didn't want to believe it."

At last, I finally spoke up, "I mean, who would want to allow themselves to think that they are possessed by a demon?"

"After that, it only seemed to get worse, though." He went on before his voice began to stumble, "William, the demon... whatever you want to call him, started to... appear to me."

"How?"

"I'm not sure, but at first, it was just a peripheral thing, like a flash of black. But then it became shadows popping up in my reflection, and it slowly began to take on the shape of a man."

That information sat in my stomach like a rock; it dawned on me that it meant that this entity could exist outside of Chris. He could've been watching our every move to stop him and relaying it back to Roy somehow to make sure nothing could deter his plans.

"He's started to look more like me too. It's like a copy of me standing just over my shoulder, but it doesn't feel like me?"

"Does he speak to you?" I question, unsure if I genuinely wanted the answer.

"Sometimes and then there are times when it's as if I can hear his thoughts like we are melding into one person. But it's only when we were thinking about something similar."

"Like what?"

"You. He thinks about you quite a bit."

A wave of nausea overcomes me at those words. What did this demon have to think about me other than how he intended to rip open my chest? Then I recalled that letter I discovered on Chris's desk that had been in William's handwriting.

I do not have time for distractions, no matter how human, how real, she has made me feel in the short time I have known her. This has to end, no matter what I have come to desire.

A fit of hysterical laughter bubbled past my lips. "There's no way! It's not fucking possible! So this thing is pretending to have feelings for me?"

"Sometimes they seem pretty real," Chris pointed out, sounding nearly as off-put as I did. "He has actually gotten angry with me that I had chosen you to fall for. He said I was taking you from him."

"Oh my god, this can't be happening!" I moan as I rake my nails through my hair as if the pain will wake me up from this living nightmare.

My panicked thoughts tried to rationalize this thing that was past making rational. Was this William talking to me and not Chris? Was he trying to get me to trust him again? It didn't make sense for him to give me this knowledge, but it wasn't as if any of it could be used against him. So why would he not tell me these things? But on that note, I still don't believe it had been intended for me to read it. Did that mean it was the truth?

"None of this makes sense." I finally say out loud, unable to stay locked inside my mind any longer.

"No, and then there's the twin flame thing he keeps bringing up that doesn't make any sense either, but to him and his followers, it's apparently important."

That caused the racket in my head to come to a standstill as I recalled something Mackenzie had mentioned in passing. Twin flames are two souls that already know each other, two halves of a whole. The 'New World Order' book had mentioned finding the demon's vessel a match and that it was necessary for the final ritual, and then there was also what Kim had said, that William knew that I was coming to London. They had been planning all of this the whole time. Chris and I were merely pieces in a much bigger game.

"It's for the ritual, we're twin flames, and that's why they are so sure that it's going to work this time."

"But which one of us is it?"

"What do you mean which one?"

"Am I your twin flame or is he?"