The Limbic's Game

Chapter 11

Tasha Castro

2 weeks later...

I woke up in a cold sweat, darting my eyes around the motel room. Teddy was still in a deep sleep next to me. I shuffled to the edge of the bed, the water gushing underneath me, swaying from side to side as I got up.

Straight away I knew that something wrong, but I didn’t know what I made a quick glance at the car below, remembering what happened earlier in the evening when I accidently locked Teddy out of the room for an hour through fear and lack of trust between the two of us.

All was fine in that department. I scanned the room in semi-darkness for the presence of my blackberry. I found it on the floor, I must of knocked it off of the beside in the night. I picked it up and unlocked the keypad, triggering the screen backlight.

The phone cast an eerie glow on the room as I examined the home screen and saw that I had five missed calls from Mum and Dad. I felt another pang of guilt in my chest.

I never wanted to leave them.

But the good thing was that I had someone else along for the ride with me: another pair of eyes to look out for me. I needed to let them know where I was, and just speak to them. To pluck up the courage would be the hardest part.

I just needed one word to escape my lips.

Sorry.

Then I might feel a little bit better about the situation that I was in. Knowing that I hadn’t lost the manners that they had passed down to me; otherwise, I had shamed them in all areas.

I padded silently on the thick carpet towards the en suite bathroom. I closed the door slowly trying not to make a sound: avoiding the disturbance of Teddy. I thought I was fine as the door almost shut. I could only see a fragment of the peach carpet which I had just walked across when the two hinges on the bathroom door simultaneously shrieked with effort as it tried to containing the weight of the moving door.

Every muscle in my body clenched in anticipation as I waited for Teddy to get up and make sure that I was ok. Over the past few weeks he had moulded himself into the role of my protector. I know that this will help in the long run; but sometime I just wish he’d get off my back!

I need some alone time once in a while, to cleanse myself. This smile that suggests I’m fine tires my cheekbones and metal power very easily. There were times when I needed to peel of the fake me and check if the genuine me was ok.

Teddy stirs and then stood with a groan as he spied me on the threshold. He has a muscular build, and slightly wider shoulders and bigger arms than Dylan. By now however, his muscles were probably wasting away while he was spending endless hours unmoving on a hospital.

Hell. The only think that I knew was that he was back in the same country as me, as of last week when I called the hospital. Apart from that, the only thing that I was positive if was that he was alive, I can’t describe it, or make sense of it, but there was a feeling that nestled itself at the back of my mind that told me that he was stable and he was going to pull through. I know now that’s I just have to let my instinct take control of my actions in every aspect of life.

This way I would have no regrets. Well look where my instincts got me this time?

On the run from some unknown organisation that wants my blood, my boyfriend is a coma through my doings and there is a boy coming along with me for my personal gain.

Teddy doesn’t know anything about this: I don’t think this heart of stone has enough compassion to tell him the truth. As I watched him rub his eyes and walk over to me slowly, I felt sickly.

What the hell had I dragged this innocent guy into? What had I done to this innocent, kind guy into? Had I shortened his life by a number of decades?

He stopped directly in front of me. And then his warm and comforting stare settled in on my heart, he then came closer; coming in for a gentle kill.

I had no choice but to kiss him. He had this effect over me, whenever I looked at him, I melted. There was however a last remaining silver of restraint that kept me from telling him everything about me, where I lived, or why I was even travelling.

I wanted to cringe as I was kissing someone who I did not want to: I wanted Dylan. I did not need to deny my feelings for teddy; it was a relationship that was one-sided. I felt ruthless and more of a bitch than I had ever done before.

My reflex action was to playfully clench my fingers and gently pull his hair. As our lips parted, I returned a look of reassurance.

‘I’m fine.’ I whispered gratefully. I lied to him; at this moment in time I wanted to keep my feelings to myself.

‘Ok, love you.’ He winked and crawled back into bed, quickly smoothing down his bed head and returning to a light snore.

I stared at him for a few minutes through the darkness, lingering on the threshold of the bathroom and the bedroom.

I turned and my soles touched the vinyl floor of the tired bathroom. The cheap, tacky material stuck to my feet as I tried to remain quiet and tread carefully. I looked in the mirror. The girl in the mirror that I saw in the restaurant was still there; clinging on to the beast that was now the host of this seemingly troubled body.

One word kept coming to mind that associated itself with the girl in the mirror; it was a word that I didn’t like to use on other people, never mind myself.

The word did have full accuracy if what kind of person I had changed to be since I left home to go to the airport.

User.

A single tear escaped my left eye as I rolled around the word in my head.

Yes, that word was definitely appropriate. Rational thought was the last thing on my mind as I switch on the shower to the coldest setting. I stepped into the cubicle fully clothed.

I stood and let the cold water claim me as its own. My clothes soon clung to me and made sure that goose bumps sprouted from my skin, I found that the shower cubicle was my slice of withdraw; as I became cold, I began to feel relaxed.

I was detached from a world and put into another one: a better one. For one moment I was the old me, with impurities alike; but their wounds didn’t carve as deep into my soul.

I stepped out of the shower dripping, my tears camouflaged as water drops from the shower. I had cried many times, each time a new fragment of the old me was discovered and hidden away.

I had to hide these pieces, so I still knew I had a valuable possession, even if it were only mentally.

****

The girl stepped out of the shower dripping water all over the patterned vinyl flooring. She maintained her dignity as she was still fully clothed. She walked over to the bathroom window and opened it a crack, letting the steam escape as it brimmed over the frame.

She looked at the mirror in the same bewilderment as she did before.

And then, without any warning: she dropped onto the floor in a heap. As she went down, her arm limply swiped across the sink and hit the mirror, sending it to the other side of the room before hitting the far wall, smashing into a million pieces with a loud crunching sound.

Reflective slithers of glass flew through the air with lethal speed until the clattered to the floor as gravity eventually conquered.

The boy that tagged along came running into the room. You could see that he feared the worst.