Her Chance

Chapter Twenty-Seven

"Sorry!" He quickly said, giving her a sheepish smile. "I'm just so glad to see you alive. You have to be more careful next time."

"It wasn't even my fault, he was just as good as I was." Kataleen said, stressing the last part. Colin's eyes widened in realisation, but the rest of his features were cold as stone.

"Do you think that Roger trained him?" Colin asked, a small sliver of sadness and anger showing in his eyes. "Maybe that is why Anna couldn't fight the rogue. Fuck, I should have known!"

"What do you mean she couldn't fight the rogue?" Kataleen said, her tone demanding with an underlying threat.

"Colin, I trusted that you wouldn't tell her." Arthur icily said, his eyes shooting daggers at her best friend.

"I know, but it just slipped-"

"What do you mean Anna couldn't fight him?" Kataleen interrupted, speaking loudly and lethally. "Don't you dare keep this from me!"

She felt her head spin with unanswered questions, and she sifted through her thoughts to find a reasonable explanation for his statement. Had she been kidnapped? Injured? Or even killed?

She didn't just want answers, she needed them. Anna had been like a sister to her from the day they met in the wood, with Colin as her brother. She felt more love for the Gatley sibling than for her adoptive parents and Mathew combined. The first family she hadn't gotten the chance to choose, but she could choose her second one. She valued them higher than Arthur in her mind, even if the bond was making her feelings for him grow each day, and she wasn't even sure that it was the bond only that held them together anymore.

"We need to tell her, Arthur." Colin said, his facade breaking, despair and restlessness showing on his face, and Kataleen felt a sinking feeling in her chest. "It's not fair for her, or me."

Arthur looked at her with worry, before nodding to Colin that he was free to talk.

"Anna, she isn't here." Colin carefully said, remembering what had happened last time he had delivered bad new to Kataleen. When that happened, it had been Anna who had gotten injured by a rogue that Kataleen had let pass. "She was taken by one of the rogues, and he was described as having one red eye."

"No, no, no," Kataleen repeated, trying to convince herself that Colin was wrong. "It can't be! This means that it was all my fault! It's just like last time, again!"

"Kataleen, calm down." Colin calmly said, but Kataleen could detect his concealed anxiety, the anxiety she fed on. She didn't process his words, and an explosion of panic and anxiety rose in her chest.

It had only happened once before, but she remembered the feeling all too well. She was going to loose control, all in a small hospital room. The walls, suddenly feeling too close, gave her an illusion of coming closer and together with the feeling of anxiety and panic, claustrophobia crept inside her mind and she felt her throat close up. Struggling to breathe, she saw black spots dance across her vision and she instinctively pushed her way to the door.

Colin was talking to her with what he probably thought was a soothing voice, but she could hear the forgotten memories that his words were carrying without him noticing.

Her, hurting him. Her, loosing control. Her, being consumed by her own feelings.

As she broke through the door and hurried out of the small building, she felt the world closing in on her simultaneous. The shrieks of fear and protests as she ran, through what she perceived as narrow corridors, were lost on her. She did not think, only feel. The only thing she was waiting for was the final emotion she new would be coming. And as she knew it would, it came.