I Am Bree - Book 1

Chapter 30 - A Plan & Unexpected Aid

Kotaro moved heavily as if a great weight were sitting on his shoulders. His head was stooped, and his figure was completely opposite of what it had been only a few hours earlier. He leaned heavily against the bars of the cell opposite mine as if exhausted.

"We're even now." He raised his head slightly and looked at me.

Shock coursed through my veins at the sight of him. A large welt was forming on the side of his face, and it was evident it would turn into an ugly bruise. A streak of blood was smeared down the side of his cheek—coming from a cut just above his eye. A cut caused by the hard metal of a ring.

My heartbeat faltered. The cut, the blood...I had seen it before. The placement and size of the injury were far too similar to be mere coincidence. One clear thought pulsed through the reigning fog in my mind: I had seen the future—Kotaro's future.

Fear coursed through me with mind-boggling force. What was wrong with me? Why was this happening? Terrified, I attempted to press myself further into the corner as if it would somehow hide me from the truth of who I was.

"You'll live now." He half turned away, giving me a better view of the coagulating blood above his eye. "Get out of here when they set you free. Don't look back. Just go." His voice was a half bitter bark.

"I—you." I breathed, unable to say anything else.

He snorted softly, and I heard him mumble something in the darkness, but it was too quiet to hear. In the back of my mind, I felt the urge to show him how grateful I was, but my words refused to come. I couldn't stop staring at his injured face.

Why? Why was this happening? What was going on? The hysteria I had so deftly managed to shove into the recesses of my being returned with greater force than I could manage, and I choked. Tears poured down my cheeks at greater speed.

"'Why' what?" Kotaro growled, and I realized I must have spoken out loud.

I looked into his dark, almond-shaped eyes, and I almost spilled everything that I was thinking. The image of his shocked and unamused face flashed through my mind and stopped me before it was too late. He would think I was crazy, and truth be known, I wasn't so sure he'd be wrong.

"Why is this happening to me?" I squeaked as my throat constricted on itself.

"Bad things happen to everybody." He broke eye-contact, looking down the murky hallway. "We just have to learn to live with them."

But I didn't want to learn to live with this. I wanted it to go away. I wanted to be normal again. What had started all this, anyway?

"You'll be fine." Kotaro's voice was tight and emotionless. "Just get out of here when you can. You've caused enough trouble already."

His receding footsteps echoed the slow, painful beat of my heart. I pressed my forehead into the wall and tried to reorganize my thoughts. My fear threatened to master me, and I knew if it succeeded, I'd be as good as lost. I had to think logically.

My brain was having none of it, though. A pounding headache was beginning to form as my efforts to reel my emotions into place increased. Crushing misery was bearing down on me until I was suffocated by its presence.

In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to die. Passing on into the next life seemed a more pleasant fate than the one I was facing now. There were no certainties, no absolutes to the path that lay ahead of me, and it was more than terrifying.

I wrapped my arms around myself in an attempt to ward off the sense that I was utterly and completely alone. Memories of a warm hand in mine flooded my brain. In that moment, that quiet, dark figure had said no words of comfort, but his silent presence had been enough. Being alone meant I had only myself to rely upon, and that was a terrifying prospect in and of itself.