"I told you not to come." The thought collided in condemnation within the walls of his mind, crisscrossing with strained speculation and weaving in and out of fearful question. This was the curious mind of Indigo and I sat disgruntled within it.
"As if I had a choice" I retorted, making myself as comfortable as one could in the mind of another. Kieran's scoff rumbled like thunder through the entirety of his tensed body and I could feel him rolling those peculiar indigo eyes. Still, his good spirits were welcome as they brought warmth to his customarily cold self.
"Don't say I didn't warn you," Kieran murmured with the phrase I had become all too familiar with.
In truth, this particular couple activity of saving and surrendering souls was one Kieran would have preferred to carry out unaccompanied. However, a little like our courtship, soul searching was something we found ourselves consumed by completely by accident.
On this occasion, Kieran was trudging through a muddy gutter in some region of Northern Germany. Anyone might have envied his obligation to frequently navigate the world but they were the lucky ones; they did not know the price of such freedoms.
Kieran was the beginning and end, embodied in a strong, fast, invisible, indigo eyed creature. The occupation of judging the suicidal was one you would have expected to age a man but not Kieran. No, the indigo eyed boy was unchanging.
Beyond my reach was a memory of the indigo eyed boy saving my own life and the reasons he had had to. Try as I might, there was no recalling what drove me to want for death. But the consequences of that forgotten action had caused my world to become tainted by Indigo and I was left asking myself what Christine Evans wanted now.
"So what were you doing this time Evans? The last time this happened you woke up in your dinner if I remember rightly." Kieran shrugged further into his jacket and smirked. "I don't think I've seen a woman more... animated than your mother was when she told me." I cringed. I wasn't going to live that face full of mince down. To my credit, my mum's mince was one of the more edible things I could have fallen asleep in.
It was unfortunately the case that when thinking about Kieran hard enough, I could stow away in his mind and join him wherever his duties may have taken him. Being in a relationship with him, it wasn't surprising this occurrence happened more often than not.
With Kieran I could go to the ends of the earth and back again. At first it worried my mother and my step-father - my spontaneous sleeping patterns - but after a thorough medical examination from my doctor there was no need to blame anything but teenage melodramatics and insomnia. Unsurprisingly, this conclusion had been my mother's prognosis in the first place.
"If you must know, I was in bed," I replied, desperate for the blush that would have been apparent on my face not to be betrayed in our telepathic state. Kieran chuckled darkly, distracting me from all sense entirely.
"Thank you for the visual," he said. "Though you should be careful, my imaginations running wild and I wouldn't want to defile your innocence." I would have given him a warning glare but under the current circumstances it took all of my willpower not to delve into his mind further and question his theory. Though sense told me my relationship with Kieran was wrong there was a primal instinct that was insistent it was all so right. The intense opposition warring within was oh so delicious and I loved the taste of it.
"You, Indigo Boy, are a raging pervert." There was nothing more to be said, not when his mischievous thoughts were so clear before me in his unguarded mind. Though the context of our banter was questionable, what was a suicide mission without a little harmless flirtation?
"Oh dear Evans, did I just think that out loud?' Kieran murmured as he dared to over step a mark. I would have smiled if I could have. This was Kieran, all boyish charm and confidence. I remembered a time when he had been someone to fear and not the man who made me answer to my beating heart and shallow breathing every time he drew near.
Indigo Boy had appeared exactly a year after my suicide attempt as the demon that haunted my nightmares and chased my shadow. The mere thought of him had been a threat to the fortress I had my sanity and feelings locked within. What was an ex suicidal supposed to do when an apparently invisible indigo eyed stranger appears in the middle of her fifth period history class?
All logic dictated I should have stayed away from that indigo eyed creature but then who would have saved me from the clutches of Devon Taylor or from being run over by a prowling Mercedes or from the one they called Red? It had only been a month since I had been taken to the underworld of Edinburgh but the feeling of fevered hands on my skin and candlelit stone walls still ruined me. It was not uncommon that I found myself waking in a blanket of cold sweat with Devon's red, lustful eyes shattering any resolve I had attempted to muster.
While I was in pieces, I was grateful that Beth, my best friend and companion in captivity remembered nothing of the event. Beth felt nothing of what it was to fall apart every time I closed my eyes. Beth was blissful in her ignorance and I wouldn't have had it any other way.
"Seriously Kieran's there's thinking it...and then there's visualising it. I do not look like that!" I teased as though his imagination had revealed something inappropriately racy. While Kieran pieced me together I sought for nothing more than to keep him from falling apart. For as soon as Indigo arrived at his destination he would lose himself to the guise of the master of the suicidal and all would become dark for a while. The darkness was when he became cold and in that state of his mind I became vulnerable.
"I know what you're thinking Chris. I'll try to control myself but you know I can't promise," Kieran confessed, my mind being too open to him it seemed.
Kieran was no stranger to what he could do to me. The icy sensations he sent through me were intoxicating and crippling all by the gaze of his indigo eyes or touch of those chilling fingertips. I bruised easily and for him to see that was more devastating than the marks he left upon me.
"I'll be fine. I always am." Kieran grunted, his jaw clenching for a moment. He pulled a shaky hand through his seam black hair. His eyes strayed to beyond a stairwell and his whole body seemed to recoil.
"We're here," he muttered as he drank in the tenement building before us. The gloomy façade had begun surrendering to the untamed vines that wrapped themselves around drain pipes and framed the windows pockmarked with holes.
"It's always a guessing game but something tells me I know..," whispered Kieran, looking away from the task in hand. "Are you ready?" He sighed, his hands now clawing at his gaunt face. I was aware of every crescendo of distress and anticipation that filled him. He could hide many things but this pleading for circumstances to be different was not one of them.
"You have to go in Kieran," I paused. "But I'm here..." I began, wanting to continue with some kind of sentiment to soothe him but lacking in the courage to say the words.
"I know," he replied and that was enough for both of us.
His thoughts took a moment to organise themselves, slowly enough for me to grasp some sort of understanding. Kieran was a mess but with every right to be so. After the length of time Kieran had been doing what was demanded of Indigo you might have presumed he had grown numb to his duty and yet, from the sincerity of his emotions, every day was just as scarring as the first.
Kieran ascended the stairs, still hesitant. He pushed down the handle of the door firmly, though there was no need for such force as the door swung obligingly open.
"Second flat, knife -no rope- a couple of hours ago perhaps, a middle aged man," murmured Kieran to himself. The thoughts were quick and concise. Indigo's precise art of deduction was frighteningly accurate though I expected his centuries of experience may have been the culprit.
In the short time that some twisted fate had permitted me to understand Indigo's world I had not yet seen someone who'd hung themselves. I'd seen slit wrists and bullet wounds, the drowned and knifed but never a hanging.
It was all enough to make anyone wonder: why?
"I remember my first time." A shudder rippled through Kieran as he attempted to level his breathing. "I'll try to prevent you from seeing as much as possible." Kieran bit his lip. I wondered if this was how he acted when I wasn't present or if he carried out his task with ease. I wasn't sure which conclusion would have settled me.
"Kieran I'm fine." My tone was stern and dominating, knowing I couldn't convince him otherwise. Kieran was taken aback, his whole body jarring for a moment. However, with a brief shake of the head he continued up the flat stairs.
The second flat door he halted at was as the first had been, worn and scarred with ominous markings. Kieran tried the handle but this the door wouldn't budge so willingly.
"I guess there's no choice but to ram it in," Kieran said, eyeing up the doors corners. From the looks of it a simple kick and the door would fall to the floor. Kieran readied himself. Being able to invade my dreams, heal like a fictitious werewolf and run like lightening; Kieran was also ridiculously strong.
But Indigo was no superhero.
Kieran raced for the door and with little more than a nudge, knocked it in. The door didn't clatter to the floor as I had expected or vanish in a cloud of smoke. It shattered into pieces. Fragments of wood showered down like an unexpected rainfall, creating a fog of dust and door dregs. Kieran wiped the filth and debris from his clothing and shook his hair.
"Well that didn't happen quite as I'd planned." He stared at the gaping frame in the wall where the door had once stood. "Remind me to fix that..."
"I think you did the door a favour," I muttered, inspecting Kieran's handy work as he did so. Kieran chuckled flicking a last splinter off of his shoulder. He turned to squint down the abandoned stairwell before facing the slightly ajar door at the end of the narrow corridor.
Something inside of Kieran knew he was in there, the dead man. The indigo eyed boy knew that but wished to bide time, time for me to return to the safety of my own mind. He was only delaying the inevitable as neither of us could control the destiny we had become so dictated by.
"Come on Kieran there's no point prolonging it," I prompted.
"I know but..." He trailed off not knowing what to say. We'd been through it all before with no solution to console us.
"Please, just don't let this change anything," Kieran grieved leaning on a chipped chest of drawers for support. He wasn't selfish in this desire, who knew what would be enough to make me run? Kieran pinched the bridge of his nose and focused on keeping calm.
"It won't. We are more than this Kieran," I whispered. Truthfully, this side of Kieran was something I would have rather have been a stranger to but in wanting to be with him I had to accept that this was part of me too. If I wanted Indigo, I had to have all of him for the short time my mortality would give us.
"OK then, let's get this over with," Kieran conceded, pushing off of the drawers and proceeding to the door.
There was a musty light that drifted through the crack in the door and we reached for it.
The scene that lay behind the door was horrific. There shouldn't have been moonlight spotlighting the body strung up. Kieran did his best to get the body down without having to look at it, protecting me from what my imagination couldn't.
The body lay flat on the floor. The man's expression was mournful, not restful as it should be in death. I tried to imagine the gashes on his face were worn trails from tears but even tears don't cut so deeply.
"Are you OK?" Kieran's voice came as a shock. I'd cut myself off from Indigo's thoughts to wallow in my own. "You were kind of unreadable for a second there." It wasn't often I could isolate myself from Kieran, it had been completely unconsciously.
"I'm fine," I said.
"Then I'll continue," he replied. Carrying out the well-rehearsed routine, Kieran sighed and knelt by the body. Indigo lent over so his mouth was level with the blue tinged lips, as if to kiss them. Firmly, he pressed down on the corpse's chest and shared his final breath. Then Kieran's eyes, vision and thoughts misted over and I was left alone.
I enjoyed walking in the midst of Kieran's mind. It was peaceful - serene even. It was the only place I knew where everything that was nonsense fell into place and became wonderful. The light that shone above was bright, giving my surroundings their heavenly glow. There were no worries when alone in the mist, just an endless horizon of white cloud. My jammies left me feeling cold in Kieran's cloud world but I didn't mind - it was indescribably insignificant in comparison to simply being close to the one I wanted most. I caressed the soft white clouds and reminisced.
A pair of frosty, steadfast arms fastened around me. My smile spread slowly, savouring the moment.
"Hello," Kieran greeted, his breath gentle as it brushed my ear. I shrugged into him, feeling his natural chill embrace me.
"Hi." My fingers stroked the wisps of cloud around me. He was dressed in that repulsively stereotypical white outfit that left me feeling sufficiently under dressed for the occasion.
"You look wonderful whatever you're wearing," Kieran murmured, doing nothing in particular other than reading my thoughts. I leaned my head into the curve of his neck. He smelled was so appetising, everything that was joyous about the winter session like gingerbread and pine and roaring fires. My head lulled against his collarbone and I felt content. "You don't smell so bad yourself," Kieran chuckled.
"I hate the mind reading thing," I mumbled, covering his hands with my own.
"Would it be fair to say I hate this whole mind jumping thing all together?" He sounded light hearted but behind the tone was his earnest objection. I rubbed my thumbs across the back of his hands.
"I know." The clouds seem to darken slightly and his hands tightened. "Now come on, let's meet him." I tried to pull away from Kieran gently but he swiftly spun me. I blinked at the wrong moment because one minute I was staring out into white space and the next into Kieran's indigo eyes. He leant his forehead against mine.
"Just another minute please," he pleaded, his eyes squeezed shut and his hands still holding onto my own. I kept my gaze fixed on his. We then stood there for his minute while we enjoyed just being with one another, forehead to forehead. That moment might have become two or three but what was time when the world itself had all but melted away?
It was the heavy breathing that tore us apart. I opened my eyes and looked around. There was nothing but a faint silhouette against the clouds. Intrigued, I broke free from Kieran and cautiously approached the figure. I was safe with Kieran close by so it was OK to satisfy my curiosity.
"Hello," I said, offering my hand to the man among the clouds. He was confused and alarmed. The wrinkles in the guest's brow were as defined as the scars on his face.
"Hello," he replied, slipping a quaking hand in to mine. "Are you an angel? Is...is this heaven?" He allowed me to guide him slowly to Kieran. Flattered as I was, there wasn't time to flirt with the lingering souls.
"No I'm not," I replied. "Can you imagine an angel wearing these jammies?" I laughed seeing the tension ease in his face. "Don't be afraid. My name's Christine but you can call me Chris, everybody does." I grinned bringing him to a halt in front of Kieran. Kieran nodded, acknowledging him while still keeping a cautious eye on me.
"Frank." His accent was rough but without the impracticalities of foreign words. In Kieran's mind everything was translated into a language I could understand which was all ridiculously convenient. Frank extended his hand to Kieran unsurely. I waited for Kieran's retaliation, as did Frank, but then I realised what a fool I was being. "And you? Who are you?"
I rolled my eyes and sighed, awaiting the melodrama they followed such a question.
"I am the one who is to decide your fate. Who I am does not matter." Kieran seemed to hold a certain allure that always seemed to intrigue the suicidal. Frank took an uncertain step backwards and lowered his extended hand.
"Do you really have to be so ominous?" I muttered, glaring at the "Decider of Fates". Kieran ignored me while Frank was helpless in being unable to look away.
"I have made my choice. Who are you to change that?" Frank questioned with challenge though his stuttering suggested otherwise.
"It's OK Frank. We're here to help you." I retook his hand and squeezed it gently. "We just need you to tell us why you did it. What drove you to choose this?" I was a hypocrite to ask such a thing and that hurt more than anything. But I had to keep on my guard as the suicidal could be unpredictable. On several occasions Kieran and I had dealt with those beyond the point of no return; one knock and they were tipped into an irretrievable insanity.
"I- I-" Frank was on the delicate verge of hysteria, his eyes glazing with tears. I clasped his hand between mine. He was shaking.
"I swear Frank we're only here to help. Please let us help you."
"Why, where am I? What's happened to me?" His eyes bored into mine. They searched for sense; something for him to understand. I didn't know how to tell him. What could I say? I swallowed several times while trying to assemble some sort of explanation.
"You're dead Frank." Kieran did not choke on his words, they came as naturally as breathing. It was not always in Kieran's capacity to let someone of the suicidal kind down gently. I turned to seek Frank's reaction. Curiously, something like relief spread across his face. It took me by surprise to see anyone so at peace with them self after being told such a thing.
"Are you alright?" I asked, perplexed by the sudden revelation the man seemed to be experiencing.
"I'm great. I've not felt this wonderful in a very long time." He sighed. I squinted at Kieran unsurely. Had we encountered another madman?
"Care to explain Frank?" Kieran pressed, his indigo eyes searching for Frank's full attention. But Frank didn't seem to see us anymore, only hear us.
"I was dying: slowly. It was one drink too many, one night stand and one man. That's all it took to kill me," murmured Frank. The confusion did not pass, something hadn't yet clicked. "I didn't know I had it, there were no signs, no symptoms," he continued.
"You contracted HIV." I still held his hand tight within my own even though I was unreassuringly shivering.
"It became AIDS faster than blinking and once I finally went to the doctors there was no way of saving me. My life was over in only a few words." Frank blinked rapidly as he awoke from his trance. "So I- I..." He trailed off conflicted in whether to be at peace or at war with himself.
"You don't need to say anything more Frank," I whispered, meeting his lowered gaze. His green eyes found some sort of solace and he was comforted.
"I wasn't willing to let it kill me slowly. There was nothing to live for what with being an orphan - just my cat," Frank chuckled. "Besides the woman downstairs looks after it most of the time anyway." I felt unsettled about his easiness but then he'd been awaiting death like an evening caller. "But I don't understand...this...this is not what I expected." Frank scrutinised me. "Did I do something wrong? I mean suicide isn't exactly right but... What is this? What have you to do with any of this?"
"You haven't done anything technically wrong but...Kieran?" I tried to work out when Kieran had become so passive in all of this. His face was void of any emotion making him harder to read than a face down spread of playing cards.
"Yes, you have wronged. Suicide is never the answer but that doesn't mean you don't deserve compassion, love and relief. You are human and deserve to be judged just like any other." I stepped into Kieran's shadow while Frank was captivated by his judge and jury.
"I don't want your compassion or forgiveness. This was my choice and I stand by it. I know the differences between right and wrong. I attended church and prayed for my salvation. But life alone and in pain is not life at all. I can't expect you to understand, but if you do you'll allow me to pass in peace." Frank squared his shoulders and faced Kieran with an air of defiance. I saw his receding hairline, strewn with grey and the crevices in his skin but for a moment Frank looked youthful with passion. Kieran grinned.
"I guess there's only one thing for it," Kieran concluded, placing both hands on Frank's shoulders. His decision was so seemingly sudden and yet decided in a moment that had perhaps passed me by minutes ago. Frank stared at Indigo, not as a captive but as an equal. "Are you sure this is what you want? Are you ready?"
"I'm ready." Frank straightened up, a solider into battle. Without looking at me he squeezed my hand in an unspoken gratitude. I stared at the insignificant details of his hand, aware of that troubled emotion that griped me every time this moment came. I felt tears seeping into my eyes and veiling my cheeks.
Kieran nodded and blew out Frank's final breath into the white world of the mind of Indigo. Then I watched the finer details blur until I couldn't stand it and hid my face in Kieran's back. Frank began to disappear into nothingness. One minute I could feel his fingers entangled with my own, the next I couldn't. He faded into white space leaving me empty. As he vanished a forgotten smile made its way - for the last time - across his aged face. His weary smile was the last thing I saw in a coward's momentary peek.
I dropped my hand to my side and stared dejectedly at where Frank had once stood. I reach for Kieran and wrapped myself around him. I needed something to anchor me to the floor, afraid I might take my mind to a place of sorrow and self-indulgence.
"You should get some rest," Kieran sighed against my neck. His breath was teasing against my skin. I felt his hands slip carefully into mine as he pushed me away. The shock of his chill raced through every fibre of my being.
"Let me stay, please," I whimpered wrapping our arms around me once again. Kieran chuckled and pulled me closer to him as if giving in. He teased me with the intentions of a sweet kiss, his lips achingly close to mine. I needed him to hold me, to chase away all the insecurities that dared to break me. In a fleeting moment Frank's life was over and I didn't want to forget it, I didn't want to become numb to the horrors of loss.
"If only I could Evans," was all Indigo could say before arresting me completely with his unwavering eyes. Then, between blinks, he'd pulled me to his lips and thrust me away again. I couldn't take the moment to savour it for I knew what he'd done.
"No, don't do this," I reached for him, feeling myself disappear. My fingers turned transparent and I was between existing and disappearing. Though when alone in his mind I could not be dismissed, in the white Heaven Kieran could banish me with the simple touch of his lips if he wished it. But in an attempt to salvage my dignity after struggling for him, I glowered.
"Judas," I mumbled before completely stolen from Indigo Boy's world. All white faded into a deathly black and the last sound I heard was the sound of Kieran's victorious laughter.
~ * ~ *~ * ~
I feel we should have a name - like Twilight had the Twihards..that was a thing right?
So this is the first chapter of the sequel. What do you all think?
This will be the only chapter until I finish university for this year (so for the next month). Things are a little crazy with deadlines so Wattpad has really had to take a back seat which is truly devestating. So I hope this chapter somewhat makes up for it. Let me know what you think!
I am super nervous about this, can you tell?
Much love,
Bekah x