Derek
Cupping my drink between my hands, I stared blindly at the bartender as he mixed drink after drink. I'd been here for a couple of hours, but I couldn't find it in myself to move.
Layna's words kept running through my head and I was trying my best to drown them out. All this time she had been feeling like she was insane, and I hadn't noticed. She hadn't even felt like she could trust me with what she was feeling, and that hurt the most. Somewhere along the line, I had managed to convince her that I wouldn't listen to her if she confided in about what was going on in her head. I could only imagine how long she had been feeling like this and I felt nauseous.
If I had known, I would have at least gone with her when she went to see him. In reality, I couldn't have stopped her either way because it was her choice if she wanted to see him but at least I could have been there with her.
Sighing, I finished my drink then watched as the bartender refilled it. I wanted to go back to her, but I wasn't sure she wanted to see me yet. I wouldn't want to see me if I was her. I hadn't supported her when she needed it most.
"Bad night eh?" he asks and I chuckled humorlessly.
"Yeah, I guess you can say that."
"Want to talk about it?"
I sighed, taking a drink from my glass, twirling around the liquid at the bottom. "What do you do when you have completely failed the one person that you were supposed to be there for? When you have failed the fundamental role that you vowed to keep?"
"Well, I would say that the first step would be to apologize. Then it's about showing that you're sorry, not just the apology itself. The person needs to see that you're trying to fix what you did wrong in order for them to believe that you are capable of change."
I smiled a little, "You a major in psychology or something?"
He smirked, picking up the empty glasses beside me, "I'm a bartender; it's my job to provide insight. That and I've been to therapy, and some of the shit they spew stuck."
I laughed at that, "Careful what you say, you're talking to one of those shit spewers."
"Hey man, I didn't say that therapists don't work, just that some aren't as good as others. Took me a while to find one that I was comfortable with."
"Yeah, I know what it can be like. Thank you for the advice."
***
When I got home, all the lights downstairs were off so I assumed my mom and Layna had gone to bed. I lay down on the couch because my head was spinning but I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew there was a bloodcurdling scream from upstairs.
Before my mind could comprehend what my body was doing I was halfway up the stairs and running as fast as I could. As I got to the top I bumped into my mom who had just come out of her room looking frantic.
"What the hell was that?" she whispered, holding a hand to her chest.
I didn't reply as I pushed past her, only one person on my mind. I burst into my room seconds later, running my hand against the wall to find the light switch. Scanning the room quickly, I could tell that there was no one there except for Layna, who was sprawled out on the bed. Her arms and legs were resting in awkward positions, her red hair covering her face.
I walked over to her hesitantly, sighing in relief when I was the rise and falling of her chest. What the hell had just happened in here?
I sat down slowly on the bed and reached over to touch her shoulder gently. With a gasp she shot up, "Get away from me!" she cried, hitting my hand away blindly. She pushed away from me and crawled to the corner of the bed her eyes wild and unseeing. She kept screaming for me to get away from her and fighting me off as I tried to hold her.
"Layna? Layna it's me! It's me, calm down," I said gently pulling her to my chest, "It's me. You don't have to be scared."
"Derek?" she sobbed into my chest, "Derek, we need to call the police. Timothy was here."
I froze at her words, my heart pounding in my chest, "What?"
"He was here, in the room. I thought it was you but it was him. He tried to kill me."
My mom gasped I looked over to see her standing at the door her hands shaking with tears in her eyes, "It's okay mom, everything's fine."
"No it's not," Layna whispered hoarsely into my neck. "He's mad that I left him."
She pulled away from me, running her fingers through her hair, and pulling at the ends.
"Hey," I said softly, putting my hands on her shoulders and turning her to face me. "We're going to figure out what happened, okay?"
Nodding, she rested her forehead on my chest and I wrapped my arms around her, resting my cheek on the crown of her head. This gave me the perfect view of the one window in the room. It was closed, and the switch on the bottom indicated that it was locked from the inside.
***
Thirty minutes later there was a knock on the door. My mom answered since Layna hadn't moved from my arms. My mom came into the living room first, Detective Allan Greene right behind her. He looked exactly like a remembered him; his badge was hanging on a chain around his neck, and he was wearing a leather jacket, which I knew concealed the gun he had at his hip.
When he saw the state Layna was in, his eyes softened and he sat down beside us on the couch. My mom sat across from us, and no one spoke for a moment.
"I'm sorry about your father," Greene said, breaking the silence.
"Thank you," I replied.
He pulled out his notebook and his pen from his pocket and then he looked over at me, "Tell me what happened?"
Layna explained to him what had happened, clutching my hand tightly in hers. She lifted her shirt to show where she claimed that Timothy had pinched her. There was only a faint red mark in the area she indicated.
"Alright, I'm going to make some calls, see if we can find him. You don't need to worry, Layna, I have this under control," Greene touched her shoulder gently, giving her a smile.
"Mom, do you mind taking her up while I talk to Allan? She can just use the guest room, and I'll come up when we're done here."
My mom nodded so I kissed Layna's forehead, before watching her go up the stairs, clutching on to my mom for support. I turned took look at Greene, who had a grim look on his face as he spoke quietly on his phone.
"Let me guess," I said when he hung up the phone, "Timothy is still there."
"He's been there all night in solitary confinement. They've had a camera on him the entire time, and a guard monitoring the camera. Apparently, there was an incident today and they have him on suicide watch."
I sighed, dropping my head in my hands, "That's what I thought."
"You think she had a nightmare? Or something like that?"
"Greene, no one was in the room. The windows were closed from the inside, and from when she screamed to when I got inside her room, it must have been minutes. And now you're telling me that Timothy was video recorded in the institute this whole time? What else am I supposed to think? He can't just teleport back and forth with no trace."
"I don't know what to tell you, Derek. Has she ever had something like this happen?"
"Never like this; she has nightmares and sometimes panic attacks but she has never had a hallucination. But then again, she went and saw him today for the first time and he freaked out at her. That's quite the shock, especially for her since she had never seen him like that. She was upset after, and we got into a fight so it makes sense."
Greene could sense my frustration and he placed a placating hand on my shoulder, "Listen, there isn't anything else that we can do for tonight. Timothy is locked away like he should be, and everyone is safe. I'll send a squad car out tonight to watch the house, just in case. Just go get some sleep, okay?"
"Thanks, Allan, I appreciate it."
I walked him out, locking the door behind him. Then, for my peace of mind, I went back upstairs to my bedroom. I checked everywhere; under the bed, in the closet, in the bathroom, even behind the curtain. Anywhere that someone could hide I made sure to look.
There was no one there, and no evidence that anyone had ever been there.