© Amber Kalkes 2014
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"Coma White" By Marilyn Manson
Twelve+
In retrospect it was a bad idea to do what I did but I couldn’t stop myself. My memory hadn’t come back and Jeff, the orderly came in and touched me. So I did what any person who is being touched by someone he or she don’t know would do. I kicked him in the nuts. Not so smart on my part but what’s done is done.
That was yesterday morning.
It’s now evening the next day and I’m still restrained to my bed drugged out of my mind. My legs and wrists are held to my bed but the sin under the restraints is rubbed open, bruised and sore. I can barely keep my eyes open from all the sedatives in my system and my room smells like piss. I haven’t been given a bathroom break so what else were my options?
My mouth is as dry as my desert and as I smack my lips together I can feel them stick from cottonmouth. Absently I note that it’s a side effect from the drugs but mostly I focus on trying to stay conscious rather than that. Swaying my head to the side I stare through half lidded eyes at the silhouettes of the branches as they plaster themselves on my blank white walls.
Then, in a daze, I notice something change in the atmosphere.
“Please not now.” I whimper thinking it’s a ghost or a shade.
The second night in this room the ghost of an old woman, who seemed to have been patient at Hazelwood in the Victorian era, if her outfit was anything to judge by had visited me. Her eyes were colorless and she seemed to have been starved to death she was so frail looking as she peered back at me. She kept asking me why I was in her room and no matter what I said she just kept repeating that question.
Nearly drove me insane, pun not intended.
“Fuck.” I hear a voice murmur.
Fighting to keep my eyes open I see a blur approach me from a darkened corner of my room. Whimpering I move away from them as far as my restraints allow me to but it doesn’t do much good. Then something touches me, making faint shocks of pleasant electricity hum over my skin.
Gideon.
“H-how—“
He shushes me before kneeling beside the bed. His cool hands run over my hair making me chase his hand with my face. I sigh deeply and close my eyes to the feel of his touch. My breathing begins to even out and soon I’m asleep again.
+
My eyes crack open before slamming closed again at the feel of burning sun in my eyes. Dread grips my stomach as I realize that last night was probably a dream, a good yet pathetic dream but a dream all the same. I mean who the hell dreams of their ex-whatever he is, coming to rescue them?
Not a normal person.
Opening my eyes again I expect to find blank white walls, an uncomfortable bed and a barred window. Instead I see large lace curtained window, golden colored walls and a queen sized bed with an iron rod headboard. Sitting up I’m even more surprised to realize that I can in fact sit up. Looking down at my wrists I see they are bandaged. Glancing down a ways I see the same treatment has been done on my ankles.
How did I get here?
And where exactly is here?
“Seven days.”
I snap my head towards the sound of the voice only to find an exhausted looking Gideon sitting in a brown wicker chair across from the bed. He’s dressed in light colored jeans and days old wrinkled white t-shirt with a black and gray flannel shirt on top, rolled to the elbows. His amethyst eyes have dark rings under them and his usually rosy lips look as pale as the rest of his face, which seems more sallow then before.
“Where?” I croak out.
“My sister’s apartment.” He says simply before gesturing around him, “This is her room.”
“Lila’s?”
He shakes his head before titling it as he studies me, “Edie’s.”
I nod and look down at my knotted hands in my lap. I realize, with a blush, that I’m not in my hospital gown anymore, the one they stuck me in for easier access for the needle happy nurses. Instead I’m in a pair of baggy gray sweatpants and an equally baggy black shirt that smells strongly of Gideon’s apple and cinnamon scent.
Why am I wearing his clothes?
“You were gone for seven days.” He says suddenly making me jump a little before elaborating. “I tried at first to do what you wanted, not to contact you again. I lasted barely twelve hours before I snuck into your room. You weren’t there of course and all your shit was missing as well. I tried to reach out to you mentally but I couldn’t catch your brain signature anywhere.”
I lick my lips trying not to let my speeding heart and blossoming joy show.
He didn’t listen to me, I think dreamily; he wanted to find me.
“Of course I wanted to find you.” Gideon snorts before running a rough hand down his face, “Don’t you remember me telling you I’d chase you down if you ran?”
“I didn’t run.” I whisper, my ravaged throat protesting.
He glares at me, “Yes, I’m aware.”
I dip my head to avoid that withering look, “I’m sorry.”
“Here” He grunts shoving a glass of water abruptly in my face, “I know you’re thirsty.”
Swallowing thickly I take the glass and put my chapped lips to the rim before succumbing to the pleasure of the cool liquid running down my throat. When half the glass is empty I shakily go to place it on the table but miss making it nearly tumble to the floor. Closing my eyes I wait for the sound of glass to break but it never comes. Peeking an eye open I’m shocked to see it floating mid-air but with something similar to black smoky tendrils holding it.
“Wha—“
“Shadows.” Gideon says smoothly before coming to sit on the end of the bed looking pretty casual despite the odd situation, “I can control them. Both Lila and I can.”
As the shadows place the glass on the table properly I watch with wide eyes as the tendrils come towards me. Perhaps still in shock, maybe too worn out to do much else I sit pretty still as one tendril caresses my cheek. Shocks spark across my skin making my stomach go crazy with butterflies and my heart rate speed astronomically.
Closing my eyes I shiver as the shadows begin moving through my hair, over my neck and all over my face in tender little caresses and movements. When they pull back I open my eyes to see Gideon staring at me intensely from the foot of the bed as they move back towards him. I watch, as they seem to fade into the tips of his fingers and move down the veins of his forearms before disappearing from sight.
“What else can you do?” I ask him, a little more than awed.
He smirks slightly, “Lots of things.”
Nodding I look at my hands before spotting my hospital bracelet, “You’ll have to bring me back you know. My father will be upset to see I’m missing.”
“I really couldn’t give a shit what your father thinks.” Gideon snaps before rising off the bed, “And your not going back there.”
“But…I have to.”
He gapes at me, “Do you want to go back there? Do you even realize the state I found you in?”
“Yes.” I whisper.
“And you still insist on going back?”
“I—“
“You don’t get it do you?” He asks, sounding shocked, “You have no fucking clue about what we are to each other do you?”
I frown up at him, “What are you talking about?”
He grimaces before shaking his head, “We’ll discuss that later.”
“Gideon, what—“
“You are not going back to that hell hole.” He growls out, running a clawed hand through his hair, “Over my dead body.”
“But my father—“
“It’s done.” He snaps, “Your never going back there again.”
“Gideon.” I sigh, “You can’t just tell me where to go or what to do. My father has control of everything and I can’t just—“
“I’ll take care of you.”
I snort, “I’m not some damsel. I don’t need you to save me.”
“Really?” He asks with raised coal colored eyebrows, “You were tied to a bed, laying in your own piss and so drugged you couldn’t even speak without it coming out slurred and unintelligible.”
I let out a shaky sigh, “That’s not the same.”
“Bullshit.”
“I don’t need—“
Gideon suddenly grips my face in his hands, “You’re not going back, Tallulah. I can’t allow you to go back to that. I will never for the rest of my life get that image of you the way I found you out of my mind. It is fucking seared into my god damn mind forever to torture me for not finding you faster.”
“Why didn’t you?” I ask softly.
Gideon sneers at the floor, “He may be a no good piece of shit but your dad sure knows how to cover his tracks well. I had to get Orin to do some threatening and bodily harm to get anything done while I was busy tracking you.”
“Bodily harm?”
Gideon smirks a bit before shrugging, “I had to get him to give up control on your trust somehow. It’s all in your name now, everything has been sighed over to you and before you ask, don’t worry your dads alive. Though he does have his left arm in a cast. Having it nearly ripped out of the joint will do that.”
“H-He signed everything to me?” I stutter out in shock.
He wouldn’t do that!
“Did would and he did.” Gideon assures me apparently digging into my mind, “No man is immune to violent bargaining. Especially that pansy ass.”
“So…I’m free?”
Free…that word seems so foreign on my tongue.
Gideon’s face softens as he comes to sit beside me on the bed, his large pale hand cupping my face in the palm, “Yes. Your free now.”
“Then…” I start and frown at him, “Then why did you offer to take care of me?”
“Because I will.” He replies softly, pinching a piece of my greasy hair between his fingers. “I will always take care and protect you.”
“W-Why?”
His eyes snap to mine and seem to swirl with some emotion I can’t name, “Because you are everything to me.”
“But you hardly know me.” I point out, my frown deepening. “How can I mean anything to you?”
Gideon smiles softly at me before running his pointer finger across the length of my cheekbone. I close my eyes at the sensations his touch elicits from my body. Comfort, warmth, security, lust, and even a hint of…love all fill my veins and mind as he continues to touch me. Love? My brain skids to a halt. No, no, no. I can’t be in love with Gideon. I don’t even know what love is. How the hell can I be in love?
“You feel this?” He whispers.
I nod and bit my lower lip.
“This is how I know you mean everything.”
I slowly open my eyes and frown, “What do you mean?”
“You’re my soul mate.”
Uh…
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DUN DUN DUN....Gideon to the rescue! Thought I'd double update for you amazing people so I hope you feel EXTRA special :}
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