Two

He awoke with a start, a cold sweat dripping lazily from his brow. His deep brown eyes searched the bedroom around them, frantically trying to discover what had startled him so badly. Nothing was there; the man was completely alone in the room. He sighed and put his head in his hands.

Had it really been a dream that had caused him to awake so quickly? If it had been, a dream about what? The man snorted quietly and shook his head. What couldn’t his dream have been about? So many things had happened to him in his past that he could choose from a variety.

Shaking his head, he glanced at his bedside clock. One-thirty in the morning. Damn. And he had hoped that he would get a full night’s sleep for once. Sighing, the man climbed out of bed and walked to his bathroom, casually flicking on the light switch.

When he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror, he had to resist the urge to vomit. His usually tanned skin was pale, too pale for him to be in good health, and he could see a few of his ribs sticking out from his chest. He didn’t understand how he had gotten so thin. He’d been eating a perfectly normal and healthy diet, maybe even not so healthy at times, and yet he’d lost more weight than he’d gained?

‘You’ve really let work get the best of you this time, haven’t you, Emory?’ the small voice in the back of his head joked.

He attempted to comb the wild auburn black curls that dressed his head with his fingers, trying to ignore the dark circles that lingered beneath his eyes. No matter how much sleep he got, he always looked and felt exhausted. Hell, he could probably sleep for a week and still not feel rejuvenated. Sighing, Emory quit trying to fix his untamable hair and left the bathroom.

He knew that, no matter how hard he tried, he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep again, so he slowly made his way to his study. He opened up his laptop and started it, taking the time to feed his nagging nicotine craving by lighting a cigarette and taking a deep drag from it. Once the computer was loaded and set, he opened his latest novel and set to work.

Just one problem, the words wouldn’t flow. Nothing of any use came to mind for him to write out across the page. The marker in Word seemed to mock him as it flashed on and off and on again. Groaning in annoyance, he paged up to the beginning of his chapter and reread what he had already written.

It wasn’t much of anything, really, but he knew that his editor would have a fit over it once she read it. Emory smiled slightly as he thought about her, the woman that always magically convinced him to publish something that he initially thought was crap. But, she was always right. The books always sold hundreds of thousands and Emory Jacobson was still one of the most well-known novelists in the country.

As he got to the end of his prewritten work, he caught sight of something he knew he definitely hadn’t written. The words sent a chill through his spine.

‘I’m coming, Emory. See me.’

Emory smirked. What moron had hacked into his computer this time? It had probably been one of the many women he had spent cold nights with, just trying to play a joke. But the shiver that went down his spine told him that it was something more. There was something about the words that caused goosebumps to break out all over his body.

With a growl, Emory snapped the computer shut and left his office, lighting yet another cigarette on his way out.

His apartment was dark, but one would still be able to see all of the things that filled it and know that he was pampered. He had everything a man could want and more yet he was mostly unhappy. He longed to feel true happiness but refused to give himself the chance. When one was happy that was when they were the most weak, and he refused to let someone take advantage of him when he was weak.

The only time he allowed himself to show even a brief flash of happiness was around his six-year-old daughter. Mikayla was the light in his life and one remaining reason he had to live and smile. If it hadn’t have been for her, Emory knew that he wouldn’t be alive and breathing.

Emory polished off his cigarette and snuffed it out in the nearest ashtray before heading back to his bathroom. He stopped by Mikayla’s room to check on her on the way. He smiled softly at the sight of her curled up in bed, the teddy bear she’d had since she was three clutched in her arms. With a silent goodnight, he pulled the door closed and went to his bathroom.

In the sanctuary of his bathroom he turned on some cold water and splashed it on his face. When he pulled the towel away from drying his face, he swore that he saw a dark shadow make its way across the mirror. When he turned to see what it was, though, painful coughing overcame his body.

Emory collapsed onto the floor from the force of the coughs, his entire body shuddering fiercely as he struggled to the toilet. He bent over the ceramic basin, holding onto the rim for dear life as blood-laced mucus stained the white surface. His entire body was covered in sweat as the coughs continued to wrack his form, leaving him disabled and struggling for breath on his bathroom floor.

When the coughs finally subsided enough for him to breathe, Emory gasped and lay back on his floor, thanking whoever lived above that he had decided to put marble down in the bathroom. The icy rock felt like heaven against his burning skin. He took great gasping breaths, trying his hardest to refill his oxygen starved lungs. When his breathing finally stabilized and he didn’t feel any new coughs trying to force their ways out, Emory slowly stood up from the floor and made his way back to his bedroom, where he collapsed onto his bed.

He closed his eyes, taking salvation in the cool darkness behind the lids. What the hell was that? He sighed and snuggled down into his bed. Coughing up blood was never good, especially for a heavy smoker like himself, but it was too late to worry about it now. He would take care of it later.

The force of the coughing had exhausted him so, sticking the questions in the back of his mind, Emory let the sweet hands of unconsciousness pull him into their embrace.

o-o-o-o-o

He tossed and turned in his sleep, a cold sweat covering every inch of his bare skin. His sheets stuck to his body as he moved and made his restless slumber all the more uncomfortable. A sharp stinging pain in his abdomen penetrated his dreams, and Michael gasped loudly as he awoke. He expected the pain to be gone the moment he opened his eyes, but it lingered behind.

Michael groaned quietly and pressed his hands to his stomach to try and ease the pain, tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. It was something he had never felt before in his life. It wasn’t a stomachache or anything of the like, but something different. He gasped when he felt something warm and wet graze across his fingertips, and had to stifle a scream at the sight of blood when he pulled them away to examine them. Panic flooded his body when he looked down at his stomach as saw that it was smeared with blood, as were his sheets.

“Asshole…” he growled and let his narrow eyes search his room.

No one was there, but the laugh that was carried on the nonexistent breeze was enough to answer him. He sighed and shook his head and carefully crawled out of bed so he could clean up in the bathroom.

It wasn’t the first time he had been woken in this fashion. The attacks had started after Eleanor’s last spell, but it was the first time any blood had been drawn. And the pain… Gods, the pain. It had been excruciating. Just the thought terrified him. How far was the being willing to go? Would he really kill him just so he could get to Eleanor without anyone to bar his path?

Michael swiped the washcloth across his wounds one last time and examined them carefully. They really weren’t as deep as they felt and the bleeding had mostly stopped. They didn’t need any doctoring, but he grabbed some rubbing alcohol and a cotton pad to clean them just in case. He didn’t know what kind of diseases that thing was carrying, and didn’t want to risk finding out the hard way, either.

As he put the supplies back into his cabinets, Michael came to the decision that he would tell Eleanor of his leave the next day. He had gotten the reply from the board and was ready for everything to go in full motion, especially now that Rayne was willing to hurt him so openly and easily. Eleanor had to know about both the leave and the abuse he was receiving from her nightly visitor. It was only fair.

Sighing, Michael flicked off the light in the bathroom and trudged back into his bedroom. He didn’t bother to put the blankets over him when he collapsed onto his bed. His body felt like it was on fire, and the sheets had blood stains on them anyway.

It wasn’t long until the quiet sound of the wind whistling past his window dragged him back into a dreamless sleep.

o-o-o-o-o

Eleanor casually lay back in her bed, her raven curls splayed out beneath her on the white sheets and her thoughts racing.

Everyone at the hospital had been acting so strange around her lately, and it was really starting to bother her. Doctors and patients alike looked at her in strange ways and it made her felt as if she were being judged or violated. Coincidentally, she hated feeling either.

With a heavy sigh, Eleanor rolled onto her side and pulled her sheets tight around her body. She couldn’t say that she hadn’t gotten any better during her stay at the hospital so far. She’d set an all time record and hadn’t cut or injured herself in any other way for almost an entire month now. Michael was really proud of her for it, too.

A warm feeling filled Eleanor’s soul as she thought about her counselor. She’d come to think of the brunette man as her father and was more than glad that she’d been given to him as a patient instead of one of the other doctors. The other doctors just didn’t seem to care about their patients and, from what she’d heard from others, they really didn’t try to make their patients feel like they cared either. Eleanor didn’t know where she would be if she’d been handed to some stuck up bastard to try and get better.

Every time she saw him, though, she wanted to ask Michael about Rayne and if he had seen the man at all since her breakdown. An icy cold crept across Eleanor’s skin and she pulled the blanket around her tighter. She hadn’t seen even a flash of her angel’s pale skin since the breakdown and it made her worry. If something had happened to him, she didn’t know what she would do. She had come to rely on Rayne almost as much as she relied on Michael.

A quiet knock on her door frame pulled Eleanor out of her thoughts. She turned to see who it was and was surprised to see Michael standing there. A smile automatically bloomed across her face.

“Hi!” she said.

Michael smiled back. “Hey, Ellie,” he said. “Mind if I come in?”

She shook her head. “No, not at all,” she said and sat up, patting her blankets for him to sit down.

Michael strode into the room and took a seat on the edge of her bed. Eleanor watched the man as he ran a hand through his dark brown hair, what she’d found to be a nervous gesture for him, and she furrowed her brow in concern.

“Are you okay, Michael?” she asked. He looked troubled, almost as if he had something he wanted to tell her but didn’t know how to.

The brunette nodded his head and then dropped it to his chest, shaking it as he did so. “I’ve waited too long,” he whispered. “Now I can’t even say it.”

This worried Eleanor even more. She laid a gentle hand on top of her counselor’s and smiled softly. “You’ve waited to long for what?” she asked. “What can’t you say?”

Michael sighed heavily. When he turned his dark green eyes to look at Eleanor, she was surprised to see that he was crying. Tears, of course, automatically filled Eleanor’s eyes and fought to fall.

“What’s wrong, Michael?” she whispered.

He dropped his head again. “I’m leaving in a week,” he whispered. “The hospital is making me leave.”

Eleanor clasped her hands to her face and broke down into sobs. She should have known that something like this was going to happen sooner or later. Everyone that she cared for always ended up abandoning her. Even Keaira hadn’t bothered to visit her for the past week.

“How long have you known this?” she said between sobs. “How long have you been hiding this from me?”

She looked up at her counselor with eyes blurred with tears, silently begging him not to answer her question because she knew that it would only end up hurting her more.

“I’ve known for about two weeks now,” he said.

Inside, Eleanor felt her soul break. The one person she had opened up to and trusted with all of her being had betrayed and lied to her for half a month. So much for her all time record; all Eleanor could think of was getting her hands on a blade or staple or…just some sort of sharp object that would take her pain away.

“Ellie?” Michael whispered, laying a hand on the girl’s shoulder.

Eleanor shrugged him away. “Don’t touch me,” she snapped, looking up at him coldly. “Why did you have to give me false hope? Why did you have to let me get so attached to you?”

Salty tears leaked out of Michael’s eyes as he smiled softly. “That wasn’t all that I wanted to tell you, Ellie. Even though it doesn’t seem like anything can make that better, I have some good news.”

“If you quote anything that has to do with Geico I will kill you?” Eleanor muttered, diverting her eyes to look at the floor.

Michael laughed quietly and shook his head. “No…I didn’t save a bunch of money on my car insurance, but… Well, it took a lot of paper work and convincing on my part, not to mention parental consent, but the board finally broke down and will allow me to… They’re gonna let me take you with me, Ellie,” he said.

Eleanor looked up at the brunette, surprise and happiness slowly mixing with the hate and fear.

“What?” she whispered.

“But that’s only if you want to come,” he said. “I can’t force you to come with me and I can’t force you to leave the hospital. Whether you come with me or stay, it’s all up to you.”

Eleanor scowled and had to restrain herself from slapping Michael. “Quit lying to me!” she yelled. “Do you think it’s funny to see me in pain?”

Michael shook his head violently. “N-no, Eleanor. I’m not lying to you. If you want, you can come with me and live with me. I’ll take care of you from my home, free of charge.”

Stray tears fell down Eleanor’s face as she looked up at the brunet. “Why?” she whispered. “Why take me? Why not someone else?”

Michael smiled. “I know that it may sound strange and absolutely crazy, but I’ve come to care for you as a daughter, Ellie. I don’t want to lose that. And I know that you would never be able to trust anyone again if I were to just leave you behind. The board understood that too, and that’s why you can leave.”

Eleanor beamed, alligator tears of happiness replacing those of sadness. “You’re serious?”

Michael nodded and she tackled the man in a hug, crying into his shoulder. She heard him laugh and he gently began to stroke her hair.

“What do you say, Ellie?” he whispered. “Will you give me a shot?”

Eleanor pulled away from him, still crying and still smiling something fierce. “Do I even have to answer that?’ she asked and hugged him again. “Of course I want to come with you! You’re like the father I wish I had.”

Michael laughed and patted her head gently. “But, it’s still a week away,” he said and she nodded. “Please don’t say anything to the other patients or anything like that, okay? I don’t want anything started.”

Eleanor nodded again. “Of course,” she said with an innocent smile. “Because you’re so popular and all, and everyone would want to go home with you.”

Michael laughed and shook his head, wiping Eleanor’s tears away with his thumb.

“On a more serious note, though,” he muttered, “have you seen Rayne recently?”

Eleanor’s eyes widened and then filled with sadness. “Not since before my breakdown, no. It’s been lonely.”

Michael nodded. “I’m amazed that he’s so kind to you. I’ve been woken by him in the middle of the night several times. He likes to try and scare me by hurting me, but it doesn’t work.”

“He hurts you?!” Eleanor exclaimed. “But…but why? He wouldn’t do that. Not to someone I care about. He wouldn’t do that to me.”

Michael frowned. “I think it’s because I raised my voice at him. I told him to stay away from you because I didn’t want him to hurt you the way he hurt me…”

Eleanor nodded. “He wouldn’t do that to me, Michael. He…he says that he loves me. He wouldn’t hurt me. He can’t!” She slowly closed her eyes. “But…he’s in here right now. I can feel him in the room, watching us, and I can feel his anger and jealousy toward you.” Her eyes snapped open. “He wants to hurt you again.”

Michael smiled. “As long as we’re together, he can’t hurt me.”

Eleanor shook her head and put a finger to her lips, signaling for the brunette to be quiet. “Show yourself, Rayne!” she growled. “You don’t scare us.”

Their eyes scanned the room and instantly caught sight of the dark figure in the corner. Eleanor smiled softly and Michael frowned, wrapping a protective arm around Eleanor’s shoulders.

“Why are you here?” Eleanor queried. “Were you listening to our conversation?”

The figure cocked his head to the side and stepped out of the shadows, revealing the pale-skinned, blue-eyed, and raven-haired apparition that haunted Eleanor and Michael’s dreams. The being smiled, flashing white teeth, and walked toward the bed. Eleanor felt the protective arm around her get even tighter and she pressed herself into Michael’s body.

“What do you want?” she whispered. “Why did you hurt Michael?”

The being laughed. “Because he told me to stay away from what is rightfully mine. I do not like having things I long for taken away from me.”

Eleanor furrowed her brow. “I don’t belong to you…” she muttered. “You’re talking like I’m a possession or something. I’m a person, dammit!”

Rayne shrugged and let another heart-stopping smile grace his lips. “You are a person. You are my Eleanor. My love…”

His voice was so seductive that Eleanor blushed and buried her face in the crook of Michael’s shoulder.

“She will be mine,” she barely heard him growl to Michael. “Whether you like it or not.” And without another word, she felt his presence disappear from the room.

“No!” Michael yelled/whispered. “Come back now!”

Eleanor shook her head and looked up at him. “He can’t hear you,” she whispered. “He’s gone.”

Michael nodded and gently pulled away from Eleanor. “I won’t let him hurt you, Ellie. I’ll protect you. I promise.”

Eleanor shook her head again, crystalline tears falling from her cheeks. She moaned and buried her face in her hands as words failed her.

She heard Michael sigh and his arms encircled her once again, shielding her behind their protective wall. It was then that she knew that with Michael was where she belonged. She deserved to live in a normal, loving home and be happy. She deserved to have the thing she had once thought were out of her grasp.

“Thank you, Michael,” she whispered and pulled away from him.

Michael frowned. “For what, Ellie? I haven’t done anything.”

Eleanor smiled. “No, you’ve done everything. You’ve given me a reason to live, a father, love, hope, strength, protection. I’m alive because of you.”

Michael smiled down upon the raven-haired girl, and Eleanor felt a wave of warmth and happiness overcome her. She couldn’t wait to get out of this hell hole and have the chance to live a normal life, a better life than she had ever experienced before.

o-o-o-o-o

He was covered in sweat as the violent coughing wracked his body. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t move; he was left disabled on his bathroom floor with no one to worry or care about him. He held onto the cold, porcelain toilet bowl before him with a vise-like grip, scared to let go for the fear that he would lose all control over himself if he did.

When there was finally a break in the coughing, Emory fell to the floor with a small thud, gathering the blanket on the floor behind him around his shoulders. Even though he was sweating like a pig, his entire body was shivering viciously and his teeth were chattering. He felt like a melting ice cube.

Emory gasped down breath after breath of air and tentatively tried to stand up on his shaking legs. He collapsed on his first try, but made it the second, grasping onto the counter and anything on his way to keep him up until he collapsed on his bed.

His breathing was still heavy in his chest and wasn’t coming easily. It constantly felt as if the coughing were going to take him over again at any moment. Emory closed his eyes and pulled his blankets tight around his body, making sure every speck of skin was covered.

Silence filled the large apartment and Emory felt himself finally drifting on the edge of unconsciousness.

“How does it feel to want to tear the lungs from your chest, Emory?”

Emory gasped and sat up in bed, his hazy eyes searching his bedroom. “Who’s there? Who are you?”

Laughter. “You know who I am, Emory, auburn-haired fiend.”

Emory squinted his eyes and searched his apartment closer, his eyes widening when he spotted a dark figure in the corner by his bathroom door.

“Who are you?” he yelled again.

More laughter. The figure stepped out of the shadows and revealed a tall, pale-skinned man with shoulder length black hair. He stared at Emory with cold, emotionless blue eyes.

Emory gasped and pulled his knees up to his chest in a sort of defensive position.

The being laughed again. “If I really wanted to hurt you, Emory, you would not be able to stop me.” He took great strides toward the sick man, dangerously getting closer and closer to the edge of the bed.

“St-stay away from me!” Emory yelled.

The man smiled widely, flashing pearly white teeth. “Are you frightened of me, you fiend? I am no different than yourself.”

Emory furrowed his brow and gazed at the being in wonder. “What are you?” he whispered.

He laughed again, shrugging his shoulders slightly. “You will find out in time,” he said, “but for now, just think if me as a being that knows all of your secrets.”

Emory shook his head violently, grasping it in his hands.

‘I’m hallucinating,’ he told himself. ‘This sickness is making me see things.’

“No, no, no. I am very real, Emory,” the man said. “I told you I was coming and I came.”

Emory paled. “It…it was you!” he exclaimed. “You got into my computer and… How did you get into my house?! Did you hurt Mikayla? Because if you did…”

“None of that matters,” the man said. “What does matter, however, is the disease that is eating away at your lungs.”

The raven-haired man was now at Emory’s bedside, and all the sick man could do was stare up at him in fear. ‘Just think of me as a man who knows all of your secrets.’ The words rang in Emory’s skull like a million church bells. Who was this man, and what did he want with him?

“What’s wrong with me?” Emory whispered, his brown eyes staring into the blue ones above him.

The being smiled. “You are sick,” he said with a shrug.

Emory gaped at him. “No shit,” he said. “I’ve spent the past week doubled over a toilet coughing my fucking brains out. What the hell is wrong with me?”

“Anger is your downfall,” the man said. “It keeps you from allowing people to get close to you. But you want people to get close to you more than anything, do you not?”

Emory was seething with anger and his entire body was quaking. “You don’t know anything about me,” he snapped. “You know nothing!”

The man laughed. “Oh, but I know everything about you. I know your truths, I know your lies, I know your faults and I know your strengths. I know your deepest, darkest desires.”

Emory shook his head. “If you’re trying to scare me, it’s not working,” he said.

“You are not a cold, heartless bastard like you pretend to be with all of those women that you sleep with. You want to be with someone more than anything but you are too afraid. But afraid of what?”

Tears were beginning to invade Emory’s eyes as the man before him spewed out truth after truth from the depths of his heart. But he refused to let them fall.

“Oh come on, Emory. Show some emotions for once in your damned life!” the man bellowed. “Cry, scream, laugh…do something!”

He tried his hardest to keep his tears at bay but couldn’t. They fell from his eyes and left burning trails down his cheeks.

“Now, you feel better, do you not?” the being asked, patting Emory softly on the shoulder.

“Do you insist on breaking me?” Emory shouted. “Why won’t you just go away?”

Coughs overcame Emory’s body and he found himself heaving on his bed, his legs pulled up to his chest in the fetal position. The being before him laughed and bent his knees so he could look Emory in the eyes. The blood-laced sputum came up again and splattered across the white sheets of the bed.

“Now that is interesting, is it not?” the being laughed. “You are coughing up blood and sputum but you have yet to visit a doctor?”

“Shut. Up.” Emory gasped between coughs.

The being chuckled and gently pushed Emory’s sweat covered bangs out of his face. He traced the sick man’s face with pale fingers, leaving a trail of cool touches across the searing skin.

“My, my, you are beautiful,” the man whispered, “just as my Eleanor and Michael are. They are truly beautiful people, as you will see before long.”

Emory gazed up at the man before him with his unfocused eyes; the coughing subsided for the moment.

‘Eleanor and Michael.’ He thought. ‘Why do I feel as if I’ve heard those names before?’

The man chuckled softly. “You do know them already, Emory. The memories will come back to you in time.”

The cold hand was taken away from Emory’s face and he closed his eyes, longing to feel the icy comfort again. When he opened them once more, he was alone.

Emory sat up in his bed, his eyes wide and his breathing racing.

“Hello?” he yelled. “Where are you?”

When there was no answer, he swung his unstable legs over the edge of the bed and carefully walked out of his bedroom. The first place he ran was Mikayla’s bedroom. He sighed in relief when he saw that she was still asleep and perfectly unaware of what had happened in her father’s room. With a small smile, Emory closed the door and returned to his bedroom and into his bathroom.

The cold marble tiles felt amazing under his hot feet but they chilled the rest of his body to the point of shivering. He splayed his hands on the counter before his mirror and gazed up at his reflection. What he saw almost gave him a heart attack.

He looked perfectly and normally healthy. His skin was lightly tanned like normal, he looked as if had gotten a good night’s sleep every night for the past week; the only small hint of his sickness was the weight he had lost. Even then, he still looked healthy. He felt anything but.

Fear overcoming him, Emory made his way back into his bedroom and crawled into bed, ignoring the blood and mucus splattered across the sheets. He could take care of that in the morning.

‘Who are you?’ he thought. ‘Is it your fault that I’m sick?’

Emory closed his eyes and let the blissful nothingness of unconsciousness take him over. But even in his dreams he was haunted by the faces of the pale man, a young girl, and a brunette man.

TBC…