Greys IV - Chains

Chapter 10 - This Isn't Real

Malachi's limp body sent a bolt of panic through me. My second Shift lurched and I dove forward toward him on instinct. I wrapped myself around him, every sharp edge and dark shade of my nature prepared to protect him whatever the cost. I pulled his shoulders up onto my lap as my Gifts poured from me, latching onto him, his mind, and whatever he was experiencing. And whether it was his partial allegiance, our shared blood or shared parentage, it was as simple as breathing to move into his mind, to pull his experience, to not only see and feel what he was but help carry it for him.

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It wasn't like anything I had ever seen in my visions or through my Gift before. It was dark and cold and wet, then bright and warm and dry, night and then day, inside and out. I saw different scenes, different faces, all in rapid, connected flashes. It was disorienting, dizzying, and draining like I was looking through multiple minds, flipped through them like fluttering pages. But I dove further, searching for something solid, something that wasn't shuttering past like an old movie reel.

The scent of blood and sweat, familiar and smokey rushed past as electricity ran over my skin in a strike of ecstasy that caught the air in my throat, then, in quick succession, a flash of tattooed skin on a scarred wrist. I grabbed the glimpse of Malachi and tumbled into it like a free fall. And then I saw him, my brother, in a dark room, a stone cell that faded into shadows at the corners.

He was pulled apart and bent at unnatural angles like a broken doll. Blood leaked from the corners of his mouth, his nose, his ears, and his caved chest barely lifted and fell where he laid. It made my stomach turn, bile bubbling up, but it wasn't real, I knew it. It couldn't be, and I would make him know it too.

I ran for him, skidding to my knees at his side, his blood wet and cold beneath my legs. His eyes met mine, but no recognition lit their dull, brass depths. Instead, a deep fear, a terror of death, of what was waiting for him on the other side met me. This was the Collector's final attempt, to break Malachi while he was still his so he could bring him back as his true servant, so he could strip him of every future choice. But it wouldn't work. I had lost James, lost my heart, my other half, I wouldn't lose the only family I had too.

"Malachi, wake up! This isn't happening, he's in your head. This isn't real!"

My voice broke, too much emotion filling it, aftershocks of still-raw events colliding with the horror of seeing Malachi hurt and his empty eyes.

"No," he tried to shake his head weakly, "I'll always be here...his."

His voice was slurred and slow, wet and gurgled around the frothing blood at the edges of his paper-pale lips. But recollection flickered in his eyes after he spoke.

"No. He can't hurt you, not your real body." I knew I was lying, memories of Malachi's torture when I dove into his dream last time played behind my eyelids. "This is in your he-"

"You can't be here. He'll find- he'll..."

He was losing consciousness from his injuries, and that alone terrified me, knowing how much he was used to, how much he could take. But he didn't have to anymore, because he wasn't alone anymore. I pulled from him, his fear and desperation, his hopelessness, and then, I gritted my teeth, sealed my lips, and pulled his pain.

The physical feelings were deep and sharp, burning and numbing all at once, but it was the dread and despair that clouded me, joining the pain and making me want to surrender. It grew panic in my chest before it radiated out to every inch of me. I only pulled a fraction before it had already filled me, before there was nowhere else for it to go, before the panic pushed in on my chest and I couldn't breathe. But I knew what this was, and what it wasn't. I knew my body was back in my charred bedroom, in the Vault, safe, and that knowledge kept my head above the thrashing waves trying to drown me, to pull me under so they could solidify into ice above my head and trap me.