My Devoted Demons

Chapter 15 - Love, Love, Love

Caspian

I couldn't describe the relief I felt when some man named Henry bursted through the doors of our cell and told us he'd get us out of here.

My chest felt like someone had shoved a knife into it and was now twisting it in their palm. I couldn't stop coughing. My breaths were audible, and with every intake of breath, a wheeze sounded out into the room.

Atlas and Roman and I all knew why. My asthma.

My whole life, it was something that often got disregarded. My parents had no idea, and my foster mom thought of it as some common, meaningless disease that didn't need much attention. In fact, she had no idea until parent-teacher conferences started up and my teachers would tell her that it hadn't been an issue at all, but then she would be beyond confused about why they'd bring such a thing up. Long story short, I've had asthma my whole life, but I didn't get any kind of medical care for it until I was 13.

When I started at Whitmore, I told the school about it, and then they told the nurse. She was able to get me my first inhaler.

I didn't need to use it that much, though. Because I had grown up needing to deal with it in other ways, I had developed my own coping skills, so it took a while to get comfortable with using it.

For some time, I didn't share much about it with Roman and Atlas; I was afraid they'd think less of me. I was afraid of being vulnerable.

No one had truly cared for me for several years, and I had forgotten what it was like to have someone love you for you. Unconditionally.

One day, during a week where I'd caught a cold going around the school, I'd had an asthma attack, and none of my coping skills were working. I was sitting on the floor of my shared room, legs bent, head between my knees, and coughing uncontrollably with no hope of grabbing my inhaler. All of a sudden, I felt a hand yank my head up by my hair, and I was met with Atlas holding out my inhaler to me.

I didn't even know that he knew about my asthma. I had trselfied to keep it a secret for so long. But apparently, the school had told them about it and had informed them on what to do if I ever had an attack. 

It was that day that I started to slowly open up myself bit by bit to Atlas and Roman. After Atlas had handed me my inhaler that day, I began to realize that maybe I could be vulnerable around them. And as time passed, before any of us knew it, we were like brothers as we went into our senior year together, closer than ever.

Now, I just wished that Atlas could yank my head up again to give me an inhaler. Because I desperately needed one. But I didn't bring mine, and I knew there was no way of easily accessing one. 

Bringing myself back to the present, I looked up at Henry and hoped for a miracle that would present itself in the form of an inhaler.

Henry looked around himself and at both ends of the hallway before quietly jogging over to me to unshackle my wrists.

He was being as silent as he could manage, and as he slid the key into the lock, my eyes were drawn to the insignia burned onto the inside of his wrist.

I was immediately skeptical, and I wanted to call him out on it, but I knew that my body wouldn't be capable of uttering words, and I figured he wouldn't look as panicked as he did if he was just planning on taking us somewhere else.

My hands broke free, rings of red on raw skin, and Henry moved over to Roman to get him out.

I didn't dare try to stand up, but eventually, a set of hands placed themselves on my triceps, and I was pulled to my feet.

My legs were shaky, but I tried to disregard it as Henry nodded to the three of us. He turned and nimbly stepped out of the room, Roman, Atlas, and me trailing behind him.