Ruelle - Madness

We stayed where we were for a moment, each watching the other, gauging the others' reaction, before James made a first slow step toward the door, his hand still raised, like he was trying to not spook a wild animal.

"I'm not feeling well. I need to go."

I paused, not sure if I was understanding him correctly.

"Are you alright?" I asked lamely, my thoughts thick, my Shift begging to be let out again, as if it was the only part of me that could think clearly.

As I watched him, I saw that he wasn't. The hand stretched out before him trembled slightly, and though his face was bare, valiantly attempting to look empty, the muscle in his jaw was working itself over and over, ticking like a clock.

"Shift. It will help," I commanded, as if my Shift was speaking through me, even without being called.

James began to shake his head.

"I need to leave."

His voice was cold as he replied, seeming to finally have regained control of itself. I felt it like a slap, chasing away whatever of the last five minutes still lingered. My anger flared again, fueled by shame and a gamut of other emotions I couldn't quite name.

A knock echoed through my room, but neither of us made a move for the door. A second later Ailech swung it open regardless, slowing his stride only slightly when he saw I had a visitor.

"Socio."

Ailech dipped his head in mock respectful greeting before turning to me, but I hardly heard his next words. I was still watching James, who's eyes had lagged behind Ailech upon his entrance, before breaking away entirely and staring in blatant horror at one corner of my room, as if an invisible demon was casually leaning on my wall. His eyes darkened from midnight blue to the black of a cold, winter evening. He dropped his arm after a second more, standing back on his heels as he raised his head to it's too-high position, the arrogant one I had seen so many times, but it was a weak act.

He squared his shoulders to the far wall, a simple shift of his weight, normal maybe to anyone else, but I could see, I knew his muscles were coiled beneath their casual front, as if for a fight. He still stared into the empty corner of my room, a sneer pulling up his lips, revealing just the slightest sliver of his gleaming, razored teeth. I ignored Ailech as I spoke through him to James.

"Are you alright?" I repeated.

He didn't even look at me, didn't change his gaze in the slightest as he replied.

"Yes. I'm perfectly fine."

I had never heard his voice so flat when he was Shifted, so clipped and empty when there was clear life in his eyes, or at least our version of life. But the voice he answered with was as gray as granite, devoid of anything, everything. Ailech turned to James at his reply too, peering at him with a furrowed brow, before glancing to the corner that still held James' rapt attention, then to me, before landing back on James.

"Why are you here?"

James' question broke the silence, but it wasn't directed at Ailech, who I shared a look with at James' odd behavior. Not just odd, crazy. He was acting insane, like he was seeing someone that wasn't there, hallucinating someone. And then the icy creep of dread spread down my body, from the crown of my head all the way to my naked feet on the floor, freezing me in place. It made sense. It all made so much sense.

My heart stopped, my chest squeezing much too tightly, my breath stuck somewhere at the back of my throat along with my voice. My pair was insane. He was broken, not just in body or spirit, but in his mind, something not even Ailech could fix, not even Abby.

"Get out," James spit through his teeth at the empty corner, his hands tightly balled by his sides now.

The room fell into a fragile hush, brittle with my own fear, my own dread, and then James was on his hands and knees, one arm wrapped around his stomach. His back arched as whatever unseen pain gripped him and the arm supporting him collapsed. His forehead bent to the floor like he was deeply bowing, before his hands found the sides of his head and his fingers knotted in his hair, a scream escaping him that was worse than anything I had heard in Cordelia's lesson.

Ailech reacted first, on his knees by my pair's side within the breadth of a second, but James was just as quick. His head raised just enough for his eyes to meet Ailech's, obsidian gems looking from behind black hair wet with sweat. He removed one hand from its grip on his head and lifted it towards Ailech with a roar I had never heard come from a human, though in that moment, he wasn't one. He looked every part the monster from which he had come. The force of whatever power he pushed at Ailech sent him tumbling backwards until he struck the edge of the bed I was still cemented next to.

Finally, my mind caught up with what was happening and my body responded. My Shift ripped from me, and for the first time ever, it hurt, it ached, stretched like it had been pulled too far, sprained in some way. I ignored the pain, breathing out every strength name I could remember as I shot across the room, sinking to the floor behind my pair and wrapping my arms around him. I pinned his hands to his sides, crossing them around his center, forcing his body to stay crouched beneath my own.

I looked to Ailech, who was dazed, but already staggering to his feet, stumbling toward us. I didn't have to say anything for him to know what I needed him to do. I didn't care how he did it, I didn't even know how he could, I only knew I needed him to make James stop, to make him sleep or pass out, anything to calm him, to help him.

James was struggling against me, and for the first time I was thankful for his slight frame, his wasted body. He was still strong, even for a Darkling, but I was stronger with heaven's names and my desperation pumping through my veins. He threw his head back and Ailech's eyes widened at whatever he saw in my pair's face, but he didn't run. He reached out his hands, laying his palms on James' head even as the monster beneath me bucked and writhed, fighting to be free.

I could feel the spasms of whatever pain he was feeling rip through him, feel his entire body tense and twitch beneath me as I held him down, each shiver of his agony as Ailech closed his eyes and silently wove whatever magic he could over my pair.

With one last yell of pain and anger or fear, James stilled. I loosened my hold on him, letting him gently slip to the floor as I forced my Shift from me. I looked to Ailech once colors flooded my vision again, but he was staring down at James, a mixture of horror and revulsion clear on his face. I didn't want to look, to see whatever Ailech did, but my eyes followed his anyway, until they landed on my pair's face. I held back the noise that tried to climb my throat and instead crawled the short distance needed until I could reach his face, so I could more plainly see what had affected Ailech so.

I wiped away the dark burgundy bleeding from my pair's peacefully closed eyes, feeling it like fire on my fingers, burning and alive. It was gritty and slick like oil, but too warm, too hot, too much like blood. Something in it was too familiar, too close, and it made somewhere deep behind my ribs quiver and crack. I fell back from the unconscious body I didn't even recognize, frantically wiping at my tank top, trying to clean my hands of the stain.

I had seen it before, on my pair, trickling from him, like his pain was seeping out, like he could only house so much of it and could no longer contain it within himself. I had seen it in the cemetery where everything fell apart, where everything had been torn and destroyed. His eyes had bled the same color, these dark tears, as he fought Juda, as he executed him.

I had pushed the memory far from my mind, hadn't thought of it a single time, wouldn't let myself, couldn't. But now, seeing it again, with this new realization, that my pair wasn't just a Half, but a lost one, rapidly slipping into insanity, it made the memory of the cemetery pulse through my mind, snapshots, still frames of what I had seen, what I had felt, what I wished I could forget.

I pushed away, moving further back from James where he laid. Ailech tried to speak to me but I could only hear my own heartbeat pounding in my chest, my blood rushing through my veins, too hot, too fast. I was out the door before Ailech could try to stop me, running from my pair for the second time since his arrival.