Page 103 of The Guru: Shadow

I must get out of here.

I must release the pain.

I must wake up from this nightmare.

26

DEIS

PLAYLIST: ALL WE NEED - LONER DEER

He could sense something wasn’t right. It was like a small, sizzling wave going through his chest.

“Emma.” He tried to reach her, taking in her hand to ground her.

But no reaction came. She just stared into the void with her big, dark green eyes. Her heartbeat was fast, he could see her main artery pumping on her neck, heavy like she had sprinted two miles. Her chest heaving up and down way faster than it should.

Was it another panic attack though? Last time, it was different. He could reach her last time, she still reacted to him, now it was as if she just wasn’t in there anymore, as if she dissociated her whole existence. If so, it would be even better than he could have imagined, and it would make being with her unlimitedly more exhilarating. There was something hidden in her, something dark. And that part was the one he wanted to see. That part was the one he needed. Even thinking of it made his chest prickle with desire.

Suddenly, she jumped up and ripped him out of his thoughts.

“Emma.” He tried again, but she still didn’t react.

“Emma!” now Julie shouted at her, without any effect.

Pushing away her chair, she turned, and when she did, he saw it in her eyes. They had lost their spark, the fire, the depth; they were just dark and empty. Literally dark, like the blackness of the night in the country on a stormy day, and he had seen them like this before. It was the moment when Carl had raped her.

What was it that made her crush from the inside? Was it being seen? Or something happening against her will, out of her control? Or something attached to her moral compass?

And when she walked out of the room, he glanced back to the others in the room.

“I’ll be right back; you all do your magic.”

“Deis,” said Julie, “She is not good in handling stuff happening, she has a past–”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“Like I said, we’ve learned a lot about each other.”

And with it, he went after her. Only problem, she was nowhere to be seen.

“Emma!” he shouted, but it was senseless.

As he rushed through the rooms and to the upper floor, he didn’t see her anywhere.

He then pulled out his phone, checking for the feeds, but she was nowhere to be seen, so he rushed back to the war room.

For a moment, he felt something that must be some sort of fear in him. He had to protect her. He needed her. Not because she had become essential for his plan, the grand finale, but because of what she had become to him. To his soul. To his tattered, cold, hard soul. Never had he cared for anything. But what hung heavy in his stomach right now was fear. Fear of losing her. Because he fucking cared. He, of all people, who cared for nothing much. But her.

Fuck.

“Ed, tell me where she went, I cannot find her.”

Edwards had the feeds up within seconds, tracing her back. She went upstairs, into the kitchens, took a knife and then locked herself inone of the bathrooms. There are no cameras there.

She took a knife.The thought of it – the thought of cutting her, seeing her cut herself – enthralled him like oil poured into fire.

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