Page 12 of Alan

4

Emelie

The cell, if it could be called that, had no bars. There were no visible means of keeping me locked inside. No walls, no anything. Just what looked like empty space all around me.

And yet when I moved too far from the little chair they had given me to sit on, I walked straight into an invisible wall or forcefield or something. Whatever it was, my nose was still sore from smacking into it.

My guard for the moment, the one with the big, sorrowful eyes, had at least tried to make it look like she wasn’t laughing at me when I did it. She failed. It was pretty obvious how funny the whole thing was to her.

“What’s your name?” I asked at one point, since there was no barrier that wouldn’t allow me to talk. The invisible walls allowed sound to go through them, even if nothing solid could.

She didn’t answer right away, sitting with her back to me with a book in her lap. So, witches read books. I would never have guessed it. Then again, in a cave, what else was there to do?

I stood, then took slow, careful steps to the edge of my cell with both palms raised in front of me to catch the walls before my face did. At least I learned from my mistakes.

“Hello? Please? Come on. I’m here totally by accident, I don’t understand anything that’s going on. The least you can do is speak to me. At least let me know I’m not all alone here.”

Never would I have guessed that being alone would someday be a problem for me. I had spent the last four years working out of my living room, hardly ever leaving my apartment except to pick up groceries and the occasional bottle of wine. I would sometimes meet up with Keira, too, at her apartment or to get a slice of pizza when she wasn’t in training or doing her bounty hunter thing.

The outside world had never held much of an appeal, and the people in it even less so.

“Are you seriously going to ignore me? You’re going to leave me in this cell and spend the rest of my life pretending I’m not here? When I didn’t do anything to deserve this?” My palms touched the invisible walls, and I honestly felt the sensation of touching something solid. If I were looking in from the other side, I would’ve seen my flesh flatten out, like I was pressed against glass.

Her head moved a little, turning toward me so I caught her quarter profile.

“I’m not supposed to socialize with you,” she whispered. “It would be better if you kept quiet and waited for Selene to come back. I’m sure she will have more questions for you when she does. Best you save your strength for that.”

“Save my strength?” I asked, not bothering to whisper as she did. “Why? She seemed fairly nice before. A little… overpowering, but nice.”

“You do not know her,” she replied. “She is fair. Honest. But harsh when the need arises.”

“There is no reason for her to treat me harshly,” I argued. I could feel panic starting to rise in my chest again, no matter how much I struggled to keep it at bay. “I didn’t do anything wrong, damn it.”

“That does not mean there is no need to deal with you.” She turned away, back to her book.

There went my panic again, bigger and stronger this time. I felt it overtaking me and was thrown back into the middle of a million memories. A million times I was bullied, or I found out I’d have to go to another home, or I’d hear the beginnings of an argument between my foster parents or them and one of the other kids in the house.

The cause of the panic didn’t matter. It was all the same in the end. My breath would start to shorten, my palms would go cold and clammy, my heart would race so fast I was sure I’d have a heart attack because of it. My head would start pounding, my eyesight would go blurry.

I was able to control it in the woods before it got out of hand, but this was bigger. Stronger.

I started to hyperventilate.

She didn’t move. Not that she would help me, anyway. I was alone. All alone. With no one to help or care. I would never see home again, I would never see Keira again. I was never meant to have a good life, a normal life. People like me ended up in caves with witches, in cells with invisible walls.

My chest started to hurt. I had to sit down. I turned and staggered back to the chair but missed, knocking it over and sending it skidding into the invisible wall while I hit the floor.

That got her attention. She dropped the book and came over to me, standing on the other side of the wall. “What are you doing?” she asked, chewing her lip.

“I…can’t…” I put a hand on my chest, panting. “Can’t…”

“Are you asthmatic?” she asked. “There was no inhaler in your pack.”

I shook my head. “Panic. Panic.”

I curled up, head between my knees, fighting for every breath of air. It didn’t matter what she thought, if this came off as an attempt at getting pity or tricking her. I was suffering.

She must have finally come to that conclusion, since she was on the floor at my side in a minute. I didn’t have it in me to flinch away when her hands came into contact with my temples.

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