Free Me

It’s been 6 months since I found Adryan dangling from the skylight of that damned townhouse. He was bound with thick, abrasive rope that burned his wrists from the friction and he hung in the air dangling from his hands. The room I found him in still haunts my dreams and sometimes even if I’m just closing my eyes, I find myself back there.

Every second of that day was my fault and I’m going to have to spend the rest of my life living it down.

The building he was held in still hasn’t sold despite being on the market for six months now, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s the story that everyone was told that is the reason for it. Nobody knows what it was or how it did it, but the legacy still goes strong and nobody dares to make the purchase.

I don’t know how the public could believe that what I did was an animal attack, but I suppose people see what they want to see. I’ve never felt the need to correct them and Adryan doesn’t seem to care either. Everything else is long gone now and the hefty profits just sit away in a bank, collecting interest for his family name.

I’ve been re-visiting that room in my mind for far too long now and I couldn’t take it any longer. To the point where last night I decided to pay a visit, only to see if that will make it stop as anything is worth a try at this point.

A part of me was hoping that I got the details wrong, that it isn’t etched into my brain as well as I suspected it was, but I guess I’ll never know now. The stains on the musty carpet have faded and the mouldy wallpaper has finally peeled away from the dampness of the building, but that’s all that’s been left behind.

In the days between Adryan’s recovery and the listing, Nolan’s contacts had gutted the place. There’s nothing left to indicate the blood that was spilt from both of my friends and there are no weapons or remnants of anything other than a simple family home.

I expected as much, in fact, I knew as much from the sale pictures but somehow it still shocked me to see it all in person.

I don’t regret staying by Adryan’s side. I don’t think there was anything in the world that would have stopped me from making sure that he was okay, but a part of me still rages when thinking that all of this was happening while I was sitting in a room, waiting for him to wake up. The people who walked these halls might have had some idea of where Nolan is hiding and now there is nothing left behind to lead me to him.

On the streets, we haven’t heard so much as a whisper about the Lord of Ashes since that night. Almost as if speaking the name is bad luck and will result in summoning the ghost of its owner.

From this it always makes me wonder exactly how much Nolan managed to lie to me when blaming Hank for his dirty deeds. There’s got to be a reason why the fear his name invokes is so strong, and there are plenty of loopholes he could have used when answering me. I mean, I doubt he ever raised a hand to anyone himself, not when there were people that could do it for him.

Crime has gone down since he’s disappeared, and I always figured that I would feel better about that fact… but I don’t.

Just because one organisation has fallen doesn’t mean that everyone else has turned good, it just means they’re biding their time and waiting. I know dark souls well enough to know that they can’t just stop what they do and it’s only a matter of time before the next person tries to claim the throne.

At least with Nolan around they were easier to trace. They had a false sense of security and felt untouchable under his protection. Now that he’s seen as dead it seems to have shocked them. Reminded them that they can actually die and that they should be more careful. It’s made my job harder.

Before I found Nolan in that estate I was just searching. I was trying to find the person destined to break my curse but I suppose now that I know that he’s nowhere in reach, it just means that I’m trapped.

I am stuck trailing all of the clues that I can find to get closer to his inner circle, hoping that one of them will finally have a lead, and to be honest it feels like I’m starting all over again. Only without as much hope now and most of the amusement has been taken from it.

I was so close to breaking free. So close that it hurts and if I didn’t hate him so much I’d admire the catch-22 given to me the day he escaped. It was genius, even if he didn’t plan it on purpose.

There’s not a chance I would have been able to help Adryan and David without my powers, I know that and I suppose it comforts me to know that I made the right choice. I’d rather think of the room haunting me than to think of the body I could have regained and the freedom I could have felt. Maybe that’s why it’s in my mind so much, better to use it as a distraction than to leave the space open for the other thoughts to set in.

None of us seem to want to talk about it when we’re together and I think it’s because we each have our own demons to fight after that day. Mine didn’t seem so big in those initial weeks, but they crept up on me and after a few months I realised how desperately I needed to move out.

At first, it didn’t bother me because we were close and I could keep an eye on him. Adryan was healing well and I slept easy knowing that I could hear if anyone broke in or if anything else happened. We’d go out for meals, order a takeaway, play board games and do whatever else you do to pass the time with a roommate. But it was after Elisabeth’s funeral that something changed.

The second I started hunting again while also knowing that the targets weren’t going to break the curse, I became the monster that I always knew was inside of me. That night I lost control of all of the pent-up anger toward Nolan. I let the sadness and the fear take over me, and in that moment I felt my last tether on humanity start to loosen.

It felt like a tightrope that had been pulled too far before finally groaning and starting to tear. In those moments it feels like it is inevitable and I wonder if this was what it was always meant to be like with this curse.

Each night I tell myself that it’s only for information, that it’ll be different this time and that I’ll be able to walk away when I have what I need. But then I remember that estate with the feeling of my heart breaking in two, and the next thing I know I’m cleaning their blood off my hands.

I couldn’t look at Adryan after that happened, not for a full week and at times I’m still stuck in that cycle of self-hatred. To the point where I’d rather sleep on the streets than come home to him after a night like that. He’s too pure for me and part of me imagines my darkness seeping through to him as I sleep, staining him just for being around me.

I had told him I was moving out at the end of dinner one evening and the look on his face still hurts me. He looked as though I had punched him in the gut and it was almost enough for me to take it back. Almost.

“Why?” He’d asked quietly but not meekly and I’d swallowed hard when trying to find the words.

“I need space.” I’d replied and it wasn’t exactly a lie, I was just omitting a big part of the truth.

Once he’d pushed aside the hurt, he’d then tried to convince me to stay. He offered to buy more plants, do up the bathroom, even give me the main bedroom and it hurt me to know that he wasn’t understanding. I didn’t want to have to say anything further as the shame was too much and we spent almost an hour dancing around the truth of it.

In the end I couldn’t take it any longer and told him that it was no use and that I’d be out of there by end of the week before walking into my room and slamming the door.

I’d already been looking at apartments so the rushed deadline didn’t worry me. I had my eyes on a place on the other side of the park where I was close enough to be able to still look out for him, but have the space I needed to recover. Too often have I had to walk down the hallway opposite his room while still covered in the blood of my victims, and even a week seemed like a long time left to stomach it.

When I awoke the next morning I almost stepped on the little box that he had left in front of my door. It was a small blue box wrapped neatly in a pink ribbon and when I picked it up I felt a little hinge on the side that was rather unusual. To my surprise I didn’t need to remove anything, I just needed to flip it open like an old phone and inside of it, there was a golden key.

My curiosity was in full force by the time I had walked into the living room, raising it in question and the grin on his face was like a breath of relief. I hated having to hurt him the night before with my news, and seeing him recovered was like a weight off my shoulders.

“What’s this?” I asked, while sitting down next to him and he handed me a cup of coffee like he usually did on a Sunday morning.

“A compromise.” He smiled at me with a wicked gleam in his eye and he planted a pile of paper onto my lap as if it was an answer.

He’d done the same when giving me my job so I assumed it was something for me to look at as part of my role as the head of security. I look at papers for him all the time and while he usually presented me with work during the week, it wasn’t completely out of character to share my opinion on a weekend.

When reading through it though, I swear my heart stopped. At first, the words didn’t even register and I had to do a double take to recognise the name and address on the lease that I was holding. In less than 12 hours, Ardryan had managed to buy me the apartment next door.

“Are you insane?” I’d almost yelled as I stood up, making all of the papers go flying.

His grin only widened at this and he lay back in his seat with his hands behind his head.

“You said you wanted to move out.” He reminded me with a cocky voice and I tilted my head towards him while biting my lip to try and keep my reaction inside.

“You do realise that you pay me money right? I can afford to get my own place.” I’d said more in shock than any other tone at this point.

“You deserve a bonus, it’s almost Christmas.” He replied casually and I still had no control over my face.

Christmas wasn’t for another few months but from the papers I had just read, there was no use in arguing. The amount had been transferred, the key now in my hand and the bastard had even forged my signature to put it all in my name. My name.

I’d never owned my own place before, never expected to and it felt strange. Sometimes it still does when I walk through the front door knowing that each and every one of these walls are my property and there’s nothing anyone can do to come and take it away from me.

“Next door?” I’d asked after a pause, trying to process it all.

“You didn’t specify how much space.” He mocked and that was that.

It wasn’t as far as I anticipated, but it gave me what I needed to be able to hide away from him when at my worst, but maintain the only relationship that’s keeping me going.

Sometimes I wonder if he really did understand why I needed to leave and it’s like he knows what’s better for me more than I do.