Devour my Soul

“Of course he loves you, are you insane?”

Lauren was beginning to snap my last chord. With her flawless hair, and smooth skin. She was practically a walking porcelain doll, but it was her voice that drove me up the wall. It was almost whiny, and yet womanly all at the same time. Still, I wouldn’t deny that I enjoyed the company. To have someone I could talk to about my ruined love life.

“I never said he didn’t love me,” I muttered bitterly, scratching at a non-existent mark on the bench. “He just doesn’t want me around. I’m a burden.”

Lauren’s brow rose, a smirk clear on her face as she crossed her arms over her chest. The effect did more than it normally would have, simply because I was slouched on a stool at the breakfast bar. Lauren stood proudly in the centre of the kitchen, playing her dominant stance for all it was worth.

“Did he actually say that?” she asked slyly, and I cringed. Sure, I may have expanded the truth a little, but I could only guess what it was that was going through his mind.

“Well, not in those exact words –” I began before the girl annoyingly cut me off.

“Smellie, stop making up lies,” she moaned. “You’ve gone and blown this completely out of proportion. I bet he thinks you’re a mental case now.”

Humiliation swelled inside of me as I stared at Lauren, mortified. The thought hadn’t crossed my mind that he might think I was crazy. My hands were flat against the granite bench, pressing into it so hard that I thought I might melt into it. I hoped I did. I never wanted to show my face to the world again.

“How would you know?” I huffed in a panic. “I don’t see him trying to contact me.”

Lauren rolled her eyes and slapped my hand, effectively drawing out a cry of pain. “And you say you couldn’t care less,” she mused furtively with a shake of her head. “Anyway, the reason grammy palmed me off to you is coz lover boy has his guards watching you twenty-four seven.”

I could only stare stupidly at the girl, earning another slap against my hand. I rubbed at the fading pain affectionately. “Watching?” I asked dumbly.

She smirked, giving me a ‘duh’ look before throwing her braid back over her shoulder and leaning in close to me. “Yeah that guy reading the paper across the street every morning? Your new, surprisingly cheap and suspiciously always available taxi driver? What about that cute maintenance guy who is always fixing light bulbs at work? Yeah, honey, big bad and beautiful has been protecting you this whole time.”

My heart fluttered at Lauren’s words, guiltily hoping that she spoke the truth, but I couldn’t help but feel that something was missing. A checkbox hadn’t been ticked just yet, and when it finally clicked, I knew without a doubt that Charlotte’s reasoning had been completely overlooked.

“Why didn’t Mrs Phillips just take you to Evan?” I asked Lauren, seemingly catching her off guard. “Why use second hand resources if you can go straight to the original?”

Shifting uncomfortably, Lauren brushed her fringe to the side, smoothing down her hair as if it wasn’t already perfect. The longer it took the girl to reply, the more suspicious I became, and the more my question made sense.

Lauren bit down on her lip. “Well for one, Evan has placed the highest security on you,” she answered. “Nobody with a gift can get within a hundred yards of you.”

“Except you did.”

My strong point brought a grin to the girl’s lips. “Courtesy of Mrs Invisibility,” she stated, poking her finger at me pointedly. “Which certainly was a hard feat to accomplish. If she hadn’t been Evan’s grams, they would have picked up on me for sure.”

I pursed my lips at this new information, realising that I hadn’t given much thought to Charlotte once she’d left. It was as if the memory of her had been erased for the brief time she had been in my home. Invisibility. That was what Lauren had been hidden under. Evan’s family was certainly interesting.

“Still, Evan has more power than them,” I pushed, turning away from the shadow master’s sarcastic smirk. “You’d have been better off with him.”

“Not if he is one of the people tracking me,” she whispered almost painfully, and I realised she was holding her head and squeezing her eyes shut. “Speaking of.”

Within seconds, Lauren dropped to the floor, clenching her teeth together as she curled into a foetal position. A moan of agony seemed to ripple through the girl as she writhed on the ground and I couldn’t help but fling myself off my stool in shock. Frozen in place I spluttered over her, not quite sure what to do.

“Are you alright?” I gasped, snaking my hand over her face to steady it. “Lauren, are you okay?”

She was choking now, her breaths coming in harsh hacks as her eyes suddenly sprung open and bulged out of their sockets. Blood seemed to be pouring from everywhere, streaking down her pale face in thin lines like a candy cane. So focused on the crimson liquid painting my hands, I almost missed Lauren as she mumbled a single word to me.

“Bathroom,” she hissed.

Instinct sprung me into action as I dragged Lauren’s body through my apartment despite her cries of complaint. Though I knew my grip on her wrists were probably uncomfortable, my panic was overwhelming my emotions, and filling me with a slight hysteria.

Lauren shuddered uncontrollably as I threw her through the bathroom door but as I stood there uselessly, she began to gain control of her body again and soon she was huffing against the floor in exhaustion. I watched in relief as Lauren rolled onto her back and stared wide-eyed at the ceiling.

“What was that?” I demanded through gritted teeth, falling back against the wall and brushing a frustrated hand through my hair.

Lauren was panting heavily now, her limbs splayed out across the white tiles. “Oh, you know, people trying to figure out where I am and all that jazz,” she breathed.

“And the bathroom stops them?”

Lauren burst out into an infectious laughter, the sound bouncing off the walls and springing back to my ears. “No, I just need to pee,” she grinned, composing herself slightly. She shifted, pushing up into a seated position and leaning against the bathtub. “It’s the newspaper reader that saved our poor little lives,” she continued and rapped her knuckles lightly against my head. “He’s a shield,” she explained. “Of sorts.”

I merely nodded, my head aching slightly at the overload of questions now filtering through my head. I wasn’t so sure I liked being thrown out in the middle of things when I’d just started melting myself back into the mould. It must have been his grandmother that gave Evan his charming trait.

I glanced back at the girl, who now watched me curiously. Her brown eyes flickered dangerously under the bright white light. I was glad the bathroom left no room for shadows.

“If I found my soul mate, I don’t think I could give him up,” she stated quietly. “And I can’t figure out why you did. The way you talk about him.”

My smile came easily. A well-rehearsed lie that I’d practiced over the past five years. “Because I’ve seen what he has done. I’ve seen the pain that he can cause. And I can’t allow myself to give someone that power.” I paused, my eyes filling with tears. “You of all people should understand. He devours souls like an unquenchable thirst, and you’re right at the top of the list. Can you imagine what he would do once he gains your ability? He’d be unstoppable.”

I was ranting. I knew that I was, but I couldn’t seem to stop. Not until Lauren stopped me dead in my tracks. “Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think,” she said simply, and I watched in awe as she left me sitting on the bathroom floor.