‹ Prequel: Method to the Madness
Status: coming soon ;)

Escape the Madness

His Lies

“Okay guys, let’s make this quick.”

I’m pretty sure Alyson is with Crimson, but that can’t last very long. The only thing the red-haired Selva ever seems to want with either of us these days is to complete missions. As soon as we finish one, we’re off to another. Alyson, known as Blue to everyone else, is being exposed to a lot of magic. She’s still years away from the disease known as Madness, but the more she uses magic, the closer she gets to it.

And me? Being a Guardian, her Guardian, I don’t have to worry about succumbing to Madness. Instead, I watch and worry about her. I protect her when we aren’t in Purgatory, and sometimes even while we’re here in this place she has grown comfortable in.

“Elias, are you even paying attention?” Oliver’s voice drags me from my thoughts and back to the present, where other Guardians are frowning at me, the biggest frown coming from Oliver. “If you aren’t going to even listen, much less help us plan, I don’t see why you even bother coming to these meetings.”

“I started these meetings,” I remind Oliver, just short of snapping at my friend. “And everything you’re saying has been said a million times before. What we really need is to have everyone patrolling Purgatory when they can find the time. We need to know this inside out. The older Selva know it well enough, but I don’t think they have bothered to take the time to actually explore like I’m suggesting. And that’s all we can do for now. Until we know what we need to know, we can’t know what kind of distraction we’re going to need.”

Frowns meet my words. Its something they’ve heard before, and we all know it. Trying to be the leader is a pain in the ass for me though. Not only do I have Crimson and Mouse breathing down my neck and missions to contend with, but I’m also with Alyson quite a bit. The only problem with that is that she knows nothing about what I do with my free time...

She has no idea about these meetings and what we plan. She doesn’t know Oliver hates me because I won’t speak a word of it to her and dance behind her back when I can. She doesn’t even know how truly precarious my positioning with Crimson and Mouse is. She doesn’t know how I approached them months back, threw in their faces what they had done to me, threatened them, and then walked away.

And then, to top things off, I can’t even properly attend these meetings and help with what’s going on because of her, and she doesn’t even know it. She takes up most of my free time, and there’s no way to change that without her becoming suspicious and actually trying to find out what I’m doing. Not that I want to spend a minute less with her than I already am.

Damn. When did my life get like this?

“Whatever, Elias. You know we’re working on it. Things would go a lot quicker if you would actually hel-”

“Elias! Elias!”

Soft cursing is spread through the tight-knit circle. My groan is probably the loudest as I bury my face in my hands and then rake my fingers through my hair, guilty as the other begin to pack up.

“Elias! Where are you?”

“You guys stay here and continue the meeting without me,” I whisper rapidly, already rising from my spot on the ground. We’re in the training area, which isn’t really suspicious since we’re Guardians... thankfully. It’s about the only private place we can actually have our meetings. “Stay quiet for... two minutes should be long enough. I’ll have Alyson away by then.”

Without another word, I stride across the room and slip through the door leading into the adjacent room, which is just as dark as the room I’ve just left. As Alyson gets close, still calling my name, I take a breath and then catch her around the waist as she ventures too close to the doorway, grinning as I press a kiss to her neck. “I heard you were looking for a devilishly handsome fellow? Brown hair, green eyes, freckles... god-like really. I think I might be able to help with that.”

As the girl I love turns in my arms, looking up at me, I smile a little sadly. Its been months, and yet somehow I’m still able to mourn those beautiful blue eyes of hers. They’re charcoal now, just like Crimson’s and Mouse’s and Cat’s and every other full Selva’s... no longer blue, though I can still imagine them.

Even if she looks like the rest of them though, I won’t ever let her become that. Not as long as I breathe. “Come on, I think I saw him head this way,” I say, pressing a kiss to her forehead. I wrap an arm around her shoulder, guiding her away from the other Guardians I’ve just left.

“Elias? What were you doing in that dark room?”

My mind goes through a million excuses, finally landing on one. “I heard you calling for me, so I decided to wait in the dark until you came near the doorway, when I pounced.” I stop her before she can ask any other questions. “Forest had me cleaning out the practice room we used earlier today, which was just past that room I came out of. And before you start in on me about leaving what I was doing for you and getting myself in trouble, I had just finished anyway so your timing was perfect.”

I hate lying to her, hate that I’m so good at it, but its necessary for now. Unfortunately. Oliver doesn’t agree, of course, and says she should know since she wouldn’t tell the other Selva. But after what Mouse did to me... I won’t take the chance. I can’t risk that they might be able to do something similar to her, or somehow steal what she knows from her mind. The only thing that actually keeps the Guardians safe is that they aren’t allowed to use magic on us. Mouse only got away with doing it to me because I had allowed her to take my memories at that time. Now that I have them all back, it won’t happen again.

“What did Crimson want anyway?” Lie and then distract. Unfortunately, this was starting to become a common theme. All that kept me from breaking down some days was the thought that I would be able to get her away from the Selva, their magic and Madness, away from Purgatory.

If I played my cards right, I could give Alyson a new life.
♠ ♠ ♠
First chapter!!!

It's actually kind of exciting to be writing for Elias again. I've missed him and Alyson <3