Schasm (Schasm Series) (24 page)

“She’s my mom now,” Alex states.

My heart breaks for both of them.

“How often is your mind back at the institution?” I ask.

“Sometimes,” Celia answers. “Not often. It’s not a place we like to be. The doctors keep us medicated all the time, which helps make the drifts stronger.”

This is news to me. “What they’re giving me keeps it from happening…”

She smiles bigger. “Eventually, you learn to break through it.”

Alex interrupts our conversation. "Chloe, how did you end up in the caves?”

I try to look him in the eye without crying. “Alex, you tried to kill yourself…don’t you know that?” He looks as confused as I felt when I’d heard it had happened. “And then I saw Celia with you in the common room…I just couldn’t deal with anything that was going on, and I needed to come see you. So I…” I avert my gaze.

“So you what, Chloe?” The anger and concern in his voice trembles in my ears. “What did you do?”

 “I took the pills.”

“Excuse me?
Pills
, plural?”

 I nod. “Two pills instead of one.” He runs his hands through his hair. “I was hoping to lengthen my time with you. But I woke up in the caves instead.”

His face is red and strained. “Why the hell would you take
two
of those pills when I told you not to take
any
? They’re dangerous enough one at a time. What were you thinking?”

I glare at him. “I was thinking I needed to see you. Because I needed more answers.”

He rubs his face. “Chloe, I don’t think you understand. If you end up back in those caves again, terrible things can happen.” He looks exasperated. “The next time you go there, you might not find your way out.”

I had that sensation when I was there. “I promise it won’t happen again. I’ll wait until they let me out before I drift anymore.”

He shakes his head as his anger passes. “The thought of you ending up in those caves again makes me sick.” He places his arm around my neck and leans over to kiss the side of my head. “I’m sorry I scared you with my…attempt. Celia says I’ve tried that more than a few times.”

“You mean you don’t even know that you’ve done it?” This boggles my mind even further.

He shrugs and shakes his head. “Not really. They usually just throw me in a straitjacket and lock me in a padded room. Honestly, I wonder a lot about what will happen if I ever succeed.”

A scorching pain consumes my lower left leg. When I lift my pant leg, I find scratches extending from my knee down to my ankle.

“Chloe…” Alex looks distraught at the sight.

“I must have done that when I was climbing through the tunnels.”

“That needs to be cleaned immediately.” He picks me up and carries me to the bathroom. He sits me down gently on the vanity and pulls out a first aid kit from the medicine cabinet. Then he leans in against me and brushes his lips against my cheek. “You’re going to be okay. I’ll make sure of it.” His kiss has already alleviated the pain.

He examines the wounds a little closer. “These aren’t scratches, Chloe. They look like claw marks.” He twists my leg to the side. “Do you see this one?” he asks. “This one is a bite.”

“Oh my God…there were rats in the tunnels.” They did this.

They aren’t just scratches anymore.

He drops to the ground and flings open the cabinets under the sink, shoveling out useless items one by one until he finds a wad of gauze, letting it unwind until it hits the floor. He rips the end off with his teeth and throws the remaining gauze behind him. He lifts my leg back up and places my foot against his firm chest to hold it in place as he twists the faucet on and runs a rag underneath. Then he presses the warm rag over my wounds, carefully dabbing each area with gentle pressure. He drops the rag into the sink and purses his lips, forcing a slight gust of air over my damp leg. The coolness of his breath numbs the pain and I suddenly feel guilty for enjoying this attention a little more than I should. He’s trying to help me, and I just want his hands to keep finding reasons to touch me. He finishes wrapping the bandage. “There.” He sighs. “Better?”

I pull him into me. “Yes. Much.”

He leans in closer, placing his palms flat against the vanity as he presses his forehead against mine. His skin slides against mine, his nose brushes over mine, and our lips mold together. The pain disappears again as I lose myself between his lips, begging for this moment to overlap all of the other hellish moments I’m forced to live through.

He pulls back a bit, but we’re still breathing the same air. “You will be okay.” He touches his lips to the tip of my nose. “But I need you to trust me.”

“I do,” I say, panting.

He lifts me off of the vanity and places me on the ground, watching to make sure I can sustain the weight on my tattered leg. I can stand. It hurts, but the pain is much less now.

He leads me down the hall toward Celia’s room.

“Mom, we’re leaving. I have to help her.”

“Wait…what?” I don’t know what he means.

Celia rubs my cheek. She makes a great substitute mother. “Please be careful. I’ll be here when you get back.” She blows us kisses, but her face looks sad and worried. “I love you both very much.”

“What is going on, Alex?” I’m practically scowling.

“I asked you to trust me. You said you did.” He looks at me, his eyes filled with pity. “You’re not all the way okay yet.”

I don’t understand…

“I need you to lie down and close your eyes.”

I wrap my hand around his wrist and pull him in close to me. “I don’t want to end up in those caves again.”

His eyes glisten. “That’s where we have go, Chloe.” I feel tears rising. “But I’m coming with you.” He kisses me again.

This time, it doesn’t take away the pain. Or the fear.

He forces a tight smile. “Now close your eyes and try to visualize the caves.”

My eyes close to the vision of his beautiful face.

Without trying, I’m back in the caves with the rats and the skulls.

The blackness turns into a hazy darkness, and the pain in my leg becomes more intense. It’s spreading up to my stomach and over to my other leg. Alex is swatting his hands around as if he’s in battle with something. When I look down, I find dozens of rats nibbling on my still living body.

I’m too weak to get horrified over what I’m seeing. My hearing is almost gone. I feel as if there’s a film covering my eyes. Alex lifts me up off the ground and throws me over his shoulder all while he continues the battle. He punts them with the tip of his boot as they go squealing into the darkness. I want to cry or throw up, or maybe both. Finally, we reach the next corridor, and I watch as the rats scurry back to the pile of flesh they were feasting on earlier.

We walk farther to make sure it’s clear and find a chamber that seems to have no rats. Alex lays me down in the only area that’s bright enough for him to see the wounds on my body. He’s distraught as he leans in to get a closer look at the gaping wounds. He rips the sleeves off of his shirt and turns them into bandages. He dabs some, but it’s bleeding too profusely to make much of a difference, so he wraps my leg up with the sleeve of his shirt and cradles me in his arms.

We continue in silence. I have no idea where we’re going. “What are you thinking?” I ask him.

His answer is intense. “I’m thinking that when you drift, you’re unconscious for much longer than you think you are. I have a feeling that when you left these caves earlier, your body must have lingered here for a couple of minutes too long, which left you vulnerable to the rats.” It makes sense. “When we arrived here, it took me two minutes to wake you up.”

“That’s why you’re always waiting for me,” I reason. I realize that even if I can drift at will, I have no real control over myself when I’m in that state.

All I can focus on is the burning sensation running through my leg. I just want to be out of this place now. I feel faint and weak, and I lay my head against Alex’s chest. He’s warm and comforting. Still, I can hear his heart pounding and racing faster than I could have ever imagined a heart beating. I’m probably taking everything out of him.

“We have to get you to a doctor right now.” He sounds troubled, and with good reason. But nobody has ever worried for my safety before. It’s overwhelming. “I don’t want you to worry, okay?”

I grip his arm and gaze up at him while trying to conceal the increasing pain. The fiery feeling in my leg is beginning to radiate throughout my body, making me convulse. He picks up the pace and runs up the three sets of cobblestone stairways that lead to the exit.

This is the same exit I found yesterday…

Approaching daylight, I see writing engraved into the last stone archway. It says:

Arrête! C’est ici l’Empire de la Mort.

 I point to it. Alex translates as he sighs. “It says, ‘Stop! This is the empire of death,’ we’re in the catacombs.”

I stare at him, dumbfounded. “Catacombs?”

“It’s an ancient underground cemetery that contains the skeletal remains of millions of people. It’s what the Parisians used to do with the bodies of the deceased after they ran out of burial grounds.” His breathing is heavy.

I’ve been wandering through the land of the dead.

I shiver at the thought.

I had no idea I’d been in the underground of Paris this whole time. So much darkness hidden beneath so much beauty.

We’re rushing through the streets, and I can hear Alex’s breath become shorter. “I can try to walk if you’re getting tired,” I offer. My words feel and sound like they’re scraping against my throat.

“Faster if I carry you,” he says. “Those rats eat raw flesh and bones of the dead all day. Do you have any idea what kind of diseases they carry?”

“I was trying to avoid that thought.”

“Well, I wasn’t.” Hearing him tell me about it heightens my fear.

We round the corner toward the café. I see my great-grandfather sitting outside on his normal bench. He looks down at my leg, blood dripping from beneath my pants, and his smile fades. “What happened here?” he asks.

“Chloe was in the catacombs…with the rats,” Alex says, stammering through gasps.

“Why would you ever do such a thing?” he scolds.

I feel weak. I don’t answer. Alex speaks for me. “It wasn’t her fault. She ended up there after she took the pills Tomas gave her.”

“Pills from Tomas…” He seems to understand what that means more than I would have thought. “Chloe, sweetheart. Why?”

I can’t answer him, and I don’t want to. I just look at Alex as the world spins.

“We need to get her to a doctor quickly,” Marius says.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Alex replies.

He leads us down at least a half dozen blocks, and the final turn takes us into a dark alley. We approach a tall steel door painted black, bearing a bronze plaque that reads “Dr. Tomas Bonet.”

“Tomas?” I ask.

“Yes, Chloe…the same Tomas who gave you the pills.” Marius says. “Your uncle. My grandson.”

I sigh.

“Wait…your doctor is the same man who gave Chloe the pills that got her stuck in the catacombs?” His voice is rage.

“Yes, he’s the one,” Marius responds.

Alex carefully places my feet on the ground to see if I can stand. “Can you stand at all?” he asks softly.

The pain singes my nerves, but not enough to drop me. “Yes,” I say.

“I have a thing or two to tell this man.” His jaw clenches.

 “Alex, it’s not entirely his fault. I wanted to drift, and he helped me.” I sigh. “He offered the pills, but I was the one who took them.”

 “Chloe—”

I cut him off. “Right now, I need his help. I’m trusting that Marius knows what’s possible here…okay?”

He drags in a slow deep breath through his nose and blows it out of his mouth.

My grandfather knocks. The door opens, and Tomas sees us. He doesn’t seem surprised that we’re here.

“You used the key,” he says. “Welcome to the rabbit hole.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

SHIFTING

 “WHY DON’T YOU ALL COME IN
and have a seat,” he says as he looks around behind us. He seems to think we’re being watched. He shoves us through the doorway, slamming it shut behind us.

His office is painted a gloomy green; the windows are all boarded up, and there’s a slight odor of rotten eggs mixed with ammonia. I almost gag on it. There is medical equipment everywhere—antiques to me, but new to him, I suppose—and four shelf-covered walls that are stuffed with unorganized instruments. Another table looks like some kind of chemical lab. It’s covered with at least thirty liquid-filled beakers.

“So…you took the pills.” Tomas speaks in a slow smooth voice as he jots down some notes.

The pain returns, and I wheeze. “Obviously…I’m here, aren’t I?” I can’t contain my anger.

“And you had the headache?” He says it as if he knew all along it would happen.

I nod. Alex’s eyes flash open. I hadn’t told him about it.

“A common side effect,” he says.

“Could have mentioned it before,” I say, gritting my teeth through a wave of pain.

“And would it have changed your mind about taking the pills?” He looks from me to Alex, knowing exactly why I was willing to take the risk.

I hesitate answering. “No.”

His eyebrow hitches. “Something else happened, then…something that brought you back to me.”

Now I’m embarrassed. “I took one the first time…two the second.”

His mysterious demeanor changes entirely. He throws his notepad across the room, and I duck as the papers slap against a far wall. “You did
what
?” he shouts. “I made it utterly clear to you: you were to take
one
pill –
ONE
…no more.” His lungs fill, and on his exhale he says, “Fille stupide.”

“Hey!” Alex stands from his chair, stomping over to Tomas with his finger pointed to Tomas’s face. “Don’t speak to her like that. You’re the stupid one…you gave her homemade pills.” Tomas’s eyes blink rapidly as he arches his back, inching further away from Alex who is towering over him.

“Je regret,” he says, swallowing hard. “I’m sorry.”