Chapter 58 The Reason He Is So Cold
Brea's POV
For a moment I felt nothing. No pain. No sound. Just floating.
Then my bare feet hit cold mud.
I looked down. Then around. Stone walls. Torchlight. The smell of something old and damp that had no business existing in an Enclave facility.
"What?" My voice came out thin. "Where am I? What is this place?"
Rayne's voice came from somewhere far away strained, distorted, like someone shouting through walls.
"Stay with me, Brea."
"Rayne?" I turned around. It was just the mud and the torchlight and the cold pressing in from every direction.
"Rayne I can hear you but I can't...where are you? I can't see you."
His voice again. Further this time. "Stay with me."
"I'm trying!" My feet moved without my deciding to move them pulled forward by something warm running through my chest.
I could feel something vibrating, pulling me deeper into wherever this was. "What is this place? Rayne..answer me... what am I looking at? Am I dead"
The world stabilized around me... It seemed I had being dragged into Rayne’s memories.
The glitch stabilized. I stood in a cold rain inside a medieval castle courtyard.
A small boy no more than seven struggled to lift a heavy practice sword. His arms shook. Every swing made him lose balance in the mud.
His father’s voice boomed from the covered walkway.
“Again! Stop swinging like a weak-blooded human!”
The boy, young Rayne tried once more. The sword slipped from his fingers and splashed into the mud. He stared at it, small shoulders trembling.
I stepped forward. My body shimmered with faint golden light. To him, I must have looked like a spirit.
The boy froze. He looked up at me with wide, exhausted eyes.
I knelt in the mud in front of him, ignoring the King who couldn’t see me.
“Hey,” I whispered gently. “It’s okay. You don’t have to be perfect right now.”
The boy stared at me like I was the first kind thing he had ever seen.
I stayed crouched in the mud in front of him for a long moment.
"You're going to be okay," I said quietly.
He looked at me. Didn't speak. Just looked, with those wide exhausted eyes.
Then the world shook.
"Wait.." I reached for him instinctively. "Wait, I'm not done—"
The courtyard dissolved. I was standing in darkness before I finished the sentence. The rain was gone. The practice yard was gone. The small boy with shaking arms was gone.
"No." I turned around looking for something familiar. "No bring me back...I wasn't finished.... Rayne where are you, what is?"
The smell hit me first.
Damp stone. Old blood. Something underneath both of those things that was specific and wrong in a way that made my stomach pull tight before I understood why.
I followed it.
Down. The walls narrowing. The light from the torches getting further apart until there was barely any light at all. My feet moving through the dark toward a sound I couldn't name — low, rhythmic, the sound of something trying very hard to stay controlled and not managing it.
I found the cell at the end of the corridor.
Ten-year-old Rayne was huddled in the corner. His skin was almost translucent, veins showing like dark bruises. His eyes were fixed on the door. He was blood-starved.
I glitched into the cell and knelt in front of him.
He looked up at me, too weak to be afraid.
I reached out and placed my hand over his small, cold fingers. I could feel the burning emptiness inside him.
“Who… who are you?” he whispered. “Are you real?”
I softened my voice as much as I could.
“I’m real,” I said gently. “My name is Brea. I’m… a friend. What’s happening to you? Why are you down here like this?”
The boy’s lower lip trembled. Tears welled up in his eyes and spilled over.
“They won’t give me blood,” he said, voice small and broken. “Father says I have to earn it. That if I’m weak, I don’t deserve it. It hurts… everything hurts inside. I’m so hungry I can’t even sleep.”
He started crying quietly, shoulders shaking.
“I tried to be strong like he wants… but I can’t. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”
My heart broke. I reached out slowly and took his small, ice-cold hand in mine.
“Hey, listen to me,” I said softly. “It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault. You’re just a kid. You’re not supposed to be strong like this yet.”
He looked up at me, tears streaming down his dirty face.
“How did you get in here?” he asked, voice trembling. “No one is allowed down here. Are you a ghost?”
I gave him a small, sad smile.
“Something like that. But I’m here because I wanted to tell you something important.”
I squeezed his hand gently.
“You don’t have to carry all of this alone. One day, someone is going to care about you just because you exist. Not because of how strong you are or what you can do. You just have to hold on until then. Can you do that for me?”
The boy nodded slowly, still crying, but there was a tiny spark of hope in his eyes.
Before the memory pulled me away, I leaned closer and whispered:
“You’re not alone anymore, Rayne."
My eyes snapped open as I gasped for breath. I was back in Elias’s clinic. The sheets were damp with sweat. My skin still felt cold from the medieval rain.
Rayne was sitting on the edge of the bed right beside me, leaning close.
His hand was gripping mine so tightly it hurt. Tears were running down his cheeks the first time I had ever seen him cry in front of me.
The moment our eyes met, his breath hitched.
“Brea…” His voice cracked badly. “Brea, thank God. I thought you were never coming back. I thought I lost you.”
He pulled me into his arms and held me tight, shoulders trembling as he cried against my hair.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, voice breaking. “I never intended to stab my hands through your chest. It was my mistake. I never should have left you there. I never should have left your sight"
He pulled back just enough to look at my face, his golden eyes wet and desperate.
“Don’t ever scare me like that again,” he said, voice rough. “Please. I can’t lose you.”
I reached up with a trembling hand and touched his wet cheek.