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The past few days had been….weird
Not the usual exam season weird, but it was something else. I had been dragging daimen or huxley around all week because I didn't want to be alone on campus. Lasko was helping prepare for exams and I was trying to stay busy cramming for exams, but something felt wrong, almost like someone was watching me. Which was absurd. The D.A.M.N campus is massive, thousands of students, it's bound that someone's watching me at one time or another. I was guilty of staring every now and then, but this was different.
Gavin had started sensing it as well, my hesitancy to leave the apartment for anything other than class or food shopping. Gavin had taken the initiative to start shopping instead.
Sitting in an exam room alone wasn't new. Daimen was supposed to join me at some point but his class didn't end for another half an hour. I could prep for one of my other classes but…honestly looking at another healing text book might make my head explode. That ever so familiar feeling settled over me, like someone was watching. Not the sweet feeling I would get when huxley was watching me nearly faceplant on a hike, or daimen watching me fail at one of our practices. Those were sweet views, this was malicious. The room was empty. I had checked every corner of it, no one was inside…so who was watching me? “Gavin? Gav i swear to god if you're playing some stupid joke this isn't funny.” I couldn't feel Gav, and no one responded so it wasn't him. I could feel something..? The feeling was familiar, I knew it. “Who’s there?” I knew that aura, but my mind just couldn't place it. Then it clicked. That cool and aggressive tone, with just enough calm that I couldn't place it at first.
Kody.
The memory made my stomach churn. That burning feeling like someone was staring into my soul didn't go away. I grabbed my phone to text Gavin as a hand slid over mine. “I don't think we'll be needing anyone else.” I stood up so fast my chair clattered to the floor. Backing away from him as fast as possible had me tripping over the chair and my own feet. “Wow due drop. Did I startle you that much?”
“Get the fuck out!” How did he even get in here? It was empty. I know it was. I shuffled back, my back and head hit the wall as I tried to get to my feet. Fuck my phone was still on the desk. “Now, now, we don't want anyone hearing us do we?” His hand sliding over my shoulder pushing me back onto the floor made my skin boil. “Get the fuck off me! Go away kody! What the fuck are you even doing here?!” He just smiled. Fucking smiled. He was supoused to be at…whatever that other fucking school was called. Not here. “I’d been thinking about what you said…about closure.” His hand slid over my collar bone. “And getting the last laugh”
I shoved him off. God my skin was on fire. “Get out, just get out!” I just wanted to keep screaming it, praying someone would overhear and he would run. How was he so calm? And why couldn't I breathe? His face contorted, he looked almost inhuman for a moment before he grabbed my hand. I tugged against it for a moment before I felt something cool wash over me. My core tugged inwards as that familiar sensation tugged at my core…and then it clicked. Just like it had before. That familiar vomit inducing feeling. “See? Now was that so hard?” His voice echoed in my head; I wanted the floor to eat me whole. “G-get out, get off…just go please-”
“I don't think so. We have so much catching up to do freelancer..”
The room felt suffocating. Like the walls were caving in like my lungs were. The way his voice sounded in my head, the way his hand felt on my thigh, all of me wanted to collapse. Tears brimmed in my eyes the room went quiet. Too quiet..? The fluorescent lights no longer had that buzz that drove me and daimen crazy well cramming. Kody's face contorted in pain as his hands slid off me. My heartbeat seemed to thump and echo in my ears, blood rushed through my head as tears slowly slipped past my cheeks. Kody opened his mouth to talk..but nothing came out. It took a moment but the feeling of his aura leaving my core felt like air rushing into my lungs, because it partly was. The overwhelming quiet wasn't just my own panic, it was literal silence. There wasn't any air for sound to travel through. Kody stumbled back as the air returned to the room. I stayed glued to the floor as he stumbled to his feet. I just wanted him to leave. Why did this always happen? Why couldn't things be nice for once?
I’d tuned everything out at this point. I shut my eyes in an attempt to forget anything was happening. His soft coughing is all I could hear before a loud thump caught my attention. “If you ever touch them again, it'll be worse than just a broken nose.” Daimen stood above Kody's crumbled body and bloody face. Heat radiating off him put Dahlia's summers to shame. Kody chuckled. A broken, gargled laugh. “You defend them? Really? Well they look like that? That dress, come on they're asking for it-” Damien moved so quickly all i registered was a sickening crack that echoed through the study room. I watched him pull Kody back up by his shirt collar and pull his arm back again before I grabbed it. “Damien- don’t…just don't." As much as I would gladly watch Damien pummel Kody’s face in. I didn't want him to get in trouble. Damien's grip loosened, letting Kody fall back on the floor before scuttling to stand and leave. He mumbled something before he left, whipping the blood that was still dripping from his nose “Fuckin fire elemental..”
I grabbed one of the textbooks that had fallen and chucked it over the desk towards the door as it shut.
The room fell into another bout of quiet. Not painful, or stressful but a calm quiet. I leaned over Damien's shoulder for a moment just…breathing. Damien broke the silence first. “Are you okay?” I paused before shaking my head “No..but this is better” He hummed in approval shifting to face me. His knuckles started to bruise, and with smudged blood on them, as he pulled me into a proper hug. “It's okay now, just breathe freelancer…” I shuddered against him as a sob tore through me. “I h-have magic…ive worked s-so hard to learn and the moment I’m in any k-kind of danger my knowledge just.. Poofs .. Gone, like I never learned a-anything..” He stroked my hair as I buried myself in the crook of his neck, sobbing. I’d been so late to magic and come so far and yet the moment I needed any of it all I could do was suck the air out of a room by accident. “Fight or flight works differently for everyone, especially with magic. You're still learning freelancer…It’ll take time.” I didn't want it to take time, I didn't want to rely on Damien or Gavin to come save me from my own problems anymore. “I wanna go h-home”
“Yeah..we can do that”