Page 29 of The Souls Harvest
I drop my chin, my head heavy with the need to speak words I no longer seem to know. Frustration finally gets the upper hand. “Please,” I whisper on the verge of tears. I don’t believe that showing your weak side makes you stronger, but I haven’t felt this vulnerable in a very long time.
I jolt awake to the sound of—no, it’s not a voice, but a noise I can only describe as the gears of some machinery, rotating and marrying their dents and hollows in a perpetual movement. I turn my head left and right to follow the screeching notes bouncing off the walls, chasing each other, stretching to a distance that makes me picture my prison very empty and very wide.
Until the noise subsides to a low hum and stops, making space for the sound of steps slowly approaching me.
“How’s your head?” A stream of energy speaks to me, flowing directly into my core, and wipes all the confusion from my mind by reigniting inside my head the past few hours of my life like a slap in the face.
All my words come back to me in a rush. “I feel like a giant hammer has beaten me. Thanks for your concern. What’s next? A tea party before you send ransom letters to…whoever you think may care enough about me? I hope you don’t expect me to ask howyourday is going.”
I’m not really sure what my value is, but if they’ve kept me alive until now, I’m entitled to ask questions, loads of them. But for some reason, they’re all bottled up and struggle to come out one at a time. When one surfaces, another one immediately follows. They chase each other in a race to reach my tongue first, but end up colliding and popping like soap bubbles.
I tilt my head, searching for the disembodied steps, but whoever is in the room with me has stopped walking. Perhaps to enjoy the miserable show I put on for them.
I take a big breath, ready to blow out my defence once more, but the invisible walker starts moving again, each step accompanied by a clicking sound.
I snap my head back up, but something seals my mind and lips.I must listen…
No. No. I need to ask questions.
“Miss Crimson.” The voice belongs to a man who has been speaking for years. Centuries. It’s controlled, with no inflexion whatsoever, and is so soothing I could listen to it all day long.
“Have we met before? I don’t remember your voice... And judging by how you treat your guests, I don’t think you’re the type of person I’d like to deal with. Ever.” I blurt out my words because I fear I only have a few seconds of autonomy.
I’m panting, like I’ve run for miles and just stopped. “Where’s my friend? What did you do to him?”Please don’t say Galen’s been nextto me all this time, but he’s no longer moving or able to talk. Please don’t even say his name…
The stranger stops and chuckles with amusement. He sounds very close, as if we are at eye level. I can smell amber and musk cologne when he purrs, “Galen is fine.”
My heart sinks. He is fine—and he isnowpart of this terrible picture.
I’m not here by accident; this man knows our names. My brain begins to sketch a question, but the words I need to voice haven’t yet been invented.
The wall behind me pulls some of my hair when I press my head against it, trying to move away from the stranger. “Who are you?” I bite my lips until I taste blood, until my voice breaks. Tears wet the fabric tied around my eyes, and my lids sting, but the discomfort is nothing compared to what I experience when the man unties the cloth and reveals his face, which appears hazy behind my veil of tears—but too fucking familiar.
I blink the blur away, and my jaw drops when I recognise those chips of grey ice.
Roden’s eyes.
“Sir, I…Why didn’t I recognise your voice? How—” I stare at him, bewildered, when a sudden rattling, static sound explodes from the wall behind him.
I jerk my head to one side, looking over his shoulder. “What are all these screens for?” I blink fast to clear my view, finally recognising the source of the humming noise I heard when Iregained my senses.
“Those, my child, aremywindows to Horigos,” Roden replies, standing up and turning his back to me.
I know there is something I mean to ask him, an urgent question, something I probably did ask a moment ago and forgot the answer for some odd reason.
He’s tall, and not even this vast room, empty save for a shiny white piano and the screens, can diminish his stature. This man can tower over any person and take up space, making himself bigger if needed. This man both scares me and makes me feel safe.
Perhaps this is why, instead of trying to get up and leave, I remain with my back against the wall, waiting for him to speak again.
Are you crazy? Get up; this is not right. Remember the—
I must have hit my head. I hate this sense of forgotten thoughts.
“Aren’t they majestic?” Roden opens his arm as if embracing the screens that cover the walls, from floor to a never-ending ceiling.
“This is where I decide which Horigean truly needsme.Every screen is a cry for help, my dear,” he explains, cocking his head left and right.
One of the lower screens is projecting the video of a man, wearing faded newspapers as if they were a three-piece suit, pushing a shopping trolley filled to the brim with rubbish. While on the screen to the left, a girl runs by a river, as thin as the birch trees she passes by.
