Within

Chapter Twelve

I ended up going to sleep again shortly after Arthur had left and my nose had stopped bleeding.

This time, I slept for nearly five hours and when I woke up, I was still fatigued. I yawned, scratching my head as I climbed out of bed. I picked up my phone and plugged in headphones, putting them in my ears as I started to play music loudly.

I needed something to keep me awake. Anyway, I decided that I’d go up to the roof to get some air. It was still within Arthur’s realm of protection, but I’d be able to relax a little more up there.

I headed towards the pantry to rummage for food to take up with me (I was pretty hungry).

With a couple of bags of chips in tow, I went upstairs for the second time today. Thankfully, Arthur wasn’t up here. I mean, it wasn’t as if I hated him or anything, it was the completely opposite, actually. I was just mad that he was wasn’t telling me the full story.

Who was the “he” Lindsay had referenced? Another demon? Their boss? Why was it so difficult for Arthur to tell me? None of it made an ounce of sense to me, to be completely honest.

I sighed, sitting on the ground and laying back on my stomach so that I could look up at the sky. The stars weren’t shining bright today, too many clouds in the sky.

Everything in my life had changed so quickly, it was like I had taken in a single breath and it had all just spun around and collapsed on top of me. The weight of it was heavy, pushing down on my chest and making it hard to breathe.

If I went outside, outside of the barrier, I’d probably die. Or get kidnapped. Probably both. Staying inside left me with the guy that I liked (though was currently mad at), but didn’t like me back. I didn’t know how he felt about me, really. Did he even like me as a friend? Or did he only talk to me because he felt bad for putting me here?

Well, I guess that it was my fault, too. If I had just waited one more night, I could’ve passed along quietly without getting dragged into any of this. I closed my eyes, feeling the setting sun warm my body.

It was relaxing, almost. It felt as if I was getting purified by the light’s rays beaming down on me. “Just breathe,” I told myself. Maybe everything would be okay. All of my issues would resolve themselves and I wouldn’t have to deal with any of it anymore. That’d be ideal, perfect, even.

But I knew that was impossible, that this was my reality now. I pushed up off of the hard ground, starting to get uncomfortable, and stood up. There was pretty much nothing that I could do about it except for think and wish for change.

Would I be locked in this place forever? Unable to leave. I mean, would the demons chasing after Arthur ever give up? They’d been going after him for eight hundred plus years, so I sincerely doubted it.

But just like it had with me, things could change!

I felt a wetness on my face then, dripping down onto my top lip. I reached up a hand, tapping it against the skin between my nose and mouth and pulled it away. Blood.

Again? My nose was bleeding again? “Man,” I said, pinching it once more. It hadn’t even been this bad when I was a kid. That’s when I realized that there was something probably wrong with me.

My immediate thought was to ask Arthur if he knew what was going on. But he’d either: blow it out of proportion or be of no help. There was no in between.

But he was still my best option for finding answers. I tilted my head down (listening to Arthur’s advice), and went back down to the second floor, where Arthur lived.

I knocked on his door a few times, but similar to this morning, there was no answer. I could’ve easily called him and the situation would’ve been resolved; however, I chose to sit down in front of his door and lean my head back onto the wall.

Neighbors came and went, all trying their best not to blatantly stare at me. I mean, my nose was bleeding and I was just sitting here at someone’s door; it was an interesting view for them.

I closed my eyes, not sleeping, just resting. I filtered out the sounds around me and tried to come up my own reasons as to why I was experiencing two gushing nosebleeds and extreme fatigue.

The first option was that I was dying. This was my shakiest conclusion. Nosebleeds and exhaustion didn’t equate to death, right? Anyway, it was one of my ideas.

Second was that I was sick, but not dying. Why? How? I didn’t know. Maybe Lindsay had poisoned me or something but not in a lethal dose? If so, was there a cure? Would it fade?

The third most plausible idea that I had was that these were the side effects of... something. Like, whatever had caused me to heal the wounds from Coffee Guy. I’d heard of (specifically in cases of those who could use magic) of their powers rebounding and hurting them.

It was between those three.

“Cam?” a voice interrupted my thoughts and I opened my eyes to see Arthur towering over me. “What are you doing? Is your nose still bleeding?”

“I’m sitting, waiting for you. Also, yes and no.”

He exhaled, taking my arm in a swift movement and pulling me up to my feet as if I weighed nothing.

“Dude,” I said, gesturing to my nose with my free hand.

He flattened his lips into a thin line. “Let’s go inside.” The second the door closed behind us, he questioned, “Are you okay?”

I twisted my lips, eyes rolling up. “Sort of?”

Arthur dragged a hand through his hair. “Why were you just sitting out there? You should’ve just called me! Camping in my front door draws eyes, curiosity, questions.”

“Well, why weren’t you at home?” I argued. Where else could he have been (what did Nephilim even do in their free time)? He was wearing a plain shirt under his jacket and jeans so it was doubtful that he was coming back from work.

He paused, shaking his head. “It’s not about me. Don’t try to flip this onto me. Like I said, if you had called, I would’ve came home immediately!”

“Why are you yelling at me again?” I wondered aloud.

“I’m not yelling. I’m just saying.”

“O-kay.” I didn’t need this right now. I just... wanted help. “It’s not that big of a deal--I didn’t leave the apartment--so can you just drop it?”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

Arthur took off his coat and hung it up. “What did you need?”

I removed my hand from my nose and leveled out my head, the blood flow that had been disrupted resumed immediately and started pouring.

“s**t,” was all Arthur said, rushing over to me and held his hand over my nose for a few seconds. Trying to heal it, I think. “It’s not stopping.”

“I know.” I could feel the blood now dripping down my chin and landing on my shirt and the carpet.

Arthur stepped backwards, confusion evident on his face. “I... I don’t know.” He frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t either. That’s why I came to you.”

His mouth parted. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Arthur gestured for me to sit. “I’ll try to figure something out.”

I didn’t respond but took a seat, cupping my nose to prevent it from bleeding all over (I’d given up on trying to stop it).

Arthur bit his bottom lip in thought. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to go see if I can find a solution.”

I nodded my head, staring down at my hand and eyes blurring at the blood and unhealed scrapes on it. I was close to tears, I think. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t anything go right?

He was about to leave when he saw my face. Arthur took a step towards me as if he was going to comfort me and then stopped in his tracks. “I’m gonna... go now,” he said awkwardly and spun around quickly headed to his study.

Great. So he still didn’t like me and he didn’t want (or trust me enough) to tell me anything.

I wiped my nose in frustration, not caring that even more blood got on me. Maybe I’d bleed out this way. Better not. Didn’t want to inconvenience Arthur with my corpse. With a grunt, I moved over to the kitchen and got few napkins to clean my still bleeding nose.

After a few more minutes, the bleeding ceased. I hadn’t been trying to stop it either, it just did it on its own. I called Arthur out from his study and unsurprisingly, he came rushing out.

“Are you okay?” he said, combing a hand through his disheveled hair.

I wanted to ask him if he even cared, but I just chose to nod my head instead. “It stopped,” I informed him, showing him my nose. “Do you mind if I clean it off in the bathroom?”

He shook his head and allowed me into his room so I could enter the bathroom. I turned on the faucet and scrubbed at the dried and wet blood on my face.

As the pink water swirled down the drain, I was surprised by how much blood had caked on my face. But then again, almost an hour since the start of the bleed had passed.

I felt a tickle at the back of my throat so I coughed. It was a wet cough, like too much mucus had built up in my throat. I couldn’t stop, it was like I had broken something inside of me and it would never stop.

It was starting to hurt now, I clutched my throat in agony. I felt a wetness on my hand and took it away from my face to stare at the bright crimson splattered on my palm.

This made me cough harder.

Arthur came in then, probably wondering why I was coughing so violently. He walked over and saw the blood on my hands and dripping from my mouth, then started to dial a number on his phone. I wondered if he was calling the ambulance, which would’ve been stupid.

“Come now,” he said to whoever picked up. Then he hung up and came over to me, touching my back gently. “You’re going to feel some discomfort, okay?” he told me.

I nodded my head, unable to speak. Turns out that Arthur’s definition of some vastly differentiated from mine. My stomach trembled and my mouth began to water, a telltale sign of vomit soon to come.

A fountain of blood came spewing out of my mouth I like a broken faucet, the liquid splashing into the basin and everywhere else. It filled up the sink so quickly that there wasn’t even enough time for it to drain.

“God,” I groaned loudly after the volcanic eruption from the depths of my stomach had finally ended.

“So I figured out what’s wrong with you,” Arthur began, not bothered by the gore.

I wiped my mouth the dirty backs of my hand. “Oh, did you now?” I inquired bitterly. “What is it?”

“You’re cursed,” he explained. “By the demon that kidnapped you and took the life of those children.”

Lindsay had done this to me? Well, the evil spirit within her. I coughed a little, no blood, just to clear it. Curses (or hexes) were hard to do and easily failed, but they could be disastrous if perpetuated by the right person. Oh, banshee’s screams were also considered curses.

And, of course, I got someone who knew how to do properly. Hexes were tricky because there was a certain set of rules that had to be followed to make it happen. They also needed a trigger to be set into action. It was because of this that people had a hard time with curses.

“What are terms? The effects?”

Arthur shook his head. “I don’t specialize in this time of thing. I mean, I can do some of it, but I’m not an expert. I’m better suited for... combat.”

Suited for combat? What did that even mean? Was he a game character? I opted to ignore his last statement. “And the person you called does specialize in hexes?”

“Yeah.”

I exhaled, turning on the sink so that I could wash the blood off of my hands and face. “Can you tell if it’s complex?”

“It is.”

“Great.” Was this why I had seen Lindsay in the mirror earlier? Had my body known what my mind didn’t? Or had that been what had activated the curse? But I had been tired earlier, before I had seen her...

Arthur glanced at the blood on the sink before placing a hand on my shoulder and guiding me out of the bathroom. “Just lay down for now.”

I listened to him, throwing my body down on the soft mattress and huddling into a ball. I heard Arthur sit down next to me, felt the bed shift under his weight and my entire body move with it (Arthur was a pretty big guy).

“You’re going to be fine,” he informed me.

“Somehow,” I muttered into the pillow, “I have a hard time believing that. I may be okay this time, but what about the next, huh?”

I couldn’t see him, but I could almost feel Arthur cringe. “Sorry.”

Hearing that half-hearted apology set me off.

“Were you ever going to tell me?” I pushed off of the bed, turning a little so that I could face him.

“What?”

“Were you ever going to tell me that you were a Nephilim?” I questioned. “That my life was going to be put in danger by me associating myself with you?”

Arthur looked at me. “Were you going to tell me that you were a banshee?”

“Didn’t you tell me earlier not to flip this onto you? Take your own advice,” I stated.

He didn’t respond, just raised his brow slightly.

“Anyway, first of all, I’m not the one being hunted down by demons. Or at least I wasn’t. Now I’m cursed and dying pretty much every single day now.”

“You would’ve died if you hadn’t met me.”

I rolled my eyes with huge emphasis. “Oh yeah, there’s a real change in that category isn’t there?” I hissed.

“I’m trying to protect you,” he argued. “I’m trying to keep you safe. I’m trying to make up for what I did.”

“Sometimes, it’s not enough to just try.”

“Then what do you want me to do?” he cried out, agitated. “March down to Hell and tell them to back off because it’s inconvenient for you, Camille?”

I flinched at his use of my full name. Using someone’s proper name in an argument implicated seriousness. Of course, I was serious too, but it kind of hurt when he used it. It closed off the familiarity between us. I mean, yeah, I was mad! Not really at him specifically, but at the world. He just happened to be in the way of me taking out this anger. And his lackadaisical attitude made it worse, too.

I took in a deep breath, deciding that we wouldn’t make any progress if we just sat here and yelled at each other.

“I honestly don’t know what you expect from me,” Arthur continued on. “I just--”

“Am I interrupting a lover’s spat?” a woman cut off the rest of Arthur’s sentence. I was annoyed because I wanted to know what he had to say to me. “You told me to come, so I did, but you appear to be... busy.”

Arthur and I both turned, respectively moderately and very surprised. The new arrival was a pretty dark-skinned woman wearing the attire of a well put together businesswoman.

“Janaé,” Arthur said, quickly standing up. He gestured at me. “This is--”

“I can introduce myself, thanks.” I stood up and walked over to Janaé and extended a hand. “Camille Walker, banshee. Cursed.”

She smiled, the thick lips parting to show her bright white teeth. “Janaé Thompson, dryad. Curse-breaker.”