Estranged

Avalyn ran until her thighs began to burn. She was able to keep it up for just over an hour fueled by pure adrenaline. She felt like she had run faster than she'd ever run before. The city blurred by in her peripherals while she was hyper-focused on what lay ahead of her. At this hour of night there were few people out, but of those who were, none appeared to notice her running past in distress. When her legs felt like they would give out, she slowed to a trot to get her bearings. She had one of those moments where she looked around and realized she couldn't quite remember how she'd gotten there. Her memory was a blur. What she could remember felt like everyone she passed had been frozen in time. She looked left and right to figure out where she was. It appeared she had ended up at the east edge of the city.

"How could I have gotten this far without realizing it?" she thought. She realized she must have been very deep in thought and very focused on getting away as far as possible.

She jogged along for another two hours and decided to call it a night. She wasn't certain where exactly she was, and she had lost track of time since she left the apartment. She peered around and spotted one of the last few city apartment buildings in the area before the roads started stretching out towards the suburbs. She spotted a few parking garages and hurried over to one. She took the stairwell down to the basement level and found a dark corner where a few of the lights were out. She took the bag of the few clothes she had and bunched it up into a makeshift pillow and curled up around it in the corner trying to stay where she would not be seen first if somebody came into view.

Avalyn drifted off into a fitful sleep. Any sound on the road outside jolted her awake. Eventually, she passed out into a deep sleep of exhaustion haunted with nightmares of the last 8 years of her life.

***

When Avalyn opened her eyes, all she saw was white. She was in a bright white room, on a bed with white sheets and pillows and bare of anything else in the room. There didn’t appear to be any lights anywhere either, the room itself seemed luminescent. Her little head ached from just holding her eyes open. She felt for the lump she knew she’d find on the side of her face, and awoke the throbbing pain from her left cheekbone to her jaw. She remembered Judd making a lot of noise and going out into the hall… “Yes!” She remembered going into the hall with Judd when he had heard something, and the three big men in the hall came straight towards them. “Judd!” The memory of the man throwing Judd to the ground, “He was just trying to protect me. HE was just trying to protect ME!”

Avalyn collapsed back onto the bed and curled in on herself. She sobbed into the sheets. The girl had already lost her parents, and now she was sure she’d lost Judd too. The light in the room seemed to dim, and she could feel the room rumbling. As she’d worn herself out, her tears ceased, and she laid there, staring out in shock. After what could have been a minute or eternity, doors parted where she hadn’t seen any there a moment before, and a graying man walked in.

He walked in with an empathetic smile on his face and wrinkles in the corners of his eyes. While his look spoke of one who wanted to help, Avalyn couldn’t help but feel a dark tension fill the room. Something was wrong with this man. She felt it in every bone of her body. She felt a tremor run through her as she felt her tiny body ready itself to attack and defend.

“I would try to take a few breaths and calm down if I were you,” said the man. “I don’t want us to get off on the wrong foot.”

“You sent scary men to kill my dog and kidnap me!” Avalyn’s brow was furrowed, she clenched her fists to her sides and tried with all her being not to cry. The room began to shake.

“Avalyn,” he said, “I know this is all a shock to you. I assure you I know nothing about your dog and that situation will be handled.” He paused, evaluating her face. “You look just like both of your parents. I would know you were their daughter if I hadn’t already.”

At the mention of her parents, Avalyn turned her nose up to the man. “Who are you? Where are my mom and dad?”

“Oh, forgive me, I’m Dr. Stevens. We spoke on the phone shortly yesterday. You had called asking about your parents. I told you I know where they are and then you hung up the phone. I only meant to get you here safely.”

“Safely? That man hit my face! I want my parents!”

“Now Avalyn, I will explain, but I first need you to take a few more deep breaths, sit back down, and relax.” He took a deep, calming breath himself before he continued “There are some things you need to know about your parents and who you are, before I can explain what is going on around you.”

“I don’t want you to explain anything! I want you to get my mom and dad, and I want us to go home!” Avalyn threw herself back down, burying her face into the pillow as she sobbed.

“I’ll give you some time to yourself until you’ve had time to take everything in. I’m not in a rush.” Dr. Stevens turned around and walked back to the wall. Avalyn peaked out from the side of the pillow at the doctor. He touched a pattern in the middle of the walk that lit it up and the invisible doors parted once more and closed behind him.

***

As Dr. Stevens exited the room, he let his sympathetic expression drop. While he did have the time to wait, he did not have the patience. He decided to descend a few more floors to look in on the girl’s parents.

He entered the lift and swiped his keycard and punched in a code to take him to B Level 9, seven floors below the one that held Avalyn. On the lift gate opening, the doctor walked into the hall and to his right. He followed the corridor down past closed rooms with locks and red lights outside the door. Blank display screens above keypads stared back from the door of each room.

After about 4 sets of doors, the corridor appeared to open up with large rooms on the left and right where there was shatterproof, soundproof glass from floor to ceiling. Within each room sat a console, and in the middle of each room a wide machine that was a dull white. The machine was round, about seventy-five percent of the way around, like a partial cylinder. If one were standing inside the room with the machine, it gave an awful loud rumble as the machine ran nonstop providing a current of energy around what it was holding. A quarter of the machine was open in front of the console and appeared to cradle a large round glass ball. It looked like a giant clear marble. It was an incubation tank filled with a special liquid that could keep a live body in stasis and shield anyone outside from whatever power was pulsing inside from the unconscious bodies within. Those bodies were Charles and Madelyn Murray. Charles to the left; Madelyn in the room to the right. Dr. Stevens swiped his security badge and entered the room to the left.

He walked up to the man sitting at the console who was at work monitoring the readings from a monitor the width of the entire console. It provided a grid of images taken at multiple angles from within the machine to monitor the person inside.

“How are the readings?” asked Dr Stevens.

“Stable. Heart rate and blood pressure as expected for a Fae. He is much stronger than his readings from ten years ago. He almost became conscious again and we had to almost double the drugs. Aside from that, nothing unexpected. But that’s strange though, right? If he left and wasn’t practicing while in hiding, he should be weaker, shouldn’t he?”

“He is the Dark Prince of the Veil," he quipped, "would you expect anyone from his lineage to NOT gain power as they age? He's still practically an infant given his mind's lifespan."

Alex was one of the rookie employees. He'd recently returned from his first trip through the portal to Veil. He had been anxious to prove his worth and took his monitoring responsibility more seriously than most of his long term employees. And while more capable of preventing or minimizing problems, Steven's couldn't trust any of the dark fae with the knowledge that he had captured one of their own, let alone their crown Prince.

“Why don’t you take a five minute break, Alex. I’ll keep an eye on the monitors for a bit,” said Dr. Stevens. Alex nodded and got up.

“Want anything from the break room? I can bring you back a cola,” offered Alex.

“No, I’m fine, thank you, Alex.” After Alex left the room and the door sealed behind him. He walked around to stand in front of the console, looking at the subject within.

“Not so strong in there are you ‘Charles?’” Dr. Stevens mused out loud condescendingly. “And I was worried it was going to be difficult getting you here after you realized we weren’t friends.” Dr. Stevens laughed to himself at the memory. “You really messed up, didn’t you? I might not have found you if you hadn’t called that last time from a traceable location. It was easy once we narrowed down your location. Hiding almost under our noses. And the cherry on top, you had a child with your human girlfriend. Bet old Daddy wouldn’t be happy with you if he knew. Lucky for you, I have no intention of letting your dad get his hands on her when I have plans of my own. I just need to slice her apart and put her under a microscope, and I’ll be able to figure out how to combine Fae DNA into my own. Then, I’ll be more powerful than the King of the Dark Fae himself, and I’ll have as long a lifespan.” Another chuckle from within his chest. “And you made it so easy for me. Leaving my information out where your dear Avalyn would find it, so she would contact me. I should thank you for that. It changed my plans a great deal, but it’s even better than I could have hoped for.”

Dr. Stevens could see Alex walking back from the corner of his left eye. He pushed himself up from leaning against the console and walked around to the door as Alex scanned his badge from the outside. “Nothing out of the ordinary here, Alex. Have yourself a good day.”

“Hey thanks for the break Dr. Stevens,” Alex said smiling as he walked back to his seat.

***

After Dr. Stevens left Avalyn’s room, she was on her feet and at the wall where she’d seen the doors open and close. She touched the wall in all the places she’d seen the doctor. Nothing lit under her fingers; doors didn’t open. She tried half a dozen things, at different spaces on the wall. A little to the left and tried. A little further right and tried. A little higher. A little lower. Nothing. Avalyn hit the wall with her little fists and sobbed in frustration trying to suppress a scream. The light in the room flickered. The wall shocked her hands. And the doors opened.

Avalyn jumped back and rubbed the outside of her palms of the zap she’d gotten and looked at the open doors. She hesitated in confusion for only an instant wondering how it’d happened, but she didn’t want to waste time on things that didn’t matter. What mattered is that the doors were open by whatever stroke of luck. She popped her head out into the hall and looked left and right. It was an unremarkable white, brightly lit hallway. No people, no other doors she could see, no artwork on the walls, no tiles on the floor. It looked identical to the inside of the room she’d been in with the exception that it was a long hallway and not round, and at the far end, appeared to have a lift on the opposite wall. It looked like the lift was her only option if she was to leave the room.

She ran down the hallway and pressed the button to call the lift. She looked at the buttons on the wall. It looked like she was on the floor marked B Level 2. All the floors from B Level 2 and lower had a lock image next to it. She guessed you needed a keycard to get to any of those. She looked at the other levels up. B Level 1-- she guessed that was just the regular basement level. Above that was “Main Lobby,” “Level 2 Offices,” and “Level 3 Offices.” She figured the main lobby and office levels would probably have a lot of people walking around them. She hit the button for B Level 1 hoping it wasn’t as busy. The lift moved up one floor and opened up to the main laboratory. Men and women sat and stood behind tables with microscopes and beakers full of different liquids. All of the men and women wore white coveralls. Luckily no one noticed her; most had their back to her. She didn’t see any sign of Dr. Stevens or the three men who’d taken her. She saw an exit on the far side of the room from her. It was a straight shot, but there’s no way she could do it without being seen and caught again. And there weren’t any windows so she must still be in a basement level. For all she knew, there was a guard at the top of the stairs outside that door.

She slowly backed into the lift again. She didn’t want to go directly to the main lobby. There would probably be a receptionist that would see her. She’d need to go higher up and see if there was another way to get out without being seen. She hit the button for Level 2 Offices. The lift ascended 2 floors and opened. She stepped out into a hallway that looked down on the main lobby. The receptionist was sitting behind a desk near the front door that was adjacent to the lift on that level, so she had guessed right. She was never more relieved that a lift didn’t make a sound when it arrived on the floor. She stood close to the wall until she was away from the area open above the lobby into a hall with doors on both sides. The doors had long rectangular glass windows in them like those in a school. She peaked through some of them. The rooms themselves looked empty. At the end of the hall was a stairwell. She opened the door to the stairs and ran quickly down the concrete steps. At the main level there was a door. The problem was, it was an emergency exit. So her options were to try to run out the front door past the receptionist or set of an alarm. She figured if the alarm set off, someone may see her, but if everyone was exiting the building, maybe the people that were after her, might be blocked. She waited another moment until she made up her mind, and took off through the emergency exit.

As expected, the alarm blared. She ran and didn’t look behind her until she could get across the street behind something to block her from view. She ducked behind a low cement sign on the ground for the building next to the one she’d come from on the other side of a parking lot driveway. It had mature trees growing on both sides providing more cover. She peaked up over the sign to see if anyone was running in her direction. As luck would have it, everyone had evacuated the building and people were standing outside, but no one had noticed her in the chaos. She heard fire truck sirens in the distance, and started heading away as quickly as possible while trying to stay under cover of trees and buildings.

***

Avalyn woke up in the cold parking garage out of breath from her nightmare. It was like she’d relived that day in her sleep. She could still feel the adrenaline from that day, running away in broad daylight hoping not to get caught.

She sat up and ran her fingers through her dark hair to work out some of the knots. She rubbed her hands together to restore some warmth and get her fingers moving. She pushed herself up off the ground while her cold stiff body allowed her blood to circulate and loosen up. She peered over the side of the cement parking garage. She was eye level with the ground outside. It was still dark, just before sunrise. The ground was covered in frost. She’d need to figure out somewhere to hide before winter hit, or she’d need to find warmer clothes. She’d hate to have to steal clothes; maybe there was a donation center she could take from. No way to know until she got out of this parking garage and got moving.

[Chapter 4 coming soon]