Pulled (7 page)

Chapter 4

Etash

Elizabeth hasn't stopped grinning from the moment she posted the cast list and it's starting to piss me off. She has no idea what she's done to me by forcing my hand in this, completely oblivious as she works at her computer, humming some stupid show tune. Her off-key falsetto is making my head hurt.

Unable to sit still, but not daring to leave her office while Naya is still in the building, I start to pace. Elizabeth shakes her head at me and urges me to relax, but I can't. Instead, I pick up speed, marching back and forth across her small office several times, when out of the blue, the room starts to spin a little, and I have to sit down.
Whoa. That was weird.

After a minute, I try to stand up again but my legs are wobbly. My stomach knots itself into a tight ball. Clearly something is wrong, but I know that it's not with me: it’s
her
. Something is wrong with her. I can feel it.

At that moment, an ear-piercing, metallic, crashing sound comes from outside Elizabeth's office.

“
What was that?” Elizabeth asks, looking up from her desk.

“
Naya,” I whisper.

“
What?”

I can’t answer; I just go. I fly out of Elizabeth's office and pause briefly in the hall. Her scent burns my nostrils, pinpointing exactly where she is; she’s still in the Black Box.

Pushing past a small group of students who have gathered in the door frame, I find her. She’s on the floor, chairs scattered around her crumpled body. A girl from my acting class is kneeling down beside her, about to turn her over.

“
Get away from her!” I shout, terrified by the anger in my voice. The girl backs away instantly, scared. There is no time to apologize for my rudeness—Naya's hurt. Manners can wait.

When I finally reach her, she's lying on her stomach, her head turned to one side, her hair falling wildly around her face. But even through her black mane, I can see that part of her face is turning a deep shade of red. Like she was just hit with something hard and unyielding.

And just like that, the walls I had built to keep her out, to keep
everyone
out, start to crack, and so do I.

“
Naya!” I scream, surprising myself with the pain that is there. I need her to wake up, to know that she is okay. “Naya!”

Over and over again I say her name, and every time she doesn’t respond, the more insane I become.

“
Etash!” Elizabeth is beside me trying to calm me down, I shake her off violently.

“
Call for help!” I order.

“
I already have. Let’s get her into my office. We can put her on the couch.”

But I'm not convinced that moving her is best. I lean down close to her and listen carefully to her breathing, easily able to tune everything else out. It’s slow and steady. Closing my eyes I listen even harder. I swear I can hear the blood running through her veins; can actually detect the delicate sound of healing white blood cells as they flow toward her head, but only her head. Which means nothing is broken. It’s safe to move her.

Slightly terrified by what her touch will do to me, I decide to try just a hand at first. With great care and trepidation, I gently stroke her face with the back of my hand, and in the second our skin touches, I am transformed.

Suddenly nothing else in the world matters except her. She sends electric shock waves straight into my heart, making my skin feel like it’s on fire. But I don't pull away, because it's not a burn of pain; it’s a burn that is healing, magical. It's unlike anything I’ve ever felt before and I know instinctively that I’ll never encounter it with another living soul.

Rolling her over onto her back, I gently cradle my arm under her neck, put my other under her legs and lift her up, amazed by how light she is. I pull her close into my chest, noticing how perfectly she fits there. Her body melts against mine and she sighs my name. I am completely overwhelmed that she has called out my name from some place deep within her unconsciousness.

Inside Elizabeth's office, I become terribly frustrated that I’ll have to release her from my arms to rest her on the couch. Since I’m not sure what will happen to me once she’s out of my arms, I decide to put her down and step away as fast as possible. But, as I lower her down on to the couch, she snuggles up close to my neck; a small grin spreads across her beautiful lips. And right there, as her head rests against me, perfectly content, my heart nearly breaks. I have to let her go.

Pulling her arms off of me, I settle her onto the couch and back away. As soon as I release her, my body starts shaking--pushing me back to her. I can feel Elizabeth's questioning eyes on me, so before I can make a further fool of myself, I run out the door and through the complex, stopping only once I get safely outside.

Naya

Light whispering wakes me from my stupor and I struggle to open my eyes. A persistent, dull throb runs along the left side of my face.
Ow
. The whispers stop. Apparently, I said that out loud. I open my eyes, but don’t recognize the room. I start to sit up.

“
Easy, Naya, stay down; you'll make your ice pack fall off.”

“
Ice pack?”

“
You hit your head pretty hard.” Kari steps into view.

Ignoring her, I push myself up a little further on the couch I’m sitting on. The pack falls onto my lap, causing my head to instantly pound even harder.

“
Ow.” Okay, moving is bad. “What happened?”

“
I think you fainted,” Kari says.

“
I didn’t faint.” I say, shaking my head defiantly. I don't volunteer that it was just a childish panic attack. Pain throbs along my jaw line again. “Why does my face hurt?”

“
You kinda hit it on a chair.” That would do it. Kari bites her lip, catching the gaze of someone else in the room. I turn my head to see who she was looking at: Professor Campbell. Right, this must be her office.

Professor Campbell flies to my side, grabbing my hand. “The sound of it was just
awful
. It resonated all the way into my office.” She gives a quick glance to Kari. “The campus nurse is on her way here to check you over, to make sure you don’t have a concussion or internal bleeding or something worse.”

Embarrassment floods into my cheeks. “I’m fine, really.”

A phone rings and Professor Campbell races to her desk to answer it.

“
How did I get in here?” I whisper to Kari. I didn’t remember walking here.

She starts rubbing the back of her neck. “Um…you were carried.”

“
Oh, how embarrassing,” I groan. “So you and Professor Campbell had to carry me in here? How mortifying.”

I’m surprised when I see her grimace. “I didn’t exactly carry you.” She’s squirming in her chair, perhaps hoping I’ll let it go, but I just continue to stare at her, clearly wanting more from her. “When you fell, you made a lot of noise, so, obviously, people came back to check it out. So someone stronger than me volunteered to carry you.” She's hiding something from me.

“
Who
carried me?”

She sighs heavily before telling me what I already know.

“
Etash.”

Of course.

“
That was the nurse,” Professor Campbell says, kneeling down beside me so I’m forced to look at her. “She’s at the front entrance. Apparently it’s locked. I’m just going to go let her in. I’ll be right back.” She gives me a quick smile before she leaves.

“
Tell me
exactly
what happened,” I hiss, sitting up straighter on the couch, trying to ignore my head when it spins a little.

“
Well, like I said, the sound of the metal chairs banging around was really loud. Lonny, Richard and Thomas were standing outside and came running in. Etash came a couple minutes after them.

“
Then what?” I ask through my teeth. I know the moments are numbered before the nurse arrives.

She hesitates. “Etash, when he saw you, he…kinda flipped out. I mean you did look pretty bad the way you were lying on the ground, all broken looking, but even still, he went all crazy.” Her face twists at the memory.

“
What do you mean?”

She bites her lip again, clearly not wanting to finish her story. “I had started to turn you over, but he shouted at me and told me to get away from you. Which I did, because his expression scared me so much, and then as he got closer and saw your face, his eyes went wild. I don’t know how else to describe it. He literally pushed everyone out of the way and sank down to the ground beside you, trying to wake you up.” She stops, looking me square in the eye. “He kept yelling your name, over and over again. Naya, he sounded like he was…in agony.” She says the last words so quietly that I’m not sure I’ve heard her right.

He called out my name
in agony
? Why? He hates me. She must have remembered it wrong.

“
At some point Professor Campbell
comes in, sees what’s going on and insists we take you to her couch and call the nurse,” Kari continues. “No one offered to carry you because it was clear to all of us that Etash wasn’t going to let anyone else near you. He looked like he was afraid to touch you at first…but once he had you in his arms, he was…I don’t know…different, somehow.”

She leans closer to me as though confiding a deep secret.

“
The whole time he was carrying you, he was looking at you. I mean the
whole
time. He never even looked up to see where he was going. And his eyes, Naya, his eyes. They were in such
pain
.” She looks at me apologetically.

“
Where is he now?” is all I can manage to get out.

“
He bolted right after he put you down. I assume he went to wait for the nurse.”

Meaning he could be locked outside as we speak, with the nurse: the nurse who was on her way here. My heart starts doing double time. “I think I need to lie back down.”

“
That’s a good idea, because Seth’s about to show up too.”

“
Seth? How?” I stammer, not able to finish the thought.

“
He called your cell while you were passed out. I answered it and kinda told him what happened. I'm sorry, I assumed you’d want him here.”

“
Right. Awesome.” Seth and Etash were about to be in the same room together.

Etash

The crisp night air assaults my body as I step outside. Making my way over to the bench near the bike racks, I collapse onto it. I force myself to take deep, slow breaths to chill out, but my nerves are shot. My whole body feels as though it has been drained of all its purpose.

As I lie on the bench, shivering against the cold, there is one obsessive voice that starts screaming inside my head:
Go back to her!
The voice tries to rationalize with me: “
Just make sure she's okay,”
it urges. But I can't. She has a boyfriend to do that, I remind myself.

That's when I see him; a big beefy guy approaching the theatre door. He pulls on it, but it doesn't budge. It must have locked behind me.

“
Naya!” he shouts banging his fist against the glass, hard. It’s
him:
the boyfriend. I swallow back some bile.
Why do I loathe him so much?
I don’t even know him. But something in my gut tells me this guy is pure evil.

“
You looking for Naya?” I yell over to him. Macho man turns to look at me, sizes me up, determines I’m no threat, then answers me.