And once again, her smile turned sad. “The official statement is that a fire ran through your house. Wayne burned himself to get you out.” She shook her head. “If he didn’t have that fire extinguished in three seconds flat, I’ll eat my syringes.”
“Seems unpleasant.”
“Zoe. What actually happened?”
Taking a deep breath of air, Zoe shook her head. “I don’t know much after I escaped. Just enough to catch that Wayne and Eva both survived.”
“Eva? The claw girl who has lots of ‘everythings’?”
“She has claws,” Zoe said slowly. She wasn’t quite sure what Lisa meant by ‘everythings.’
“What’s she got to do with this?”
Zoe chuckled. “She might just be the most qualified person to deal with creatures like these.” Aside from Zagan. Zoe wasn’t about to even mention his name. “Please don’t ask what the creatures are.”
“Fine, but I have my guesses.”
Zoe didn’t doubt that. The nurse probably wouldn’t need more than one guess; after treating Eva during the spring, she had to have researched anything that might be able to cause hands like that.
“What do you mean by escaped? And survived what?”
“I don’t know,” Zoe lied. “As for escaping, well, I am still wondering if I actually escaped.”
“You’re here, Zoe. You are safe.”
“That is what you said last time.”
The nurse frowned, but remained silent.
“I escaped at least twenty times,” Zoe said with a sigh. “I would teleport out. Get help. But something would be wrong. The colors of someone’s hair or pillow cases being inside out. The moment I noticed, the pain would start.” Zoe touched one of the healed cuts on her cheek. “It started small. A cut here or there. Then larger cuts. Broken bones.
“I don’t know how I escaped. What I did different. That scares me, Lisa. I’m still looking for something wrong.”
Lisa bent forwards and wrapped her arms around Zoe. It was somewhat awkward. Zoe didn’t want to lean forwards for fear of disturbing her knee.
Still, it was appreciated. Needed, even.
“We’ll find you a therapist. A good one.”
Zoe just nodded into her shoulder. She doubted a therapist would be able to do anything. How could anyone talk away an illusion indistinguishable from reality?
Disappointing her friend, assuming she was real, wouldn’t leave a good taste in her mouth.
Zoe shook the morbid thought from her mind. “If it isn’t too much trouble, could you send for Eva? I need to speak with her.”
Lisa pulled back with a glance at the wall clock. “It’ll be dark out. She should be somewhere around unless she is violating curfew.”
“I wouldn’t put that past her.”
“I’ll find her so long as she’s in the building,” Lisa said with a frown.
“Thank you.”
Zoe leaned back against her pillows. At least the clock didn’t have thirteen numbers this time.
None of her previous ‘escapes’ had lasted more than a few minutes before she noticed something out of place. That alone had to be good evidence that she actually escaped.
Assuming time wasn’t dilated in any way during the illusions.
The hands on the clock slowly ticked around for almost an hour before Eva walked into the room.
“You’re looking better.”
“Eva, yo–”
Zoe’s words choked in her throat as she stared at the girl. That girl stared back.
She
With red, slit-pupil eyes.
That was wrong.
Very wrong.
Zoe braced herself.
Pain would be right after noticing something wrong.
And then another illusion would start.
She’d think she escaped.
Zoe was so engrossed in staring at those eyes, she almost missed Eva’s diagnosis.
“Bruises are gone. No internal or external bleeding. There is non-insignificant asymmetry in your legs. Are they alright?”
No pain. No booting out of the illusion.
Zoe clenched her jaw shut. She didn’t know what to think anymore.
It happened so quickly, Zoe couldn’t stop herself. It took all her effort to ignore the pain in her leg as she leaned over the edge of her bed.
What had to be hundreds of dollars worth of potions wound up on the floor.
“Zoe!” Eva darted forwards around the non-vomit side of the bed. Sharp claws pressed against her back.
No pain came. Again. Just a soothing and somewhat odd feeling backrub.
Lisa burst into the room an instant later.
“I’m fine,” Zoe blurted out despite the foul taste in her mouth. She didn’t want Lisa jumping to conclusions. “I just–Eva, your eyes…”
“Oh. Arachne got them for me. The original owner wasn’t needing them anymore. I didn’t mean–I’m sorry. You were probably tortured… I didn’t even think–”
Zoe cut her off with a shake of her head.
She had a feeling she had seen those eyes before. Recently. She was suddenly glad she had been trapped in an endless stream of illusions rather than extended torture underneath the watchful gaze of those eyes. Being afraid of one of her students due to trauma would never do.
Maybe seeing a therapist for
