Chapter 43: The Imaginary Friend No One Wants
Elias lay in a hospital bed, the air around him heavy, as if the walls themselves carried his exhaustion.
Mina had left him at the forest's edge, not because she didn't wish to take him all the way home, but because the police had arrived. Revealing herself wasn't an option. There wasn't a reasonable explanation for her presence there, so she slipped away before anyone could notice.
The officers were relieved to see Elias emerge from the thicket, but their relief quickly turned to shock at the sight of his injuries. He was drenched in blood—his own, since Mina had carefully erased any trace that wasn't. With a bullet still lodged in his arm, they rushed him to the hospital for treatment. Meanwhile, the search for the kidnapper continued, though he had already been reduced to ashes.
The quiet hum of the machines was broken by the soft click of the door. Elias tensed, then relaxed when Eve peeked her head inside, followed by Syler and Mina.
Eve's lips trembled the instant her eyes landed on him. She froze, struggling to process that he was really there and not just a cruel hallucination. Syler stiffened too, his jaw tightening at the sight of Elias's pallid face and slinged arm. His gaze darted away, unable to meet his friend's eyes. Mina squeezed his hand and leaned close, whispering, "Hey… don't overthink this. Elias isn't upset with you. None of this was something you could've stopped. He needs you, Syler. He… he's been through a lot."
Syler swallowed hard, biting his lip before giving a faint nod.
"Elias," Eve whispered, her nose stinging with tears. She rushed forward but stopped short, carefully wrapping her arms around him with the gentleness of someone holding glass.
"I'm so glad you're safe. After those first few hours… I thought I'd never see you again," she sobbed into his shoulder.
Elias smiled faintly and raised his good arm to pat her back, his touch weak but steady. "Big baby. I should be the one crying. Yeah, I'm back," he joked. But to Eve, his voice lacked its usual bite, his cheer sounding forced.
She pulled back to study his face. The familiar spark in his eyes was missing, replaced by a hollow smile.
Just what did he go through? Eve wondered. She wanted to ask, but his wounds felt too raw to probe. If she pressed him now, whatever was holding him together might splinter apart. Maybe… she could ask Mina later. She also wanted to tell him she knew about their father's secret now, that he didn't need to bear everything alone—but with two other people in the room, she couldn't.
"You're probably tired, so I'll let you rest. We'll talk more in the morning, okay?" Eve said softly, smoothing his hair from his face before heading to the door. She paused beside Mina and whispered, "Can I talk to you?"
Mina arched a brow but followed her out, leaving only Elias and Syler in the room.
Silence pressed down until Syler finally blurted, "Elias… I'm so sorry. If I had spoken up sooner, maybe this wouldn't have happened." He tugged at his sleeves, eyes fixed on the floor.
Elias's brow twitched. "Why are you apologizing?" His throat felt tight as he clenched the blanket, staring at a friend who still wouldn't meet his eyes.
"I'm the worst. I should've said something about Hans. Maybe things would've been different."
"Syler… that guy was a professional. Even if you had spoken up, he would've found another way. That's not on you." Elias's fingers trembled against the blanket.
"Still, you wouldn't have had more of a chance," Syler blurted. Once he started down the road of negativity, it was hard to stop.
"Syler, please, I really—"
"But if I'd said something, we could've prepared—or involved the police. Maybe none of that would've happened to you."
"Syler. Just—"
"I'm really sorry. I'm the worst—"
Bang!
Glass shattered.
Syler's head snapped up, his face draining of color. Blood trickled from Elias's good hand, now clenched in the wreckage of the flower vase beside the bed.
He rushed to his side. "What are you doing?! Why would you hurt yourself like that?" he demanded, pulling out tweezers to pluck the jagged shard buried in Elias's palm.
"Syler…" Elias muttered, anger and exhaustion tinging his voice, "I was never upset with you regarding any of this. There's no way I'd blame you. There was nothing that would have changed from your efforts alone… Honestly, after everything that happened…I'm not sure what I wanted to hear from you when I got back, but it sure as hell wasn't an apology."
Elias yanked his hand free, grabbed the nurse call button, and pressed it.
"I'm sorry… but until you sort yourself out, could you leave? I don't have the energy to carry your self-pity on top of everything else right now." Elias turned his body away, leaving Syler staring at him with a lost expression.
"I-I understand," Syler croaked, fighting back tears as he reflected on his behavior just moments ago, "Get some rest, Elias." His steps dragged as he shuffled to the door and closed it softly behind him.
For several minutes, Elias lay still, staring at the wall. Only when the faint click of the door echoed in his ears did he finally turn his head toward it.
"Hmm… he's your friend, right? That didn't sound like one of your usual jokes. That was genuinely mean, wasn't it?"
Elias's eyes widened. The voice hadn't come from the hallway. Slowly, he shifted his gaze to the corner of the room.
A teenage boy sat casually in the chair, short red hair catching the dim light. His face was unmistakably familiar—an androgynous, handsome face Elias knew all too well. But now it bore a boyish, youthful cast that shouldn't exist. After all, the person was dead.
"I… I know I was awful to him. I just snapped. I just— just… who are you?" Elias asked, his voice tight. He hadn't seen the boy enter, and no one else seemed to notice him.The boy sat watching with quiet amusement while everyone fussed over Elias, his steady gaze stirring a growing dread.
The boy's lips curved into a sly grin as he propped his hand against his cheek. "Oh? Gonna pretend you don't know?"
Elias's muscles tensed. "Just say it straight."
"Wow, not even gonna guess? Fine. It's Bellamy." He hopped from the chair and strode over, poking Elias on the nose.
"Guess you missed me too much. Seriously, you're so strange," he teased, plopping down on the edge of the bed. "What kind of guy misses his kidnapper?"
"Shut up! You're dead! Why are you here?" Elias snapped, lunging for Bellamy's shirt—only for his hand to pass straight through, the image vanishing like smoke.
"Whoa, so angry! Why don't you ask your own brain why I'm here? If you fight me too hard, your mind might break again," Bellamy drawled, suddenly appearing on the opposite side of the bed. He poked Elias's stitched cheek, making him wince. "Weren't you the one who wondered if I'd been a normal teenager like you—if we could've been friends? Maybe this is just your brain's way of giving you what you wanted."
Elias's breath hitched.
Bellamy leaned back with an infuriating smile, stretching out his hand. "I've got a feeling I'll be sticking around for a while. Won't you be my friend, Elias?"
—---
Outside in the hall, Mina and Eve walked side by side. People turned their heads for a second look—two beautiful girls, but with strikingly different styles: Mina with her tomboyish charm, and Eve with her bright, cute face framed by a bouncing ponytail.
"So, we should be out of Elias's hearing range. What did you want to talk about?" Mina asked once they'd walked a ways down the corridor.
"You've noticed it too, haven't you?" Eve said quietly. "Elias… he's different. Something happened out there. Was his kidnapper really just… missing?"
Mina narrowed her eyes, then released a ripple of energy around them, sealing off the space so no one could overhear.
"Jeez, could you be a little more careful bringing that up?" she muttered, crossing her arms. "There's always a chance someone's listening in, especially after all the stunts you've pulled, Miss Hacker."
"You're probably right," Eve admitted, smacking her hand over her mouth. She was usually cautious, but her nerves over Elias had made her careless.
Mina pursed her lips in annoyance. "Honestly, if you weren't Elias's sister, I wouldn't even bother with you. I've known you for three years, and we've barely had a real conversation. I figured, since Elias is nice, maybe you'd be too—but half the time you act like a stuck-up bitch. You look at people like no one outside your family deserves your attention. It's really damn annoying," she huffed.
Eve puffed out her cheeks in fury. She hadn't expected to be criticized, least of all by her brother's friend. "Oh, please. Don't act like you weren't the same way three years ago. In fact, you were worse! I don't go around purposely looking at people with contempt like you did!" she shot back, shaking her fists.
Mina rolled her eyes. "Yeah, and that was three years ago. At least I've changed. What's your excuse, huh? You wouldn't have even talked to me if you didn't need my help finding Elias—which, by the way, I was already doing without you asking."
"Why does it matter if I don't want friends outside my family?" Eve asked, pouting as she gripped the hem of her sweater.
Mina sneered and leaned down to meet her eyes. "You say 'family,' but you really just mean Elias, don't you? Are you seriously planning to rely on him for everything? That's selfish. What will you do when he wants to live his own life? What if he starts his own family? He can't pamper you forever. And look at him right now. Does he look like someone who can handle the weight of your dependence?" She jabbed a finger into Eve's collarbone.
Eve winced, unsure how to respond.
"Listen, I'm not Elias or Choi Kim, so I don't have pretty words for you. Your 'my brother is my life' attitude will become a burden for him if you're not careful," Mina warned. The image of Elias breaking down in the forest flashed through her mind. She couldn't keep pretending she didn't see the harm Eve might cause him one day. She hated seeing Elias like that, and if it meant yelling at his sister, she would do it to protect him.
"I-I'm not hurting him," Eve protested weakly. "I'd never try to hurt him. Besides, you're biased too. You know who I'm talking about." She bit back, glaring into Mina's eyes.
"So? Are you seriously comparing your unhealthy attachment to mine? What a shitty joke. Look, I don't care if you never make friends with anyone else, but you've got to admit what you've been doing is crazy. If you don't change, you're going to hurt both yourself and Elias," Mina said, clicking her tongue before straightening her back and shoving her hands into her pockets. She stretched with a sigh. "God, that felt great to finally say."
Eve's face flushed red. "I get it. Whatever, you say," she snapped. "Can you answer my question now?" She wouldn't entertain Mina's taunting words.
Mina glared, annoyed at how Eve brushed her off. "Fine," she muttered through clenched teeth. If the other person wasn't willing to listen, there was no point repeating herself like a broken record.
"When I found Elias… he was sobbing, cradling his kidnapper's dead body," Mina mumbled, leaning back against the wall.
"What? So his kidnapper died? Then why did Elias say he ran away? How'd the kidnapper die? …And why was he crying?" Eve rattled out questions, her voice puzzled and tense.
Mina hesitated before answering. "I'm only telling you this because I know you're the last person who'd ever spill Elias's secrets. …Elias said that he killed him. I don't know the details, but that's what he told me. He seems to be carrying some kind of guilt, probably from killing someone for the first time. But… I think it's more than that. Honestly, I don't fully understand it myself."
She remembered Elias snapping at her for calling his captor a "douche." It had completely thrown her. She still couldn't grasp how that guy had managed to worm his way into Elias's care while she was gone.
"Elias… killed him?" Eve asked. It was hard to imagine her clumsy, gentle older brother taking someone else's life. Though she had never killed anyone directly, with just the press of a keyboard, she had ruined the lives of several people who bared their teeth or greed to her twin. Her hands weren't clean, but she never regretted her decisions. She always justified it, telling herself they deserved it for trying to harm him.
But Elias was different. She knew he could never justify killing someone, even if that person had wronged or harmed him. He was used to being treated with contempt because of his strange luck, and over time, he had begun to believe that their scorn and malice were somehow his own fault. He never blamed others—only himself.
Eve felt an ache in her chest. She could only imagine what her brother was going through, and she didn't know how to comfort or help him.
"Thanks… for not telling the police, and for helping me find him," Eve said, lifting her hand for a handshake.
Mina snorted, blowing her bangs out of her eyes. "I wasn't doing it for you." Her hands stayed buried in her pockets.
Eve rolled her eyes and dropped her hand. "Still, thanks."
"Whatever. I'm gonna go grab Syler from his room and head home with him," Mina said, pushing off the wall.
Eve smirked. "A date?" she teased.
"None of your damn business. Now, if you'll excuse me—I'm going." Mina grunted and strutted back toward Elias's hospital room.
Eve shook her head and walked out of the hospital.
Mina, meanwhile, stepped into Elias's room just as a nurse finished wrapping a bandage around his other hand, while another swept shards of glass into a dustpan. The sharp scent of blood lingered in the air. Her eyes narrowed. Did Elias hurt himself again? And where was Syler?
Once the nurses left, Mina walked in, her expression tight with confusion.
"Are you okay? Did you get hurt again?" she asked, leaning against the bed to examine his new wound.
Elias glanced down at it, guilt heavy in his chest. "Mina, I… I messed up. He kept apologizing and I took my anger out on him. I think he left, maybe he went home. I don't know."
Mina nearly slipped onto the bed in disbelief. "What? You fought with him?"
She dragged her hands down her face with a groan. 'Damn it.' She wasn't even gone that long, and those two idiots had already managed to get into an argument.
Straightening up, she clenched her teeth, forcing down her frustration. "I'm gonna look for him," she said, voice on the verge of exploding. "But when I get back, we're talking. And you're going to apologize to him. Got it?" Her tone was sharp, edged with anger.
Elias nodded, not daring to look her in the eye.
With that, she turned and closed the door behind her.
"Fiery woman, isn't she?" came a low voice near his ear. Elias stiffened, then spotted Bellamy leaning against his shoulder. A lazy smirk played on his lips.
"Both of your friends seem upset now. Your friendships are still confusing to me. Is this also one of your games? Doesn't seem like it. Are you sure you don't want to accept me instead? My offer still stands," Bellamy said, a teasing glint flashing in his brown eyes.
Elias groaned and yanked the blanket over his head.
"Shut up."