Chapter 20:
SPENCER'S POV
The news anchor's voice cut out as I muted the television, but the silent, monstrous image of a possessed Mr. Thorne seemed burned onto the back of my eyelids. A demon. A real, honest-to-god demon from hell was hunting me, Spain too is after my life. The air in the hotel room, once a sanctuary, now felt thin and suffocating. I began to pace, a caged animal driven by a toxic cocktail of panic and fear. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat syncopated with the mantra in my head: A demon. My brother. A demon. Spain. A demon. The luxurious hotel room felt like a gilded cage, its luxury on a grand, a mockery of the primal terror coiling in my gut. Each plush carpet fiber beneath my feet seemed to whisper of impending doom, and the abstract art on the walls contorted into visions of the hellish red eyes I had just witnessed on screen.
"What's wrong with you?" Wednesday's voice was flat, an observation devoid of its usual curious lilt, a stark contrast to the chaotic storm raging inside me.
I stopped pacing and stared at her. She was looking at the bucket of strawberry ice cream I had placed for her on the table with an expression of cold disdain. Then, with a deliberate, cold motion that felt like a physical blow, she pushed it away. The cardboard container slid across the polished wood with a soft, scraping sound, a small, profound act of rejection that echoed through the silent room. It was more than just refusing a treat; it was a rejection of our shared alliance, of the fragile connection we had built in the midst of chaos.
I narrowed my gaze, my confusion cutting through the fear like a shard of glass. "Everything, Wednesday..... everything," I muttered replying to her question, the words heavy with the weight of my collapsing world. My voice was tight, strained. "First, assassins were after my life, sent by my so-called brother, Spain. The one person who should have my back, who shared a childhood with me, wants me dead! Now, I'm here knowing fully well a... a virus is out there, calling out my name, searching for me! It knows my name!" The panic was rising again, a tide of hysteria I was desperately trying to hold back.
"It's a DEMON. Not a VIRUS," she said, her tone sharp, corrective, and laced with an impatience that felt like a razor's edge. As if my mislabeling of the existing threat hunting me was the most offensive, the most intellectually disappointing part of this entire nightmare.
"Whatever!" I said, throwing my hands up in exasperation and rolling my eyes. The semantic argument felt ludicrous, a absurdist play performed on the edge of the abyss. "What kind of demon is that? What does it want with me? I'm just a guy! A messed-up, confused guy who's in way over his head!" My plea was raw, stripped of all the billionaire bravado I usually wore as armor.
She exhaled, a slow, weary sound that seemed to drain the very light from the room. "I don't know. But I know a demon when I see one. The stench of brimstone, the corruption of a soul... it's unmistakable. And believe me, Spencer, this one... this demon is a really powerful one." She paused, letting the gravity of her words sink in, her dark eyes seeming to look through me into a void I couldn't comprehend. "Powerful enough to not just kill you, but to annihilate the entire human race if it so desired. You are a particle to it. A momentary distraction." She said it with such chilling, matter-of-fact certainty that the room seemed to grow several degrees colder, the air itself thickening with dread.
The scale of it was too vast to comprehend. My personal drama—the betrayal, the forbidden feelings, the haunting—was a speck of dust in the path of a celestial hurricane. My problems were suddenly insignificant, yet they were all I had. "Gosh," I breathed out, my shoulders slumping in defeat. The fight drained out of me, replaced by a numb exhaustion. "I need a break. I'm really hungry." It was a pathetic, human response to a cosmic threat, but my body was demanding normalcy, a return to base instincts. I went to pick up my plate of now-cold breakfast, the eggs congealed and the bacon limp, hoping the simple, mechanical act of eating would somehow clean my head of the apocalyptic thoughts swarming like hornets. "Aren't you having your ice cream?" I asked, gesturing vaguely toward the rejected container, a last, desperate attempt to cling to a shred of our old dynamic.
She looked at me, her dark eyes like chips of obsidian, hard and impenetrable. "No."
The finality in that single syllable was a brick wall. It was so absolute it stole my breath. "Why?" I asked, genuinely perplexed, my voice barely a whisper. This was our thing. The one constant, the one joy she embraced without disguise, without embarrassment and without hesitation.
"I just told you no. And it's none of your business." Her voice was ice, each word a shard meant to wound. "And why did you even get me ice cream in the first place? I didn't ask for ice cream."
Her words were like successive slaps. Shocked by her response, I flinched, putting my plate down with a clatter. "I... I thought you might be hungry," I stammered, feeling foolish, like a child being scolded. "And I wanted to get you something to... to cool down. I brought your favorite flavo—"
She cut me off, her voice rising from a chill to a sudden, sharp yell as she stood up, her form seeming to vibrate with a sudden, terrifying energy. "I JUST TOLD YOU I DON'T WANT TO HAVE ICE CREAM! IS THAT TOO HARD FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND? I DON'T NEED YOUR ICE CREAM! TAKE IT AWAY!"
The force of her outburst was a physical thing. It made me take a stumbling step backward, my hip hitting the edge of the table. The cheerful ghost who had laughed with me just hours ago, whose cold lips I had kissed with a desperate, hopeless passion, was gone, replaced by this furious, cold stranger. Her face was a mask of pure, unadulterated anger. "Why is she suddenly mad at me? Did I do anything wrong?" My mind raced, a frantic scroll through every interaction, every word, every look, searching for a transgression, a mistake that could warrant this nuclear reaction. "I'm sorry," I tried, the apology weak and confused, a blanket statement thrown at a fire I couldn't see.
"Keep the apology for yourself!" she snapped, her words so rude and dripping with a venom that felt disproportionate, unnatural. "You will need it later."
Woah. The shift was jarring, whiplash-inducing. It was like watching a beloved painting spontaneously combust. Where did the ghost I knew go? The one who found a dark joy in haunting and a simple solace in frost ice creams? The one who had looked at me with something akin to tenderness? She turned her back on me, a definitive, contemptuous dismissal, and walked over to the balcony, her form rigid with a tension that looked painful.
I stood, shocked and speechless. The silence she left in her wake was louder than her yelling. It was a vacuum, sucking all the sound and warmth from the room. I turned slowly and looked at her back, a solitary, unapproachable silhouette against the vast, indifferent city. What had suddenly happened to Wednesday? What switch had been flipped? I looked down at the melting ice cream, the vibrant pink now a sad, soupy mess, a metaphor for the state of... whatever this was between us. I exhaled, a long, shaky breath that did nothing to ease the tightness in my chest. Maybe she needed space. Maybe the demon, the mission, the immense pressure—it was getting to her, too. I had to be understanding. I had to be patient.
I took my plate and began eating silently, but the food tasted like ash. Every chew was a mechanical effort. Wednesday's voice was a thorn in my ears, her cruel words replaying on a relentless, painful loop. I didn't do anything wrong that warranted such demise and displeasure. I looked at her again. Her back was all I could see, a wall of silent rejection. The distance between us, though only a few meters, felt like a chasm I could never cross. The silence was a physical weight, pressing down on me, and I couldn't withstand it. I couldn't breathe.
I got up, leaving my half-eaten meal, and walked to the balcony. I stood next to her, not touching, but close enough to feel the unnatural cold that radiated from her, a cold that now felt hostile. We both stared out at the city, a sprawling landscape of a million lives oblivious to the two broken beings standing on this ledge.
"You have never rejected ice cream before," I said softly, my voice barely above a whisper, a final, fragile attempt to reach the person I thought was still in there. "What did I do wrong?"
To my surprise, and to my utter devastation, she didn't even acknowledge me. There was no sigh, no tensing of her shoulders, not even a flicker of her eyes in my direction. She simply turned around, a fluid, dismissive motion that was more insulting than any words, and walked away without a single word. She walked past me, through the living area, her steps silent on the carpet, and phased directly through the solid wall of the hotel room, leaving me completely alone on the balcony.
She walked out on me.
Is she avoiding me?
"Can someone please tell me what I did wrong?" I yelled out to the uncaring city below, my voice cracking with frustration and hurt, the sound swallowed by the vast urban landscape. "What have I done now?!"
The city didn't answer. It just hummed its indifferent tune, cars like tiny ants, people like insignificant dots. I exhaled, the fight draining out of me, and placed my hands on the cold, rough balcony bars, my head bowed. The view was magnificent, a testament to human achievement, but all I could see was the empty space where she had just been standing, a void that echoed with the ghost of her presence.
---
Later in the day
The hours stretched, long and oppressive, each minute a lifetime of silence. I sat on the large, plush cushion in the sitting area, staring blankly at the wall, seeing nothing. The food on the table had long gone cold, a forgotten monument to a breakfast that never was. Wednesday had returned at some point, a silent, gliding re-entry, but she was a world away. She sat on the edge of the bed, her posture perfect and unyielding, a soldier at attention, her gaze fixed on some invisible, grim point in the middle distance. The distance she had created since morning was a tangible force in the room, a field of negative energy that made the air hard to breathe, each molecule charged with unspoken pain.
This cold war was worse than any assassin's attack. It was a slow, psychological torture, a drip-feed of confusion and rejection that was complicating my sanity.
The silence became a scream. I couldn't take it anymore.
"Can I know now what I did wrong," I asked, my voice hoarse from the silence, the words scraping my throat, "so I can atone for my sins? Just tell me. Please."
She kept mute. She didn't even turn her head a fraction of an inch to acknowledge I had spoken. The dismissal was absolute, a level of ignorance that was somehow more cruel than her earlier shouts.
Frustration and a desperate, clawing need for connection, for some shred of the old Wednesday, forced me to my feet. I couldn't take this any longer. I needed to bridge this gap, to understand, to feel the cold comfort of her presence, even if it was angry. I took a step toward the bed, my intention to sit next to her, to force a conversation, to break this unbearable stillness.
"I prefer the distance you and I are having now," she suddenly spoke, her voice cold and clear, a blade of ice cutting through the room without her even turning around. "Don't come any closer."
I froze mid-step, one foot hovering over the carpet. "Well, I don't like the distance you are keeping, Wednesday!" My voice rose, edged with the panic of someone watching their only lifeline slip through their fingers into a dark sea. "What's going on? Talk to me!"
"STAY AWAY FROM ME!"
She yelled it, the words a thunderclap that seemed to shake the very foundations of the hotel. She stood up in a swift, violent motion, turning around to face me. And as she did, her form began to change, to unmake itself into something terrible and beautiful. Her dark hair bleached itself to that terrifying white-blonde silver, flowing as if in an unseen, stormy wind. Her eyes transformed into those piercing, silverish-white orbs that held no trace of the girl I knew, no hint of humor or sadness, only pure, undiluted power and rage. This was the Fury, the vengeful spirit in its pure, terrifying form, the one I had seen only once before when our mission had taken us to Casrina's residence, a sight that had chilled me to the bone then and now petrified me.
I sank back onto the cushion, shock and fear rooting me to the spot, my heart a trapped bird beating against my ribs.
She began storming towards me, each step a promise of violence, her spectral feet not quite touching the floor. "Stay the hell away from me! The little chances I have of gaining justice, you want to sabotage it! See me as your business partner, not some friend or something more! Keep the distance I want! I am on a strict mission, not here to rub bodies with some pathetic loser!"
Each word was a precisely aimed dagger, expertly crafted to inflict maximum damage, to sever the ties that had binded us. They found their mark, burying deep into the most vulnerable parts of my soul.
"A billionaire who succumbs to anything living or dead! A puppet! A billionaire who can't stand for himself or even defend himself! From now on, I want us to be five meters apart from each other at all times! You are a weakling, trying to break my strength, trying to make me weak! Each step closer to you is counting down my everlasting doom!"
She finished her tirade, her chest heaving with a rage that seemed to distort the air around her, making her form shimmer with malevolent energy. She then took measured, deliberate steps backward, her eyes locked on mine, putting a precise, uncrossable five meters steps of carpet between us. She stood there, a statue of wrath and ice, a boundary line drawn in the sand of our relationship.
But in her glowing silver eyes, just for a fleeting, heartbreaking moment beneath the overwhelming, incomprehensive hate, I saw something else. A flicker of an agony so profound it stole my breath. It was a crack in her divine armor, a glimpse of a storm-tossed ocean of pain beneath the frozen surface. It was unreal, that flash of truth, and it made me wonder with a desperate, painful, blooming hope if this torrent of calculated cruelty was what she truly felt, or if it was a performance, a shield she was desperately, painfully trying to make me believe was real. This thought was the only thing that kept me from shattering completely.
To be continued....