Chapter 32: Amri

She ignores me, ripping her arm out my grasp as she begins to run down the hallway.

I turn to Simon. "What does code red mean?"

He doesn't answer, watching Marissa run down the hall with a dazed look on his face.

I walk over to him, my face directly in front of his. "SIMON! WHAT IS A CODE RED?"

He looks down at me, his voice barely above a whisper as he tells me, "It's a suicide."

Tears fill my eyes as I shake my head. "No, no it can't…" I look back up to Simon. "Take me there."

He shakes his head. "I can't. I'd lose my job."

I look down at his key card on his shirt, "I'm sorry, Simon."

With that, I raise my fist and slam it into his stomach, and when he doubles over in pain, I slam my knee up into his nose. He groans, falling to the floor as his nose begins to bleed.

For a moment, I feel bad. Simon is only trying to do his job, and I can tell from how shy and timid he is that he probably hasn't been on the job too long. I know damn well I've only seen him around Melford once or twice before he became my new nurse.

When he falls to the ground, I reach down and grab his key card, following the path Marissa and the guards took toward solitary, using the keycard to open the set of double doors the group of them went through.

I look left and right, not being able to tell which way they went. I've only been in solitary the one time, and I barely remember the way there. With all the walls here being blank white, and no decorations to mark the hallways, it's very easy to get lost.

That same power starts to swirl around in my body before I feel it shoot out of me. I gasp, my eyes widening as I see a path of gold in front of me and turning down the next hallway. My power, whatever power I have, is leading me toward Zain. Toward my mate.

I didn't want to accept that I wasn't human, but the signs are there. The weird training with Zain, the secrecy surrounding Vincent, and how weird his father acted toward me. I had always thought there was something different about me, but I never wanted to believe it. Everyone thinks they're special in some way, but I know how the world works. It's cruel. It gives you hope and then snatches it away in the most painful way possible. I didn't want to have hope.

But now, following this golden strand of light that's leading me to my mate, I know I was right.

Skidding down the hallway, I finally start to hear voices ahead of me. One more turn, and there they are. About a dozen guards and nurses, with Marissa standing in the middle.

Reaching the group, I shove my way around them until I'm standing directly in the doorway, not one of them even questioning why I'm here. It isn't long until I figure out why. They're in shock.

The scene in front of me is like something out of a horror movie. In the middle of the room, is a giant circle. Runes cover the inside border, each one of them different in shape and size. There's another circle after that, with more runes lining the inside of that one. I can't see what's in the middle, because that's where Zain lay. His body completely still as blood drips off his arm where he slit both of his wrists, his hair dyed red with the blood pooled around him.

My head starts to shake as I take in the whole scene. I could process it when I was looking at pieces one by one but looking at it all together and realizing what happened here…I can't.

"No, no, no."

I collapse onto my knees. The circle is made of blood. The runes are drawn in blood. Zain bled himself out to draw this…God I don't even know what it is.

And then he died.

Which means…Vincent.

Vincent has mentioned multiple times that I would have to die, that the mating bond would have to be completed. What if this was Zain completing the mating bond? But why wouldn't he wait to tell me?

All the confusion adds to the pain of what Marissa said earlier. That Vincent isn't real, that it was a hallucination that I pulled Damion and Zain into.

What if she's right ?

What if Zain killed himself…for nothing?

I shake my head, my body beginning to tremble as it hits me. Zain is dead. He's dead because of me. I killed him.

That's the thought that breaks me.

"Zain!" I cross the threshold into his room, crawling across the bloody drawing on the floor and coming to a stop beside his body. "Zain, baby, open your eyes."

I take his head in my hands, setting it on my lap. "Zain, open your fucking eyes. Open them!"

I watch as my tears hit his face, and I wish harder than I ever have. But this isn't a fairytale. He doesn't wake up.

I cry even harder, my body shaking with sobs as I reach down and take his hands in mine, holding them one last time.

"This is your fault, you know. You caused this."

I look up to find Marissa standing at the edge of the door, her eyes scanning over the room before landing on me.

"If it wasn't for your delusions, he would still be alive."

I cry even harder, squeezing Zain's hands in mine. "I know."

When I release his hands, one opens up, showing a sliver of paper clasped in his fist. I can only see the corner of it, but just from that corner I can see part of the drawing on the floor.

It wasn't a weird ritual. Zain doesn't have access to anything in solitary, and he would have been checked before they locked him in here, but he does in his dreams. In Vincent's bedroom. That's where he got the instructions. I look over the drawing on the floor and realize I do recognize some of the runes. They're the same ones that are on Vincent's hands .

I look down at his body, smiling as it hits me. I'm not crazy. Vincent is real, and Zain has died to go be with our mate.

I look up to Marissa as I reach down, sliding the paper from his hand to mine and clasping it with my fist. "I want to go back to my room now."

She rolls her eyes. "And I assume your assigned nurse is bleeding somewhere."

"Something like that."

"You violent thing." She scoffs and turns to one of the guards, "Jasper, take Miss Glass back to her room. And get one of the nurses to watch over her."

The guard in front nods, walking forward and grabbing me by my arm, his grip tight and bruising as he yanks me up and starts to drag me out the door.

"You could be a little gentler."

"I've seen what you can do to men bigger than me, Miss. I'm not taking any chances."

I look over to him. He must have seen what I did to Royce. "That fucker deserved it."

He doesn't say anything else, keeping his eyes forward as he leads me back through the hallways and to my new room.

He holds his hand out, and I start to panic as I think he saw me get the paper out of Zain's hand.

His throat clears as he makes a motion with his hand. "The key card, Miss Glass. You couldn't have gotten past the doors without it."

I sigh, acting annoyed as I take my free hand and pull the card out of my pocket and place it in his waiting palm.

He motions to the room, opening the door and allowing me to walk inside. "I'm going to go get a nurse to be in here with you for now. You saw something traumatic, and you need to be watched. Don't do anything stupid in the next five minutes, please."

With that, he closes the door behind me.

Five minutes. I have five minutes.

I rush to the bathroom, knowing that's the only place in my room the cameras don't cover, and I don't need anyone coming to try and save me before the ritual is finished.

Luckily, whenever they switched my room, they put me in a handicapped one, so the bathroom is a lot larger and should be big enough for me to draw out what I need to.

Looking around, I try to figure out what I have in here that I could use. I need something sharp enough to break my skin.

The problem is, this is a mental institution, and this room is completely suicide proof. Zain must have got a knife or something from Vincent's bedroom, but I don't have time for a quick nap. Besides, I haven't even been going to Vincent's room when I sleep lately. It would most likely be a waste of time to even try.

"Well, fuck." I'm running out of time. I look around my bathroom one more time before sighing, dropping my arms to my sides.

"What the hell…?" Something is in my pocket. I reach into the pocket of my scrubs and pull it out.

The pen I stole from the clinic earlier. I click it, seeing the ballpoint end. It's going to hurt like a bitch, but it'll get the job done.

I pull out the drawing from my other pocket and look it over. It's the same as the one from Zain's bedroom, but luckily the drawing shows the pentagram in the middle. It's a good thing, too, or I wouldn't have known to draw it .

The only thing is there's a spot of blood covering up what looks like two or three of the runes in the second circle.

Fuck it. I have to use what I can.

Placing the drawing on the counter, I take the pen in my right hand and without a second thought, slam it into my wrist.

I bite my lip to keep in the scream, but I can't help the tears that immediately start to run down my face.

Dropping the pen, I dip my fingers in the blood coming from my wrist and start to copy the drawing onto the floor. I draw what I can of the two missing runes, but I can only see the corners of each.

While drawing, my mind travels to Damion. He's going to be gutted when he finds out what happened to Zain and me, but I have to trust that he'll follow us. Maybe he's found his own ritual while visiting Vincent's room. All I know is that he'll find his way to us. He has to.

I hear footsteps outside my door, and rush to finish the drawing. My blood consistently drips onto the floor, some spots joining the blood marked out in the runes.

It's time.

I look around my room, taking in my last moments on Earth as gracefully as I can. I hated it when Vincent saved me from drowning in that river. I even hated him a bit when he made me start training for reasons he wouldn't even explain, but now I understand.

Vincent wanted me to become stronger, to be able to handle myself, to trust myself, so when it came to this decision, I could make it all on my own. So I could do what needed to be done for my mates.

Until now, I thought my existence was all life was. Struggling to get by, living with and dealing with a relationship that brought me down instead of building me up, being so unhappy with myself that I'd rather die and face the unknown than live one more day.

But thanks to my mates, I now know what life has to offer. Why life should be cherished. This is where love starts. This is where a person finds themselves. And yes, life is fucking hard, but life is what makes death worth it. I had to live to really know what I'd die for. I had to live to know what I was capable of.

I had to live for me, so I could die for love.

And with that thought, I reach for the pen once more, slamming the point into my other wrist with all my might, and not bothering this time to withhold my scream.

I drop to my knees, my vision getting blurry as blood pools out of me. Slowly, I move myself to the floor, lying directly in the middle of the circle exactly how Zain was found.

Faintly, I hear the sound of voices outside my room. They can't find me alive. They can't save me.

Before I make the last move to end my life for good, I decide to leave a sign for my last, living mate. He has to know we didn't forget about him.

I collect a little more blood, drawing beside me and finishing up right as I hear my bedroom door open.

Grasping the pen as hard as I can with what little strength remains in my body, I reach up, and shove it into the side of my neck.

Immediately, I start to choke, blood filling my nose, my mouth, my lungs, but all through it, I smile, because I know after this, I'll be with my mates again.