Free The Awakening by K. E. Ganshert

over the past few days and in that time, I’ve grown more accustomed to the masses of people, the cars and the horns and the smoggy air. On the final stretch to Detroit, Luka sits up straight with eyes wide open. I try giving back his mother’s hemp bracelet. I think he needs it more than me. He insists I keep it on my ankle.
    When we step off the bus for the last time, a wave of freedom sweeps through my body. No more sitting in place while snow-covered countryside scrolls past the window. We are here. We made it. I turn to smile at Luka, but his eyes are skittish. He looks back and forth, as if at any moment something might attack us. Thanks to the pills I have ingested, I cannot see or feel what he is seeing and feeling. But just because I can’t see it or feel it, doesn’t mean it isn’t real. The sheer unease in his usually calm, confident demeanor turns my bones cold.
    And places an ache in my chest. Because I know what I have to do.
    *
    It’s late. We choose the first hotel we come to, practically across the street from the Greyhound station. Inside is a pair of double beds. Luka takes the one closest to the door. I take the other. I force myself to stay awake with an increasing sense of dread. Street lights and headlights filter through the cracked blinds of our hotel room window. I wait while Luka shifts and settles in the bed beside me. I wait until his breathing turns deep and rhythmic. I wait even longer.
    I purposefully left my rolling suitcase packed and by the door with my winter coat draped over the handle. I slipped a roll of money into the front pocket as well as a note I jotted in the bathroom while brushing my teeth. All I have to do is slip out of bed, step into my shoes, and get out the door. I begin my escape with the speed of a snail. Every time the mattress springs let out a squeak, I hold my breath and stop moving.
    Luka sleeps on.
    I tiptoe across the room, my aching heart thudding heavy and thick in my throat. I place the note at the foot of the door and unclasp the hemp bracelet from my ankle. The soft latch of the door handle is barely more than a whisper. As soon as I’m out into the hallway, I hurry to the elevator and punch the button several times in a row. It doesn’t come. Too impatient to wait for it, I jab my arms into the sleeves of my winter coat and take the stairs instead, my suitcase clunk-clunk-clunking behind me. Halfway down, my quick decent turns into a sprint. I don’t know where I’m going. I just know that I need to get far away. I am a ticking bomb. It’s only a matter of time before I detonate. I can’t let Luka be with me when it happens. I can’t ruin his life, not when he still has a future ahead of him. He needs to go back to Thornsdale, where he never had dark circles beneath his eyes. He needs to get back to his family and live his life.
    Be brave, Tess. Be good. Do the right thing.
    This is my chant as I run through the hotel lobby and burst out into the biting wind. Anxiety builds inside me, so much that it turns into terror. It has nothing to do with the supernatural and everything to do with my separation from Luka. The further away I get from him, the harder it is to breathe.
    Be brave, Tess. Be good.
    I turn down a side street, my breath escaping in quick white puffs around my face. Up ahead, a garbage can clatters against the cement. A figure steps out from behind an alley dumpster. The white puffs around my face disappear. I brace myself for a white-eyed demon, or the man with the scars.
    Instead, a man with a scraggly beard and a tattered coat looks me up and down with greasy eyes. “Well, well, well, look what we have here.”
    I let go of my suitcase, fists clenching at my sides. I know how to defend myself. I’ve been trained in martial arts for years now.
    But then a second figure steps out from the dumpster. Another man, with pointed shoulders and a twisted sneer. I take a cautious step backward. I may be quick. I may have experience. But I