17 Into our kiss, I erase his memories.

“For goddamn sake, can you shut her up?!” Adeline howled. I crawled into the corner. Covering my face with my own two frail palms. My whimpers are out of my control. I can’t speak clearly. I can’t make any sense, any process, any peace with reality.

I felt a hand grab me by the collar. Another voice shouted orders. The van doors slammed open. Men are shouting orders for Adeline to stand down.

“You are under arrest! Move! Move!” Suddenly, a hand clutch me tightly. Enveloping me to its tight embrace. The boy beside me is wrapped in these strong arms as well. I glance upwards. It was the man who silenced me earlier.

He has a radio earpiece in his right ear. Talking to someone. With his two strong arms, he is carrying me and the boy to the backseat of a car. A warm blanket wrapped the two of us.

“Stay here first. Don’t worry, you are safe now.” His voice is soothing. As if trying to comfort me. Safe? What is that? Did that word exist in the real world? Doesn’t that only stay in people’s mouth? There’s no place that can be considered safe. No, not in this world.

Nothing is permanent….

Kenneth where are you? Please…. I need you. I’m scared.

The rope that has been binding me is laying ripped in the ground. The man freed me. I immediately wrap the boy in my arms. Feel his wounds in my palm. There are ugly cuts in his torso. I frantically look around.

The surrounding is noisy. Patrol cars are surrounding the van Adeline shove me right into earlier. Black cars with men and women in black suits and guns came out. Adeline is lashing out at anyone who comes closer.

If Adeline has a weakness, if her power has a weakness, it’s when she can only control one person at a time. Being surrounded deem her helpless. Someone gagged her mouth. Afraid they will be bitten when they transfer her to another car. Another one came up behind her. Putting handcuffs on her hands behind her back.

They shove the struggling Adeline in another van. The man who freed me ordered his companions to call for ambulance. Who was it for, I don’t know. The boy beside me started to groan in pain. I pulled him closer to me. Wincing at the bruises and broken bones I incurred.

“It’s okay. You will be fine.” I whispered in his ear. I don’t know where we will go from now on. Or whether it's safe to take him with me.

If this boy will be on my side, I cannot guarantee his safety. I cannot guarantee his happiness. No one will be truly safe if they stay by my side. If I desire to keep one, if I desire to have one, fate will hurt them. Fate will take that person away. Just like what it did to Kenneth.

I glance at the leg of the boy under the blanket. Feeling my hand suddenly slick and wet. Warm liquid squeezed into my palm. I removed the blanket engulfing us both. That’s when I saw… at the boy’s leg, blood ooze out like leaky container.

I screeched. I screamed to the man who helped me to help him. He came to my side. Rush to the boy’s injury and applied first aid in his wounds. I sobbed and whimper uncontrollably.

My voice no longer forming words in my mouth. My speech is incoherent. I’m heaving and panting, breaking down from all the things I just witnessed. I cannot remember where the boy get the injury. Or who did it. It must have been before he was shoved in the van with me.

“This is bad, where is the ambulance?” The man who rush to help me demanded.

“They will be here in twenty minutes.” A woman answered him, checking her phone as she scratch her blonde ponytail.

“Tell them to hurry up. If the boy’s wound is not treated immediately he will lose his leg.”

Lose his leg…. I was stunned. Completely stupefied. I forgot how to breathe. The cold is choking my lungs it cannot absorb oxygen in the air. Whose fault was this? Mine.

If I did not save him back then, this could have never happened to him. I should have let him go right from the start. I should have never harbored any foolish thoughts of wanting him to stay at my side.

Because of my selfish desires, he will lose his leg. My hand found its way to his snowy cold cheeks. His face is pale. The sky in his eyes…. The very sight I want to witness right now is closed and covered by his long eyelashes.

I have no control over my actions. I’m heaving loudly at his chest. Engulfing him in my embrace. I wailed and murmured ‘sorry’ multiple times.

“You should have never met me.” I told him. “Now you’re suffering because of me. I’m so sorry.”

For twenty minutes, my wails reached the top of trees. To the cold breeze passing over the scattered filth of blood in the snow. I bite down my wrist. My teeth sink into my skin the blood seeps right through my lips.

At that moment, various red strings envelop me and the boy in their midst. In a small whisper I said, “Do not let a single body part of him be destroyed.”

The strings immediately reattach the tissue underneath the flesh of his bloodied leg. The bones are attaching itself. I can hear the threadwork of strings adjusting the crack together. The blood did not stop oozing, but the bandage the man wraps him with is useful. The blood only soaks through the cloth. And no liquid ever spills out.

I watch with shallow breath. Every air in my body escapes me. The boy in my embrace started to gain consciousness. I caressed his cheek and made him turn to look at me. The sky in a hazy mist is staring back at me. Studying, searching.

“I am sorry.” I manage to croak despite my incoherent speech. The perfect curve of his brows furrowed. My finger trace the line of his thin soft lips. Despite the coldness of his cheek, his lips is warm.

Without any warning, he squirm closer. And our lips bump in a fraction of a second. When he drew away, I can see the hazy mist in his eyes started to clear up. A ghost smile surface on his soft thin lips.

I brush my thumb to my bleeding wrist and scrape my blood to his lips.

“Erase his memories of me.” I commanded. And the strings are weaving to do what I ask.