Eva breathed out, shivering lightly as Theo came out of her closet with a warm blanket hanging from his arms. Eva felt him wrap it around her as he then kneeled on the cold floor and searched her face for something.
"I'm sorry." he breathed out.
"No Theo," she spoke out, her voice weak and pleading. "No sorries."
He looked down and Eva didn't know whether she should touch him to comfort him or maintain a distance for now. He looked as if he was in pain as she glanced at his clenched hands that he had placed on the hard floor.
"I'll send Daphne to accompany you-"
"Wait, where are you going?" she asked instantly, standing up too when he hurriedly got up to his feet.
"I have to take care of something," he informed, still looking down and Eva felt her exhaustion being replaced with an unsettling frustration.
"Can't somebody else take care of it?" she questioned, suddenly wondering where Gwen had gone off to. She was certain she had heard her voice through the door but then again maybe that was a hallucination too.
"Gwen's going to arrive soon and she'll take care of you, I promise."
"But I don't need you to promise." Eva grabbed his hand just as he was about to turn away and felt him go as stiff as a statue.
A dim swirl of darkness escaped his hand, coming to rest over her hand and he hastily backed away as Eva got a faint glimpse of his eyes and the horrified expression that his face held.
The violet in his orbs had returned but it wasn't the same as it had been before. It felt dull, the silver in them freezing over and making his face look dead and numb. Eva felt a heavy stone drop over her heart as she took a step forward and saw him close his eyes as if everything ached.
Without another word, he walked out of the room not bothering to glance back at her even once. Eva felt a wave of loneliness attack her but that wasn't what made her feel as if she was going to fall. The hurt in his features and how he had so abruptly left her made her confused and a little hurt if she was going to be honest with herself.
'Did I say something wrong?'
'I shouldn't have touched him...'
'You're a burden.'
"Eva!" a voice cried out and Eva felt arms wrapping around her body in an instant. All her thoughts scattered away as she blinked her eyes to clear away the haze and see who had almost lifted her off her feet with their strength.
"We need to get you to eat more, this isn't going to work if you're not strong from the inside." Gwen's face appeared in her vision and Eva swallowed, the motion reminding her how dry her throat actually was.
It was evident that whenever he was around, she seemed to forget all her pains and troubles the very next moment.
She had no tears left to cry this time so she only smiled assuringly and patted her friend's back. "I'm fine."
Gwen raised her brow questioningly and Eva averted her eyes away, unable to bear her scrutinizing stare for more than a few seconds.
"Where's Theo by the way?" she asked, making her sit on the bed again and Eva's eyes widened in response which Gwen failed to notice.
Her silence seemed to have been suspicious since Gwen placed her hand on her shoulder and repeated her previous words, "Hey, you okay? Where is that cousin of mine huh?" her tone was light but Eva noticed that small flicker of worry in it clearly enough.
"He left."
Gwen's calm mask fell in under a second and Eva knew something was going terribly wrong. Parting her lips to ask, Gwen interrupted her before she could ask anything further.
"He must've gone to take care of a fight that took place in the training grounds since Kai isn't here yet. I'll stay while you change your clothes if you want to and then take some rest. The food arrives in the meantime."
Eva nodded absent-mindedly, slowly getting up to her feet. Grabbing a midnight blue nightgown from the closet, she made her way to the bathroom softly and closed the door behind her. The soft click of the lock never sounded in Gwen's ears.
She didn't bother looking at herself in the mirror as she slowly sat down in the bathtub and her hand wandered off to the cold water tap distractedly. The temperature wasted no time in dropping even further and she shivered but still didn't turn the warmer one on.
As she scrubbed herself, she again felt that brief wave of panic rush back when she saw that the door was closed. No, but Gwen was out there waiting for her. She wasn't locked nor was she being forced to do anything she didn't want to.
Repeating this mantra in her head, she finished cleaning herself and stepped out. Drying herself with a towel, she hastily put on her clothes and exited the bathroom with a small sigh of relief.
The door had opened up easily.
Gwen scolded her about how cold she was feeling, not knowing that she hadn't used warm water in the first place. Weakly, she took a few spoons of the warm soup and nibbled on some bread under her friend's monitoring glare.
"I can't eat more," she whispered and Gwen's eyes softened as she hesitantly nodded and took the tray from her hands gently.
Eva brought the blanket up to her nose and closed her eyes, silently waiting for Gwen to leave the room so she could be alone. The noise of the door softly shutting startled her but when the soft click never arrived, she calmed down slightly.
'I'm not locked...'
And then as she waited for sleep to overcome her, the tears she hadn't expected suddenly burst forth and Eva felt herself drowning deeper in that foreign abyss that she despised from within. Her heart whimpered with nobody around to hear it and she buried her face deeper in the pillows to stifle the noise.
'I'm fine...'
I'm fine.