58. Helpless To Do Anything

Roman

The room is tense with unspoken emotions, so thick you could cut it with a knife. Silvia, our pack healer, moves around Aella with clinical precision, collecting whatever evidence she can. While Aella sits on the edge of the bed with a hollow look in her eyes; a shell of the woman I know and love.

She’s physically here, but mentally? Emotionally? I have no idea where she is.

[“I’m right here, Aella,”] I try to communicate through the mind link, that intimate pathway that has always been open between us. But it’s as if she’s locked all the doors and windows to her soul, and I’m standing outside in the cold, helplessly knocking.

She’s quiet, unsettlingly so. Her eyes are vacant, like she’s mentally far away from this room, far away from me. I reach out through our mind link constantly, trying to make a connection, but there’s nothing—no response, no echo of my thoughts in her mind. It’s as if a thick wall has been erected between us, and I’m helpless to tear it down.

I can’t sit