Adam nurses his bloody nose in the bathroom mirror, tossing the bloody tissue in the trash. He hadn’t recognized the name until he had seen Sam for himself. That was him, he was the reason Adam had been cursed so many years ago. Adam coughs up more blood into the sink. Sam has gotten better at fighting since their last brawl.
“So he’s going to ruin things for me again isn’t he?” he says to his reflection. His lips curl up into a smirk, “I guess this means revenge will be an option for me.”
Slipping back into his revenge seeking self isn’t hard him, it’s like an old, cotton t-shirt. He walks down the narrow hallway, following the beam of light shining out from under a black door at the end of the hall. Adam pushes the door open; his blood runs hot with pride as he looks across the room.
Polished glass spheres stand in rows from one side of the room to the other, each filled with a young woman, their ages ranging from seventeen to thirty. They stand at his presence, hoping that this is the day that he will finally let them go, but unfortunately for them he hasn’t come with freedom. Adam walks through the rows of glass cases, looking at each heart-rate monitor next to their case, noticing the quickening pulses as he passes by. He lingers next to one case.
A tall, tanned young woman named Chloe sits on the floor, her legs pulled under herself as she brushes her long black hair with her fingers.
“Is there something you need, Adam?” her voice like a sweet, familiar song to his ears asks.
He scratches the back of his neck; Chloe was the first girl, the one he stupidly thought would cure him quickly. He can smell his skin oozing with the minty clean pheromones that have drawn in so many women, but it has always been stronger when he is around Chloe.
“I think she’s the one that can fix this.” his voice comes out almost as a whisper, which surprises him.
Chloe nods, standing to face him through the glass; she had truly loved Adam at one point in time, back when they were younger. “So you will have no need for us then?” she asks.
Adam shrugs, using his finger to scroll through her vitals on screen in front of him. “She might be a little bit harder to persuade than you guys. She has a boyfriend.”
Chloe swallows back some sort of emotion that builds up in her throat whenever he’s around. “That’s never stopped you before.”
His blue eyes burn holes into her, making her fidget back and forth. Chloe snorts; its funny how something she used to love about him is something she wishes she had never seen.
“No. But this boyfriend just happens to be an old friend of mine; he’s the reason why I'm cursed in the first place.” Adam says as he slowly walks out of the room, flicking a light switch next to the door that drops red drapes over the curtains.
He watches them slowly slip over the glass cases, keeping eye contact with Chloe’s brown and gold eyes before the red silk obscures his view. He has always loved her, but the reason he was cursed was because he didn’t know what love was. He and Chloe had been just fifteen at the time.
Adam sits down on his leather couch, nibbling on his swollen lip as he thinks more upon Chloe.
When the curse fell upon him her dreams were the first ones he lived in. She welcomed him with open arms, crying and saying that she was worried when she heard about the fight between Sam and him. He told her that he was a cursed man, and that he would be forever bound to dreams and heart break until he could figure out what love really was. Chloe had gripped his face, holding it a few inches from hers.
“Jet, I love you.” she sobbed.
But nothing happened. No burden was lifted from his shoulders; no magic filled the room and made it all go away.
“You don’t love me, or else this all would be over.” he told her. Chloe ran off sobbing.
Adam dropped into depression, haunting Chloe’s dreams, filling her with emptiness and pain.
One night, she refused to come to him. So he slipped into another one of her dreams, grabbing onto her subconscious and locking it away in his first glass sphere. He heard on the news that she had slipped into a coma, and has been that way for almost eight years now.
Ever since then whenever one of the girls try to leave him he traps them here, either grabbing them by their subconscious, or physically going out and hunting them down. They are all still under his spell, even after they realize who he really is, so it usually isn’t much of a struggle to get them to come back with him.
Except for Chloe.
But then again, he never had to flicker his azure eyes to get her to be with him, she has always come to him, at least she did until he snapped.