by Vivien Reis
What Mr. Flynn had told him was insane, but he believed it. He had to. Ben held his breath and gave one nod. "Okay. Tell me what to do."
# TWENTY-TWO
Abi wasn't falling anymore. In a great blur of light, she rose, air filling her burning lungs.
She expected to wake to the chanting and humming but instead, a piercing sound shook the stone beneath her. Her heavy hands clasped hard over her ears and she coughed violently. Light flashed over her eyes and she forced them open.
Thick smoke scorched her eyes, real smoke.
Another explosion ripped through the tiny room and Abi covered her head. Large chunks of something peppered her skin. She looked up and saw the outline of a gaping hole where the door used to be, the dust so thick it coated everything in a grey haze.
With a burst of air, a man appeared before her, so close she stumbled backward, scraping her elbows and hands against the jagged stones.
The face was familiar but her brain didn't want to comprehend it. Had she succumbed to the torture? She touched her throat, expecting it to be wet with blood.
It was Jesse, wearing strange, padded clothes. Somehow, he was standing in front of her, gazing down at her. Where had he come from? His mouth moved.
Her ears had filled with a vibrating ring from the explosions and she strained to read his lips.
"Can you walk?" he asked.
She shook her head.
Without another word, he tossed her over his shoulder in a movement that threw the world askew. The motion jostled her, each jarring movement somehow amplifying the ever-present pain on her sensitive skin.
Far-off blasts sounded above their heads and shook her bones. As the ringing in her ears faded, she could hear shouts and yelling. Strange whooshing pops preceded each explosion.
Jesse leapt over pieces of broken cement and debris. Abi briefly saw a long corridor before Jesse turned to run the opposite way. Motionless bodies lay scattered down the hallway, all of them wearing robes covered in dust.
They rounded a corner and something whizzed past them, exploding into bright blue light. Jesse retreated around the corner and set Abi on the ground against the wall. He shouted something but it was lost in another blast, chunks of the wall flying all around them. Jesse waited a breath and then jumped around the corner, leaving her. Alone. What had he said? What if something happened to him? Her heart felt like it would burst in her chest and she glanced down the hall they had just come from, expecting to see the man that had terrorized her for days.
The flashing lights faded, the explosions far away. She closed her eyes, a warm heaviness spreading through her body. Her head lolled to the side and then something yanked her up.
"Abi!" Jesse's face floated in front of her before he picked her up again, cradling her in his arms as he ran.
She leaned into his warmth, watching behind them for the man. Bodies lay strewn down the hall, and then they were going up, Abi bumping roughly against Jesse. A man coughed blood down his chin, his body twisted awkwardly in the corner of the staircase. He was wearing the same strange clothes that Jesse wore. His dark eyes met Abi's, and she wanted to stop, to help him, but Jesse kept running. They made it to another landing. It was the remnants of a house. This entire time she had been in the basement of a house. Was it close to hers? Had she been near her family all the while?
Jesse handed her off to a large man as they neared the front door, which had been blasted off the hinges. She recognized the man carrying her. It was Theo.
"Hey, sleepyhead." He gave her a quick wink and broke into a sprint as he passed the last of the debris. Cold air pierced through her thin clothes and she turned away, burying her face against the hard clothing he wore. Gravel crunched underfoot but Theo’s movements weren’t as jagged as Jesse’s.
"Here. Let's go!"
Metal slid against metal and Theo dumped her into a van where Jesse was already waiting. The seats had been ripped out and the rough carpet grated against her skin. Jesse barely had time to grab hold of her when the van peeled out, throwing Abi left and right before straightening. They were going too fast. Jesse pulled her in front of him, motioning for her to grab hold of a metal bar on the floor of the van.
She gripped it hard, the cold burning her hand. They sped on and on until her body grew too heavy, her eyes closing.
Abi woke, not to a loud noise, but to frightening silence. Was she dead?
Quiet voices reached her ears, and for a moment she feared it was the chanting again.
But it wasn't. "We'll get far enough out and force a connection, that's the plan."
"David, she's barely alive right now. Our plan didn't exactly take that into account."
"We'll get to the rendezvous point and try to jump Roderick here, but there's no promising he'll come."
She was on her side in the back of a van, wrapped in something warm. So it hadn't been a dream. The erratic driving made her empty stomach queasy. Abi tried to say, "Where are we going?" but all that came out was a dry groan.
The man closest to her turned with surprise and then warmth. It was Jesse. How had Cora’s brother, someone she barely knew, been able to find her?
He gave a slight chuckle and brushed the hair out of her face. She fought the urge to pull away at his touch, remembering the man from the basement touching her in the same way. "We're taking you to a safe place. How do you feel?"
So many responses flooded through her brain: hungry, tired, thirsty, everything hurt, homesick.
"We'll get you taken care of, Abi."
Was it stupid that for a moment, warmth surged through her stomach at her name on his lips? Just as soon as it had come, though, it was gone, leaving her empty.
"Water." A bottle appeared before her and Jesse gently sat her up as the van rocked and bounced roughly. She gulped it down even though it hurt. The bottle came down and Abi had to focus to keep the water in her stomach. It clenched and ached, the water burning to come back up.
"We'll have doctors take a look at you when we get home. You'll feel good as new in no time."
What was good as new like? Would her father be alive? Would she be back home? And he said home. Whose home was he referring to?
She studied him, so obviously in his element. Who was he?
There were more bumps and the hard van floor made pain swell under her skin.
"Two minutes out. Patrick, see if you can get Roderick there." The driver's voice was familiar.
A sucking whoosh came from the front seat. Patrick, whoever he was, was no longer in the seat at all.
Her mind spun, and she tried to focus, squinting her eyes in case she was seeing things. Had she really lost her mind? Had those insane people done irreparable damage?
The driver had addressed a Patrick, so the man had to be real—she at least wasn't making that part up.
"We're here." As the first word left his mouth, the driver slammed on the brakes. Jesse's hands came up protectively to brace Abi from rolling forward. The van slid on what sounded like gravel before coming to a stop.
Another whoosh and then the side door slid open.
"He's here," Patrick announced.
Relief flooded her, but it wasn’t hers to feel. It was Jesse’s, the sensation fighting with her own emotions. What was happening to her?
He hunched and scooped her up, awkwardly shuffling on his knees until he could step outside the vehicle and stand. It was nighttime. Somehow she hadn't noticed this while in the van. It had been nighttime when they had taken her. She squeezed Jesse's arm. How long had she been gone? A day? A week?
"What day is it?"
Their rapid footsteps crunched into the gravel as Jesse carried her to the other side of the van, toward a man at the edge of the trees, eerily silhouetted in the moonlight. Were these the same trees the men had chased her through?
"Okay, this isn't conventional by any means, but we don't have much of a choice." Jesse sat her down on the soft grass and she felt odd at the feet of three men. The newest lo
oked to be her dad’s age, something messy about his scruffy beard and unkempt hair, like he’d just been sleeping.
"What day is it?" she asked again. How long had she been away? Was it longer than she had thought? Shorter?
Jesse still ignored the question. "You'll need to relax for this. It might hurt a little."
"We need to go, Jesse. We're already a minute behind schedule." Patrick's face was momentarily lit up by his phone. He was older, with hard edges and a crooked nose.
As if that was an introduction, tires screeched in the distance. They were coming for her. She didn't care about the date anymore.
"What might hurt?" Several bright pops that sounded like gunshots made gravel explode into the sky with dusty clouds.
"We'll have to jump you with a forced connection—" Jesse screamed over the noise. "A mental connection. There's no time to explain. I'm sorry."
Her heart fell into her stomach. "Sorry for what?"
"For this," Roderick said, his voice quiet but clear over the loud din.
Something clawed at the center of her brain, right down the middle, worming its way in a searing hot flash.
Her mind ripped in half and burst open in a rush of light that tore her body away. It crushed her from the inside until she disappeared from the world.
# TWENTY-THREE
Ben woke with chills. The sheets had soaked through and sweat pooled in the hollow of his neck. He got up and changed, drying off with a towel from the dresser. Two nights in a row he’d woken like this. Two nights since Mr. Flynn had told him the truth about his mom.
His dreams frightened him, but his mind erased them from his memory the moment he opened his eyes. Darkness. That was all he remembered. A tangible thing, invading his sleep, oozing into his mind.
Since taking Mr. Flynn's advice, Ben hadn't suffered another headache. His teacher—his mentor—had informed him why meditation was so important. The mind functioned like a battery, and this transition he was going through had depleted his mind's battery. Sleep and meditation were the two easiest ways to recharge that battery.
And since sleep wasn't agreeing with him lately, he had relied on the meditation to help with his headaches.
He sat on the carpeted floor and pulled the candle out from under his bed. He lit it and clicked on his phone, finding the video Mr. Flynn had recommended. Meditation. He wanted to roll his eyes at himself, imagining how embarrassed he would be if Gran walked in on him. How would he be able to explain this?
The video started, with generic pictures of landscapes fading in and out of each other. He couldn't pinpoint the combination of sounds the video played, but a low flute intertwined with sounds of the ocean or heavy rain. A voice hummed and vibrated through the tiny speakers on his phone. Dual vocal cords. He’d had to look up what that meant, but he liked the sound it made.
Ben closed his eyes and tried to focus on his breathing.
Per Mr. Flynn's orders, he was to meditate at the start and end of each day, and any other time he felt stressed.
The music stayed low, but intensified in beat for several breaths before returning to a slow pace. It continued like this, weaving in and out of Ben's mind and taking the corrupted parts away as it went.
That's what his mind was. Bad. Mr. Flynn had described the videos like the body's liver—filtering out the toxins so the blood could run clean.
Deep breath in, deep breath out.
Breathing in.
Breathing out.
His lids were heavy and his body melted through the carpet, touching the earth just below the surface.
And then it was over. The video had ended.
He opened his eyes, squinting against the morning sun that streamed through the yellowed blinds. His phone read 6:32 a.m. He still had some time before he had to get ready for school.
Ben blew out the candle, pushing it back underneath the bed so Gran wouldn't see it. She didn't own any candles, positive they emitted toxins that got stuck in your sinuses.
He moved to sit at the small desk, the leather journal crackling as he flipped it open. He was more than halfway through and it hadn't yielded anything useful. Trying to decipher it was a headache all on its own.
The original plan had been to start with the most recent pages of the journal and work toward the front, but it was all a jumbled mess. He had never seen his mom write in this thing, but the smeared drawings and blackened pages looked like something she would have done.
Much of it wasn't legible. Some sentences made sense, but strung together with the surrounding sentences, there was no telling what his mom had meant.
Some passages spoke of a looming darkness, spreading chills on Ben's arms, but then jumped to a bright light and something like star or bar traveling. Her handwriting ranged from surprisingly beautiful calligraphy to chicken scratch. She had written some paragraphs in the center of the page going vertical, and then another paragraph would horizontally cross it, stopping when they met and picking right back up on the other side. Some sentences completely flipped upside down altogether before flipping right side up.
He turned the page.
The script was tiny, starting in the middle of the page and spiraling out and out. Ben had to turn the book around and around to read it but there was no meaning to the words.
Her journal was madness, but Ben experienced a twinge of guilt at reading it. His mom was all alone in her own head and he had all but given up on her. She had obviously been trying to say something, but what was it?
Two words stuck out to him in a small passage on the next page.
Dark and Mundi.
The page was peppered with the two words and he squinted, trying to make sense of the changing handwriting. The name must have been important. Perhaps the necklace belonged to this Mundi? Or maybe it was a place...?
It was a stretch. Ben ruffled through the pages, releasing the faint smell of his mom’s favorite lotion. Lavender and vanilla.
There hadn't been a single mention of a necklace yet.
A knock on his door made him jump. "Yeah?" He checked his phone. It was 7:15. He was running late. How had forty-five minutes already gone by?
"Just wanted to make sure you were up," Gran called, voice fading as she walked down the hallway.
She was giving him more space recently, which Ben appreciated. There was no normal conversation between the two of them—they either talked about his health, or something to do with his dad, or news about Abi. They had stayed at the hospital the night before until the nurses told them visiting hours were over.
No new developments.
He reached out to place the journal on his desk when a movement caught his eye. Something crawled across his hand. A spider. He flicked his wrist hard and jumped backward, the book clattering to the ground. Rubbing his hand, he checked both sides and up his arm for the spider, feeling itchy all over until he spotted it. The spider was the journal on the floor, creeping toward him. He took a step back.
Another black spider crawled from between the pages of the book, and another and another until there were dozens of spiders moving toward him. Their thin legs moved mechanically. He backed up, tripping and landing hard on his right elbow. He scrambled backward, imagining spiders crawling up his legs and to his torso.
But the critters were gone.
He blinked rapidly, his breathing haggard, eyes searching the floor. No spiders. He took a slow step toward the book and then another, until he was close enough to pick the journal up. Heart racing, he flipped it upside down to shake it out.
Nothing.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
It was the transition. Mr. Flynn had warned him to expect hallucinations like this as his mind adjusted. He thought of the video, the music, and how it soothed him. The spiders weren't real, and he wasn't losing his mind.
This didn't stop his hands from shaking, though, as he changed into a hoodie and jeans. He took a deep breath before opening the door and stepping into the hallway. The smell of food m
ade his stomach growl. Gran shuffled in her slippers over to him, handing him something rolled up into a paper towel as he headed for the front door.
"It's a sausage, egg, and cheese burrito. Eat up but drive safe! I love you." She pecked him on the cheek before he stepped outside.
The heat from the sun warmed his face, contrasting well with the chilly air.
Once Ben pulled out onto the main road, he unrolled the paper towel. His stomach burned with hunger, but the thought of eating hardened his insides. He took a bite and nearly spit it out, saliva flooding his mouth as he fought the urge to throw up.
It tasted off—a metallic twang spreading as he chewed. Gran must not have realized that the eggs had gone bad. Or maybe it was the sausage? The smell of it brought about a new wave of nausea.
He rolled his window down and chucked the burrito as far into the woods as he could while driving. By the time he pulled into the school parking lot, a heaviness had settled inside his head. He waited in his truck, trying some of the breathing exercises he had practiced with Mr. Flynn. The two-minute warning bell for the school interrupted him and sent adrenaline burning through his stomach.
A scraping sound startled him. A giant crow with a crooked beak landed on the hood of his truck. It shuffled from one foot to the other, its nails producing a horrible screech against the metal. The bird angled one shiny eye at him, cocking its head as he passed it. Before filing into the school with the other students, he turned back to his truck. The bird was gone.
Ben walked through the halls, his feet heavy as lead.
He tried to pay attention in English class but the pain in his head worsened. He had already taken his pill that morning and was debating taking Advil when Cora found him at his locker.
"Find anything in the journal yet?" she asked in a hushed tone.
Ben noted her hair color had changed to blue on the bottom and purple on the top. "Not yet. It's slow going, though."
"You feeling okay? You kind of look like shit."
"My head hurts again."
