Voices in the Darkness

by Rebecca Royce

  “All right.” What was he doing?

  Aaron quickly took my blood pressure. I’d love to know how he learned this.

  He cleared his throat. “She lied, Lacey. Your pressure is fine. 110 over 60. I thought that was it when I saw her do it, but I could have seen it wrong. Why would she lie? It’s either utter incompetency, or she had a reason to make you stressed.” He put the device away. “Let’s see what the doctor does.”

  We waited.

  And waited.

  “My blood pressure is going to be elevated if they keep us waiting much longer,” I said to Aaron. “Do you think this is part of the whole thing?” I waved my hand in a circle, encompassing the entire clinic. I stood and went to the window.

  It had started to snow since we’d arrived, and now the traffic made a soft whoosh as it went by.

  “I don’t know.” Aaron came to stand next to me. “The waiting room was empty, but who knows with doctors.”

  I checked my watch. Forty-five minutes. If I didn’t have to investigate, I’d have walked out the door. There was a soft knock, and the door opened to reveal a man in a nice shirt and slacks. “Miss Chambers?”

  “Yes.”

  He came inside, gestured to the table and sat in the small rolling chair nearby. He flipped open his chart. “I’m Dr. Boyd. It’s nice to meet you.” He held his hand out to me, and I shook it.

  As soon as I did, my body broke out in goosebumps, but when he released me, they disappeared.

  “And you are?”

  Aaron held out his hand, his gaze lingering on me a moment. “Lacey’s fiancé, Aaron.” The doctor took his hand and shook it. I studied him, waiting for a sign that he felt what I did, but he was better at hiding it than I was.

  “Glad you’re here, Aaron. Often, partners can offer lots of details about sleep that the patient can’t.” He smiled, revealing even white teeth.

  Dr. Boyd was not, on the surface, someone who set off any alarm bells. He was a middle-aged man, slightly thinner than healthy, with brown salt-and-pepper hair and wireless glasses.

  Nothing about him screamed ancient evil.

  “Since my nurse got the cursory questions out of the way, I’m going to dive into the meat of the issues. Do you have a history of trauma?”

  Wow. And holy shit. He really was diving right into it, and it tripped me up. I was prepared for my medical history, but not my… my life.

  Immediately, I was flooded with memories. Gran hitting me. Finding the janitor in my high school. The pain and isolation and fear that I faced every single day of my childhood.

  “Lacey?” he prompted.

  I didn’t know what to say. Taking a deep breath, I settled on, “It wasn’t sunshine and roses. But I’m successful and happy.”

  The doctor clicked his pen and put it in his pocket. “I’m going to ask your fiancé to leave us for a moment.”

  I glanced at Aaron. He clenched his jaw, and it ticked and flexed like he was grinding his teeth. A single bead of sweat dripped from his temple down the side of his face, and I realized what was happening.

  He was blocking something.

  “I’d rather he didn’t,” I replied. “Aaron knows everything about me.”

  I reached into my pocket, gripping the amethyst I’d transferred from my jeans into my jacket. As soon as I did, a tightness in my chest that I hadn’t even noticed, eased.

  “I have to insist.” He looked over at Aaron.

  No, he didn’t get to insist. I jumped off the table and headed for Aaron. “Then I’m leaving. I don’t like it here.”

  I didn’t have to continue to stand in the room with this man while he did whatever he was doing. When Aaron entwined our fingers, I could feel the power coming off him. It hit me like pins and needles.

  “Wait,” the doctor called out when we’d made it to the hall. “Help me. Please.”

  Help him? Aaron and I both spun around to stare at the man just as the door slammed shut. No one had done that. But the doctor was now out of our view.

  “Ahhh!” A pained yell filled the hallway from the room. I looked around. No one was there, not even the nurse who took my blood pressure, or the receptionist who had been there when we arrived.

  I rushed to the door and tried the handle. It wouldn’t budge. Fuck. Aaron stopped me before I tried to slam my shoulder into the door.

  The screaming stopped, and suddenly, the hallway was too quiet.

  “Lacey.” Aaron breathed hard. “I’m going to pass out. This is bad. Call one of the guys.”

  He’d no sooner said that than he fell forward. I grabbed onto him, catching him before he hit the floor. We both went down since he was a lot bigger than me, but I managed to keep him from getting hurt.

  Call the guys? I didn’t have their numbers. But he did. I grabbed his phone out of his pocket. Whatever power had gone after that doctor had hurt Aaron, and now we were stuck here. I bit my lip. I could do what I did last time if I could find a gurney. Pulling his phone from his pocket, I used his finger to turn it on. I sent a quick text to a group already set up with Oliver, Colton, and Thorn.

  “It’s Lacey. Please help. Aaron knocked out. Something bad here.”

  Okay. Okay. I’d called for help. Now I just needed to… I needed to…

  The door swung open, and the doctor stepped back into the hall. “Lacey, there you are. Please come back in so we can continue our examination.”

  I blinked, trying to make sense of what was going on.

  “Lacey.” Oliver shook my arm. “Lacey?”

  I stared at him. Where was I? I looked around. I was in the waiting room of the sleep clinic. Aaron was out cold in a chair. Had something happened?

  “Let’s go.” Thorn grabbed Aaron, hefting him up and over his shoulder like he was a fireman. It was an impressive show of strength. The guy didn’t even break a sweat.

  “My appointment,” I started to argue, but Oliver shook his head.

  “I’m sorry.” The doctor stepped into the waiting room. In the reception area, the woman who sat at a computer stood and watched us. “Who are you?” He directed the question to Thorn and Oliver, which was weird. Shouldn’t he be wondering who all of us were?

  My belly churned, but just as I was on the cusp of grasping what it was that bothered me, it seemed to fade away.

  In any case, it was time to get the hell out of Dodge. My head spun as I stood, and I reached for something to steady me. Oliver was there in an instant, wrapping his arm around my waist.

  I glanced around the waiting area, aware of the scene we were making. It wasn’t every day that one man lifted another over his shoulder. Or a girl found herself dizzy in a sleep clinic waiting room. Any doubts I had about this place being sketchy were gone.

  I couldn’t remember what had happened, but from the look of Aaron, something had.

  The receptionist didn’t try to stop us, neither did the doctor. The man, dark eyes almost black, tracked us as we made our way to the door. As it closed behind us, I could almost feel them watching us.

  “What happened?” Oliver asked.

  I stumbled on a step, and he held me a bit tighter. I searched my memory, but there was just one big blank spot after dropping Oliver downtown.

  Oliver’s rental was sitting in the parking lot. It was still running, car doors open, parked across three spots. Thorn dropped Aaron into the backseat, lifting his feet and then shoving them in before closing the door. “Colton is going crazy,” he said, only slightly out of breath. “He’s too far away, but he’s jogging in this direction. Shit!” He spun on his heel, opened the door and adjusted Aaron.

  “I’ll take your car, get Colt, and meet you at your house. Oliver, you good?”

  I dropped into the front seat and let him buckle me in. “Yeah,” he said to Thorn without glancing at him. He was totally focused on securing me inside. “Fine.”

  He didn’t look fine. His face was drawn, lips tight. Before I could say anything, he stood and jogged around the front of
the car. “Hurry back,” he called and sat. In seconds, we were on the road, Oliver going way too fast for the conditions.

  “You should slow down,” I said, feeling only a little bit like a nag, but he would thank me when he didn’t slide through a four-way stop. He did, but his hands tightened on the wheel. “What’s going on?”

  He swallowed and glanced over at me. “Are you okay?”

  “Except for the blank spot in my memory.” I inventoried my aches and pains. A little headache, probably left from the concussion, a little chilly because cold air was blowing on me—I adjusted the temperature until it was on red. “I’m okay.”

  “You’re obviously not okay. You sent the text asking for help, and then you were just sitting there staring forward. I couldn’t get your attention, and my brother is passed out. What happened? A blank spot?”

  I had called for help? “I don’t know. There’s nothing paranormal there.” It felt like I was compelled to say those words. But… I was certain about that. Wasn’t I? “Something else must have happened.”

  Oliver side-eyed me. “That so?”

  I could hear the skepticism in his voice. “What else could it be?”

  He shook his head. “I have no idea. My brother is out cold. I haven’t seen that since Erdirg. He’s very strong.”

  “Maybe he’s tired.” Now that sounded weird even to my own ears. Aaron wouldn’t just pass out because he was tired.

  I grabbed at my head. Oliver reached over and squeezed my knee. “Don’t push it. Something is off. We don’t need the answer right this second. Just to get you both back home and safe.”

  I bit down on my lip. “Every other second, I want to tell you how nothing is wrong there. It keeps coming to the tip of my tongue, and then I have to force myself not to say it.”

  He nodded. “Well… that sounds like some kind of compulsion. But it doesn’t have to be paranormal. We’ll just figure it out.”

  He was humoring me. Oliver could lie in many ways but never with those eyes. I could see through his glasses straight to the heart of him. He believed this was paranormal.

  I bent over, holding my head. “I’m nauseated.”

  Oliver put on the radio. I listened, concentrating on the sound of the announcer’s voice instead of what he said. It helped. Did Oliver know what he was doing here, or was he making it up as he went along? I didn’t suppose it mattered.

  “Try and catalog what you’re feeling, okay? When you can. Don’t make yourself sick doing it, but I’d like a list of how you feel.”

  I blinked. “I feel like my head is full but also empty. That I might throw up. And that everything is just off.”

  “We’re going to get you cleansed. Both you and Aaron.”

  I shook my head. “But there’s nothing paranormal.”

  “Well… then we’re just doing it anyway.”

  Anxiety built in my chest, and I had a flash of memory. Oliver and me on a bike, blowing past strip malls, cacti, and scrub brush.

  Almost puking by the side of the road.

  “What did you call this?” I asked. The word had gone in one ear and out the other.

  “A compulsion.”

  A compulsion made you do something you didn’t want to do. Oliver had said make a list. I could do that, just take the emotion out of it and make a list.

  I had gone into the sleep clinic.

  I could almost see myself climbing the steps. Aaron would have held the door for me. But to go further than that was like holding two of the same magnet ends toward each other, all my mind wanted to do was skitter away from what came next.

  Okay, then. I’d go back further.

  I’d go back to that word, compulsion, and the last time I’d dealt with it. I couldn’t leave town. Erdirg wouldn’t let me. So we got on the bike and drove as far as we could. Oliver had stopped, way before I wanted him to, but I’d been uncomfortable. Nauseated, yes. And what else?

  Anxious.

  Like I was now.

  A stab of pain hit me right behind my eyes. Too close. I went back to the time with Oliver. I’d almost thrown up; did I want to throw up now?

  Yes. If I lined up the list of symptoms from Erdirg’s compulsion, did it match how I felt now?

  All I was doing was comparing one list to another.

  I took a breath and reached for Oliver’s hand. He took it, squeezing and then linking our fingers together.

  I mentally set the lists next to each other. It’s the same.

  “It’s compulsion.” I said the words as fast as I could, and as I did, my body got hot and then cold. I shivered, and sweat broke out on my skin, like I had a fever.

  “I hear you,” Oliver said. “But for now, stop it. Whatever you’re trying to do, just relax, okay? Don’t make yourself sick.”

  Okay. I took a deep breath and focused on the radio again. The man’s soothing monotone lulled me into a state of detachment.

  The car rolled to a stop, and I glanced up in surprise. We were in my driveway, and I hadn’t registered one moment of the ride since I turned my attention on the radio.

  The door opened, and I was hefted into two strong arms. “Got you.” Colton’s voice was at my ear. He didn’t wait for me to stand, just scooped me up and brought me inside.

  Part of me noted the bags of clothing by the door and the fire in the fireplace. “Do you remember the last cleanse?” Colton asked. He strode down the hall into the bathroom.

  I glanced over his shoulder and saw Thorn standing in the living room, arms crossed. I cleared my throat. “Yes.”

  If I had been in a better, more alert state, I would have winked at Thorn, but I didn’t have the energy.

  “Close your eyes,” Colton said to me. “I’ve filled up your bathtub. This doesn’t have to be unpleasant. Just try to relax.”

  I almost did what he said. “Shouldn’t you do Aaron first? He’s out cold.”

  “He’s stable for right now and sleeping.” Colton sat me on the edge of the counter. “Raise your arms.”

  This time I listened. “Are you saying I’m not stable?”

  “I’m saying you’re awake and therefore in more discomfort.” He kissed both my cheeks. “Pants.”

  I unbuttoned mine. After that, he seemed to be able to undress me without me helping him at all. My bathtub was small, but I fit in it pretty well. He carried me over, setting me down.

  The water was warm, and something coated my skin when I got into it. Colton sat on the edge of the tub. “Close your eyes and just try to breathe for a while. You don’t have to do anything at all but let the herbs do their work.”

  I wanted to do what he said, but it was like I physically couldn’t relax right then. “The last time I did this it was a shower, just water, and it did nothing for the compulsion.”

  “Well, last time you didn’t have my decade of expertise to draw upon. I’m good at this. You can trust me.”

  I closed my eyes. “Nothing stopped the compulsion until I put him to sleep.”

  “That was a lifetime of stuff. This is hours. Keep your eyes closed. If you fall asleep, I won’t let you drown.”

  I did as he said, just listening to the sounds of the house. Colton was quiet, I could barely hear him breathing. Soon, I drifted.

  I walked down a long hallway. I was in a black nightgown that clung to my body. The floor was cold on my bare feet. Looking at them made me pause. I had red painted toenails. I never had them that color.

  I was more of a purple or blue color-chooser when it came to pedicures.

  My hair fell down my back, swishing against my skin. I kept walking like I knew where I was going.

  A woman sat on a red couch on the other end of the hallway. It was interesting, sort of. Wherever this was, everything was either black, white, or red.

  The woman looked so strange. Her skin was so white, it looked like it was powdered. Her hair and eyes were black. And her lips a striking blood red. Red. Black. White. There was nothing overtly feminine about her. I wasn�
�t even sure how I knew she was a woman. But I did.

  “Lacey.” She extended her hand. “I’ve been waiting for you, darling.”

  I walked to her, taking it. “You have?”

  She giggled, and the sound reminded me of broken glass falling to the floor. “Of course. You’re so very interesting.”

  I didn’t know about that. She patted the sofa, and I sat, staring at her as I did. She was like a piece of modern art. Slashes of color blocked her face, neck, and chest. I couldn’t tell if it was her skin or the light. I looked up, studying the room. Above us, I could see the night sky and pinpricks of stars.

  “Where am I?” I glanced around and found the room had changed again. We sat on the same sofa, but the room was stark and white. A quick peek at the ceiling revealed a solid white expanse. It was both claustrophobic and wide open. My voice echoed across the room.

  “Nowhere,” the woman said. Her gaze dropped to my neck and then went back to my eyes. “I wish you hadn’t left so quickly. And I wish you wouldn’t be so difficult.”

  She reached out. I wanted to move and avoid her touch, but I couldn’t. A dream. Just a dream. Her finger was cold on my arm, and I watched her drag it from my shoulder to elbow. She held it up and wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like this.”

  Her finger glistened, like it was covered in oil.

  “I don’t know what that is.” I’d been covered in oil before though, hadn’t I? I thought back and back. Cleansing.

  “Who are you?” I asked. My voice sounded hollow, like it didn’t really belong to me.

  The woman frowned. “They’re pulling you away.” She smiled, and her teeth were pointed, like fangs. “But don’t worry. I’ll find you again.” She patted my arm, stood, and disappeared.

  I shivered in the sudden cold and opened my eyes. I was on my bed, staring up at my ceiling. A length of warmth lay against my side, and I glanced over to see Aaron. His face was relaxed, peaceful, and he let out deep, even breaths. His hair was wet, and small droplets of water glistened on his forehead and down toward his ears and neck.

  That was why I was cold. I snuggled down even more into my blankets, pulling them up until they were tucked right at my ear. Aaron shifted, his breath catching, and I moved a little bit closer. As if he felt me there, he lifted his arm, an invitation to slide beneath it. I did, laying my head right on his chest and on his heart.