Forever and always.
Chapter Sixteen
Behind all the boxes at the back of the factory was a set of stairs leading to a mezzanine level. There was no railing, just a sheer drop – a fact the boys liked to exploit by shoving me toward the side every chance they got.
They found my fear funny.
I found them repugnant.
The only consolation when we reached the top was that it was brighter up there. Large windows allowed the sunlight to come in, even through the winter weather. It was warmer, almost pleasant if that was at all possible.
One of the boys found a seat while another had picked up rope along the way. They wasted no time in throwing me on the chair and binding my hands, feet, and chest.
I couldn’t move.
Breathing was barely possible.
They left me, answering a call from Taz to hurry the hell up and get back to work. Like they were having fun with me or something.
Perhaps Taz wanted to get me alone again. Finish what he started before. Oliver wouldn’t let that happen, I knew he wouldn’t. We were a team and teams didn’t let each other down. We worked in unison, solving all the wrongs with the world.
But the more minutes that ticked by, the larger the panic grew. If they found him too, it was going to be all over. Neither of us would stand a chance against the six of them. Not when they played dirty. Not when they wanted to kill us.
I tried to focus, studying the room so I wasn’t completely drowned by the sheer fear coursing through my veins. The floor was covered in junk, another layer of dust covering it again. I doubted the room saw much traffic even before the Event.
The windows weren’t the kind that opened, so that would put a stop to any heroic ideas I had of jumping from the second floor and landing on my feet to run.
I could hide, but that would only buy me time. It wouldn’t guarantee my freedom. Nothing would.
Where was Oliver?
If I could somehow get out of the ropes I could try making a run for the stairs. If they didn’t immediately catch me, I could hide in the machinery. It was just dark enough down there to make searching for me difficult. I could get lucky.
Probably not.
Luck wasn’t my friend.
I tested the rope, seeing if there was any give. My feet were about half a foot apart, the slack might allow me to walk slowly. Or hop. I could probably hop quite fast if my life depended on it.
My hands were another matter. My wrists were pushed together, all I could do was entwine my own fingers. I couldn’t reach the rope enough to work the knots. I came to the same conclusion about the rope around my chest. Straining against those only guaranteed my lungs a painful experience.
Movement at the stairs caught my eye, making my head shoot up. Oliver had made it. He wasn’t tied up and he wasn’t followed. He had come to save me, just like I thought he would.
He would be able to get me out of the ropes in no time. Then it would only be a matter of running. If he had made it up the stairs, the boys couldn’t be watching it too closely. Hope filled me, giving me the boost I really needed.
The moment Oliver saw me, he raced over. One look at the ropes and his hands reached toward me.
And then stopped.
Footsteps were stomping up the stairs.
“Hide,” I whispered urgently.
Oliver struggled between staying with me and hiding to save himself as his eyes darted everywhere. But he couldn’t stay with me, doing so would ensure both our deaths.
“Hurry,” I said, nodding toward the mess at the side. “We can’t both get caught.”
He wasn’t happy about it, but he went anyway. Diving behind a pile of junk, he made it just in time before Taz reached the top of the stairs.
Taz was alone. But his hands weren’t empty.
In one was a can of kerosene.
In the other was a lighter.
“Jet said you were hot, so I thought I’d put it to the test,” he said, taking the cap off the can. “It’s about to get really hot up here.”
He let out a belly-shaking laugh as he started pouring kerosene on the floor. He covered the junk – including the pile Oliver was hiding behind.
As he moved, he whistled a tune to himself. I didn’t recognize it, I was too busy freaking out. My time limit on escaping was quickly counting down and I still didn’t have a plan.
I couldn’t see Oliver without making it obvious I was looking at him so I forced myself to fix my gaze forwards. His movements would occasionally appear in my periphery but I didn’t dare turn around for a better look.
Taz returned to stand in front of me. “Do you smell gas?” He laughed like he had said the most hilarious thing in the world. His contempt disgusted me.
“I want to speak with Jet,” I said. It had worked for me with the mole people, I had to take my chance again.
“Jet’s not here. Are you blind as well as stupid?”
“I’m his property, you can’t do anything to me unless he says so.” I was glad I didn’t see Oliver’s reaction to that statement. I didn’t want him to think Jet had any claim on me. But, right now, I would say anything to get out of this room alive.
My comment spurred Taz into a brand new fit of laughter. “His property? Who do you think you are? I’ve got news for ya, girly, you’re nothing. And I don’t give a shit what Jet thinks about it.”
“He’s your leader, your boss.”
He leaned down until our noses were almost touching. Every inch of my body wanted to turn away from him but I forced myself to stay still.
I would not show weakness.
“Nobody is the boss of me,” he snarled, his caustic breath infiltrating my nostrils. “If I want to burn you alive, I’m gonna burn you alive. Got it?”
I wasn’t going to answer.
I couldn’t answer.
His open hand collided with my cheek as the slap forced my head to the side. In that second, I caught a glimpse of Oliver. His mouth was set in a grimace, his eyes full of hatred for my tormentor.
“Got it?” he yelled at me again. The rage was barely being contained within him. How Jet could be friends with someone like this told me a lot about the guy. If there was any chance of him helping me with the adults, they were certainly completely quashed now.
He raised his hand, ready to strike again. I quickly replied. “I’ve got it.”
“Good.” His lips slithered into a smile, showing me all his yellowed teeth. “Now, let’s get on with the show. I’ve always wanted to see what it looks like when someone burns to death.”
Taz took a step back again, playing with the lid of his Zippo lighter. His eyes were crazed as they studied me. He was relishing every moment of my torture.
For lack of any other option, my mouth started running. “Please don’t do this. You can let me go and just tell everyone you killed me. I will disappear, they’d never know any different.”
“And why would I do that?”
“Because you don’t really want to kill me.” Except, he really did. “I’m a hassle. Burning me will cause this entire building to come down and you need the stuff inside. You don’t want to explain to everyone what happened, that you lost your temper.”
He wasn’t buying any of it. Not that I really expected him to. Taz wasn’t the kind of guy that cared about consequences for his actions. He did things first and then dealt with whatever resulted.
“No deal, girly,” he finally replied. He flicked the lighter and the flame came alive. “Have a nice death.”
He held a rag over the lighter and it quickly caught alight. He dropped it on the floor and hurried to the stairs. He stood, taking one last look at me as the flames suddenly hit the kerosene. A great whoosh rang out as a wall of fire was put between us.
His laughter carried as he went down the stairs.
In less time than it took to blink, the fire spread. With the kerosene feeding the flames like a greedy child, it blazed a ring around me. The heat quickly rose
to rival any furnace. The burning junk crackled and hissed as it was eaten up.
My head snapped around, desperate to see Oliver. He needed to get me out of my bindings. There was no way I could even think of getting through the flames until the ropes were removed. He was the only one who could help me now.
“Oliver!” I called out.
I couldn’t see him. The boxes he had been hiding behind were burning. Colors of orange, yellow, and red were lighting up the room.
He might have been just as trapped as I was.
We could both die. Right here, right now. It could be the end.
I bucked against the ropes, not really having any plan but needing to do something anyway. Panic was about to consume me and it took everything I had to keep it at bay. Doing so now would guarantee my death.
My eyes took in the room again, now starting to water from the smoke. We were at the top of the building, the smog didn’t have anywhere to escape. The grey haze just accumulated, the wispy tendrils curling upwards and enveloping everything it found.
Oliver was suddenly standing in front of me. He had made it through the ring of fire. “Please undo the ropes! We need to get out of here!”
“I can’t help you,” he muttered.
My eyes found his, locking for a moment. His were full of regret, something I really didn’t want to see right at this moment. I wanted him to be determined, angry, focused.
Anything but regretful.
Anything.
“Just help me with the ropes, we can do this,” I urged. I needed to convince him because we were losing seconds and every single one counted. The heat was cooking me from the outside in and the smoke was making water accumulate in my eyes until everything was a blurred mess.
“I’m so sorry, Everly,” he said, shaking his head.
Why was he just standing there?
“Don’t be sorry, just help me. Please.”
“I can’t.”
Tears were starting to streak down my cheeks and I wasn’t entirely sure it was only because of the smoke anymore. There was nothing about Oliver that was making sense. All he had to do was bend down and loosen my ropes. We could then get away, never have to see fire again.
“Please,” I begged, sobbing as I spoke. “Just help me.”
“I can’t,” he repeated.
“Oliver,” I moaned his name. The fire was so close it was starting to lick at my clothes. If it liked the taste, it was going to consume me whole.
I was going to burn alive.
Did Oliver hate me that much that he wouldn’t even help me survive? Why wasn’t he saving himself? He could at least save himself.
He kneeled down so we were eye level. “I am so, so sorry, Everly. I never meant for this to happen. I thought…” His words trailed off as tears welled in his eyes. I wanted to brush them away, they didn’t belong on his face.
We were going to die together.
All because he wouldn’t help me.
“What are you talking about? Oliver, please. It doesn’t have to be like this,” I begged. The smoke was starting to fill my lungs, clogging my throat and making every breath burn.
Then he reached forward. Oliver actually moved for the ropes, he was going to help me. Maybe we would have a chance of getting out. Whatever had gotten into him was gone, he was going to help me.
His hands went through the ropes.
He couldn’t hold onto them.
My mouth hung open as I stared between him and the ropes. I had to be seeing things, imagining things because of the fire and the smoke.
I was delirious.
Oliver tried again, his jaw clenched as he concentrated. Like if he put enough thought into the movement, his hands wouldn’t go through the ropes again.
But they did.
Again and again, no matter how hard he concentrated and tried, he couldn’t hold onto the ropes. I watched him get frustrated and it was heartbreaking.
Because it could only mean one thing.
Oliver was dead.
Chapter Seventeen
“Oliver, no,” I whispered, the sharp intake of breath making me cough as it caught in my throat.
“I’m sorry, Everly. I didn’t want you finding out this way,” he said, his eyes only meeting mine once the words were out.
I had a million questions running through my mind. My chest ached which had nothing to do with the fire. How could I not have known my best friend – the man I was in love with – was dead? He was nothing more than a spirit, invisible to everyone else unless they had my curse.
The fire caught a hold of my coat and started to burn its way through my clothes. It wouldn’t be long before my skin was reached.
There was no way Oliver would be able to help me out of the ropes now. I was on my own – in more ways than one. As he cried at my feet, I desperately looked through the flames, trying to find a way out.
“Everly, I’m so sorry,” he sobbed.
I couldn’t even speak to him. If I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop until everything was said. I didn’t have time for that, I needed to survive. I couldn’t be dead like he was, I still had a chance.
“Oliver, stop. Please, I just need…”
I couldn’t talk as the smoke gripped me by the throat and threatened to take my life right then and there. It wanted to pull me down to the dark depths of Hell and never let me go again.
There was no way that was going to happen.
There had to be a way out of the ropes. Out of the fire. Out of the room. I just had to find a way.
My leg seared with scorching pain as the flames found their way through my coat. The pain shot through me like a hot knife, making me shriek in agony.
Somewhere in the factory downstairs, I thought for sure I heard Taz laughing his head off.
The beams of the roof started to crack, warning me they wouldn’t stay in place for too much longer. I looked up, instantly wishing I hadn’t. One beam was burned almost right through, the glowing orange embers taking up a larger area than the remaining wood.
“Oliver, I have to get out of here,” I spluttered. My throat was so sore my voice barely sounded like my own. An eighty year old woman who had smoked her entire life had taken my place. The thought almost made me laugh in the midst of my hysteria.
Something loud banged behind me, sending a wave of flames my way. My back started to heat up, probably covered in stray embers ready to work their way into my clothes. Perhaps if I was lucky, I would die of the smoke before the flames really took hold of me.
If I was lucky my death would be swift.
There was so much I wanted to say to Oliver but I guessed it didn’t really matter anymore. Soon, I would join him on the other side and then we’d have all the time in the world.
I wondered if the spirits would still haunt me if I was one of them.
They’d probably finally leave me alone.
Perhaps death was a sweet relief, like the poems said they were. Perhaps the afterlife would be a better world than the one I currently lived in. Maybe I would be thankful not to have to really live anymore.
No more struggling.
No more pain.
Just lightness. Or darkness. I wasn’t really sure what awaited me. All those spirits and I’d never thought to ask even once. I could have known all the universe’s secrets but I was always too busy to ask the ghosts.
The idea was absurd, I knew that but I didn’t much care. The pain in my leg was so unbearable I wanted to die. I wanted for it to be all over. There was no use prolonging the inevitable. At least it would stop Oliver’s constant sobbing at my feet.
“Come on, help me out here.”
That voice. I knew that voice.
I couldn’t quite place it. All I could see were dancing flames surrounding me like they were having a party. I couldn’t feel my leg anymore. It was either numb… or gone.
Someone tugged at my ropes.
For a moment, I thought it was Oliver and I had dreamed he was dead.
But he was still at my feet, it wasn’t him. Whoever it was, he wasn’t happy with the ropes. He cursed under his breath, his hands yanking with every movement.
And then release.
I could move again. Not that I was actually in control of my body. My hot leg wasn’t feeling anything and the blood was still rushing toward my other limbs.
The boy lifted me, bustling me about like I was nothing more than a ragdoll. I was thrown over his shoulder as he held onto my legs. He swore again as we rushed through the flame wall. The heat flew around us, an inferno that was surely burning us both to a crisp.
He almost lost his grip on me twice when we hurried down the stairs. My head was over the side, giving me a blurry view of the ground far down below. It was a fatal stop at the bottom if he did drop me.
My hands found his back and I gripped on tightly to the material of his shirt. I couldn’t see his face but I could feel his strong muscles as they held me there.
He wouldn’t drop me.
If he had walked through fire for me, he wouldn’t let me fall to my death.
Perhaps it was Oliver after all. Had I really thought he was dead? It was so stupid of me. It was silly to have those thoughts. Oliver wasn’t gone, he was right here, saving me. Just like I thought he would.
A loud crack echoed in the vast expanse of the factory as the roof gave in on the mezzanine level, showering us in biting embers. The boy hurried that much quicker to get away.
I bounced along on his shoulder, my fate given away to him. The flames sent shadows over the factory floor, making it unrecognizable as the place I had walked in only a little while ago.
Now, it resembled Hell.
A jolt to my leg sent out a shooting pain. Bile rose to my throat as I tried to swallow it down again. Breathing wasn’t easy in the quickly spreading smoke but the last thing I needed to do was vomit. I had to hold on, just until we got to safety.
“Are you okay?” the boy asked.
My jaw was set too tight to answer. “Hmmm,” I mumbled. He kept running through the aisles, keeping up a steady pace even though I doubted whether he could see very much. Between the smoke and the dark shadows, it would have been impossible.
All the Pretty Ghosts (The Never Alone Series Book 1) Page 19
