“Aidan,” I croaked, “don’t go to sleep.”
“Sleep,” Aidan murmured and caught my hand in his.
“You can’t,” I protested. “I know ‘cuz I want to sleep too, but we just can’t.” I pushed at him with my free hand. My arm muscles protested before flopping to the floor and so did my head. I lay there, breathing, then coughing.
The smoke here was gone but still haunted my lungs. Heavy layers of exhaustion clung like a parasite and I realized Aidan was sleeping.
My eyes closed, for only a moment.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Dreams buzzed like insects in the sweltering summer.
First I dreamt of Phoebe and Read. They were huddled together in a corner. Both were scared and clinging to each other. Phoebe had her long legs cramped up against her chest, careful not to extend them toward the mist that was closing in.
Read clutched Phoebe so tight that she cringed, but didn’t tell him that he was hurting her. I heard him whisper that he was sorry, but Phoebe wasn’t listening.
Across the room, Robin was screaming in fits of hysteria; screams eerily similar to Jordan’s just before he fell silent.
Robin stood on a single child’s bed with crumpled, rose-print sheets. Mascara-tears stained her cheeks and she wiped her nose with the back of her hand before picking up a pillow. Using both hands she swung it, wafting the mist away.
“Fight it!” I shouted just as the picture died away and was replaced with a new one.
* * *
The sandbox was warm and I looked down to see the start of a sand castle.
“What do you think we’ll get for our birthday?” a child’s voice asked.
Jerking my head up I saw a little girl I recognized from the one photograph in our hallway.
Startled, I opened my mouth to say something to the familiar dark-haired, little girl when the backyard gate swung open.
Neive and I froze as a burly man with a blonde ponytail and unruly beard stepped into our backyard. His girth mushroomed over his jeans and he filled the whole opening. Beetle-eyes focused on us immediately.
Recognizing him, every muscle in my body locked in place. I hadn’t seen him for sixteen years and yet every detail was sharp as if I were seeing him for the first time. I craned my neck to peer past him for his brother, but if memory served, he’d be waiting in the yellow car.
The patio door closed behind us with a snap and I jumped.
Looking back, the petite, pretty brunette with a round face and full lips flashed a charming smile. A small part of me thought I should be relieved to see our aunt, but I consciously knew it was a memory.
Neive pointed to the scowling man. “Aunt Nell, mom and dad probably didn’t invite him to our party.”
It could have been funny if meeting his eyes wasn’t comparable to staring down the barrel of a gun. Whenever I’d been given the lecture on strangers, he’d easily fit what I envisioned as a “bad guy”.
“Hurry up, Nell,” the man grumbled, his voice made of quiet thunder.
We both shrank back at his glare and glanced at each other. I hated seeing my own fear reflected back.
Neive reached out and plucked her favorite stuffed toy, Damien, from the edge of the sandbox and hugged it tight. It had been a gift from our aunt as an apology. A scary movie we watched with her while she was babysitting had scared Neive so badly she threatened to tell our parents.
“It’s okay girls,” Aunt Nell cooed, meaning to tenderize our unease. “We’re going to the zoo like I promised, remember?” She held out her hands for us to grab. I noticed the new jean-jacket she was wearing. On the breast a peculiar symbol was sewn in black thread. It was a dramatic swirl with an angled line through it. I had almost forgotten about the jacket. Looking over my shoulder at Blondie, I recognized the same symbol stitched into his leather vest.
Wiggling her fingers in front of my face, Aunt Nell sang. “The longer you wait, the less time we get to spend with the kangaroos…”
Neive snatched Aunt Nell’s hand without hesitation. Neive’s side of the room was stuffed with wombats and kangaroos. Mom used to joke that the instant we were old enough Neive would be hopping off to Australia, ironically with a stuffed bear named Damien.
I glanced back at the man in the gate. We couldn’t go with her, though as much as I tried to protest, I realized I was holding out my own hand.
“We shouldn’t go,” I told Neive. She blinked at me as she was pulled to her feet. “You’ll die today if we do.”
The instant I felt the small give of control to tell her what was going on, the scene changed.
* * *
Aidan was sitting at our usual table in the college cafeteria. The group was together again, including five-year old Neive and Nora.
Little Neive and Nora could barely poke their heads over the table across from me, but they managed to eat their sandwiches all the same.
Aidan stretched his lips in his signature polite smile. Standing behind him, Damien’s eyes caught mine and I stiffened. Leaning forward, Damien cupped his hand around Aidan’s ear and began to whisper. Aidan didn’t flinch, continuing to smile until it looked plastic. Read, who sat beside Aidan didn’t seem to notice the demon to his right.
Glancing up and down the table, I realized they all were oblivious to Damien. Cody and Robin were talking, but I couldn’t make out what was said. It was like the volume had been turned down.
Phoebe nudged me. Her magazine laid out in front of her with the spread of food that took up half the table. She said something but I couldn’t hear. Her face contorted in confusion as she repeated herself, waiting for my response.
I shook my head and tapped my ear. “I can’t hear you.”
Phoebe breathed out, exasperated and asked the little Nora squished beside Neive.
I noticed Aidan’s plastic smile falter out of the corner of my eye.
Little Nora shook her head and looked at me with large, blue eyes. Her voice rang in the quiet, echoing. “No, she’s not good at being a sacrifice. In the end, she’ll stay.”
Neive nodded her agreement, pulling the mayo-greased lettuce out of her sandwich.
“Say something,” I whispered to the dark-haired little girl.
She didn’t look up when she said:
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
When the rest of Heaven was blue
Of a demon in my view.
Blinking, I glanced up at Damien, his black eyes locked onto mine as he whispered in Aidan’s ear.
The demon in my view. I realized I knew that poem, from class. I should know it…
Neive jumped down from her seat, dark hair swaying in its ponytail. Her childish laughter piercing my ears like firecrackers.
Then she turned, and ran.
The tables behind ours had evaporated into shadows and Neive ran into them before I could stand.
Struggling out of my chair, I shouted at her to stop when a beefy hand latched onto my shoulder and shoved me back down. Nearly toppling into Phoebe, I looked up to see the half scarred and half burnt face.
Charred skin flaked away as Jordan spoke, peppering my shoulder with ash. “Think I should make her as pretty as me, sweetie?”
* * *
“Stop!” I bolted upright in a cold sweat.
Rubbing my shoulders, it almost felt like the hand was still there. I scrubbed away the horrible sensation and realized with a start that I was back in the tower room—alone.
Grabbing the nearest chair, I staggered to my feet.
Every bruise and scrape flared. The side of my face where Jordan hit me made my jaw feel stiff. Scanning the room, Aidan wasn’t here and neither was the door.
Just a dream, I told myself. Just-a-dream.
Taking a deep breath, I heard the rattle in my lungs. “Guys?” I called.
Shoving away from th
e chair, I stood up on my own and blinked.
All at once there was light.
* * *
Gasping, I shouldered someone and they caught me. Before I could scream or panic, Aidan interrupted me. “Wake up!”
My fists were pressed to my eyes and I slowly lowered them to see the electric blue eyes staring down at me.
Blood had crusted to the side of his face, making him somewhat ghoulish. Aidan wobbled on his bum leg to hold me up and I reached out to the grey wall for support. My muscles weren’t nearly as weak as before. I could stand without feeling like I was going to fall over.
The small, gloomy room with grey walls and green carpet held a black door.
“Where’d you come from?” Aidan asked, stepping back. “When I woke up, you weren’t here.” An inky shadow passed through his gaze. “Were you with him?”
I shook my head. “I was dreaming.” I remembered the tower room, Damien had said I could hop. Was I really just in our world? It had felt so real.
“I was sleeping too, but I didn’t disappear,” Aidan’s eyes narrowed on my jaw. “I don’t even remember getting out of that Challenge.” He rubbed the crusted blood on his temple. It fell off in crisp pieces, revealing Aidan’s reddened skin and reminding me of Jordan’s half charred face meeting the white scars.
Shuddering, I asked. “What is the last thing you remember?”
Shaking his head, he winced when he found the cut near his hairline. “Jordan had pulled me out from under the bed and held me upside down. Then you said something, I can’t remember what, but you ran from the room.
“Jordan had pulled out a knife and said that this was going to be the last thing that I would ever see. But instead of cutting my throat he dropped me and then slammed my head into the bedpost. The rest is hazy.”
“Is that all you remember?” I asked after a pause.
“Just remember little things like a fire and a lot of smoke,” Aidan said. “And you, screaming.” His eyes narrowed on my jaw again. “Did he do that to you?”
Touching the tender swelling on the side of my face I wondered how bad it looked. It didn’t hurt so much to talk anymore. “Yeah, he was a bit of a bully.”
Aidan’s face flushed.
Licking my lips, I remembered Jordan asking me why of all the places in the world, Aidan would pick Leland to go to college. “So, did you move to Leland? Because of your grandpa’s house?”
“Kind of,” Aidan said.
I gestured for him to continue.
“Oh, is this the part where we share?”
I swallowed that one back and took a deep breath before saying. “I told you about my sister.”
Aidan looked away, still looking bitter but at least I saw a smidgen of remorse. “There was a family dispute over the will. My cousin Adam, the one who owned the Maserati, was supposed to inherit it but he died six months after grandpa. The next in line was me. My Uncle seemed to think it should belong to him instead.”
“So you own that house?” I breathed, feeling the shock sway me a little.
Aidan hesitated, still not looking at me when he muttered, “according to the lawyers I will on my twenty-fifth birthday.”
The thought hit my brain and shot out my mouth before I could stop myself. “I wonder if your cousin knew about the darkness between worlds.”
My hand jerked up as if to cover my mouth though it was too late. I disguised the move by tucking loose hair behind my ear and clearing my throat.
“I’ll have to ask him one day,” Aidan said.
“I thought you said he was dead.”
“He is.”
I got the picture. “Don’t think like that, we’re close to the end.”
Aidan rubbed more dried blood from his face and winced. “Yeah,” he said unconvinced.
“We’re going to be fine,” I cajoled, knowing they were weak words.
This was it, our final, sixth run and we’d be free. We could figure out what was going on with our friends, finally. The dream with the mists had seemed so real that I wondered if I’d really seen them. If that were true, it meant they were together and alive, though Cody was still a mystery.
“Nora?” Aidan’s shoulders had tightened and I followed his gaze down to see the button on my shorts was missing and the zipper half way down revealing my favorite purple underwear.
“Oh,” I said startled.
The shame struck like a tidal wave. I know I shouldn’t feel like I’d done something wrong, but somehow I felt tainted, infected. If he’d gotten around to raping me I didn’t want to imagine what I’d be feeling then.
Doing up the zipper with shaky fingers, I heard Aidan breathe. “Is that why you were screaming? Did he…?”
“No.” I answered too quickly.
Aidan’s pale eyes rolled up to meet mine. “Did he?”
“No, Aidan,” I snapped, feeling my face warm in embarrassment. “We have better things to talk about then that asshole. He’s dead. Burned alive and gone.” And showing up in dreams instead.
“What did you say about dreams?” Aidan asked.
Did I say that out loud? “It’s stupid,” I said.
Aidan glanced at the black door behind him. “What do you remember?”
“About the dream?”
Aidan nodded and shuffled in one place. “Since we’re being so open an honest.”
“A—uh, poem by Edgar Allen Poe.” I shook my head to unclog the memory, “but only part of it.”
“Can you remember it?” Aidan raised his eyebrows, still looking down.
I nodded, the memory sticking to the inside of my skull like honey.
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.
We stared at each other for several seconds before Aidan sighed. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” I confessed.
“Aren’t you an English major?” Aidan asked.
I sneered at him.
“Was Damien in the dream?”
Raising my eyebrows at him, I frowned.
“Did he say anything to you?” Aidan ignored me and looked up.
I shook my head and motioned to him. “He was talking to you, actually.”
Aidan’s eyes grew round and I felt time begin to slow. Whoa, whoa, whoa, I’d hit a land mine and I could see the realization playing on his face. “Did—did he talk to you in your dream?” I asked, the caution slowing my speech.
Aidan hesitated before asking incredulously, “In the cafeteria?”
I leaned back against the wall of our small box-like room. He’s invading our dreams; but then how did I end up in the tower room again? The cube being my test, the threats about cheating…where was all this coming from? I remembered the knife rattling on the floor and the hot pinpricks that raced under my skin. I’d moved that knife just by wanting it.
“What does this mean?” Aidan asked.
“I don’t know, what did he say?” I countered, lowering my hands to my camisole, clutching it in my fists.
Aidan shook his head. “It was just a dream.”
“I don’t think it was, Aidan.” I pointed to the door. “That’s our last Challenge and that poem makes no sense to me. If you have something to add…”
Scratching more of the crusted blood from the side of his face, Aidan shrugged. “I don’t think it has anything to do with the poem.”
At my glare he stopped rubbing and sighed. “He said I should give you up. Sacrifice you in the next Challenge and then he’d release our friends.”
Little Nora had said to Phoebe, “No, she’s not good at being a sacrifice.”
“And what…” I swallowed hard. “What did you say?”
“Nothing!” Aidan protested, holding up his hands as if I’d aimed a baseball bat at his head. �
��I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t! I was frozen there in that seat and watched you talking to two little kids. Then I woke up and you weren’t here.”
“Are you sure that’s all he said?”
Aidan glared at me. I could see his hands curl into fists, trying to hide them in his crossed arms. “Where were you, Nora? Where’d you disappear to?”
Frowning, I glanced over my shoulder at the door. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Try.”
The hardness in his voice gave me pause. Should I tell him about bouncing back and forth between here and the tower room? If I did, it wouldn’t mean anything. I couldn’t take people with me and I barely understood how I managed to do it myself. It wasn’t cheating if I came back, right?
“I think I’ve been bouncing back and forth between here and the tower room.”
There. It was out and I saw Aidan glance at the black door.
He wouldn’t look at me when he asked. “Is that why he asked you about jumping?”
Nodding, I said, “I didn’t really get it then, but I keep waking up sometimes in that room, alone and then I’m suddenly back here. Damien seemed to think I had some connection to this place, but I think you do too.”
“Because of the house,” Aidan rolled his eyes. “You got the messages, remember?”
“Yeah, but when Cody said your name, Damien got this look on his face, and then told me not to tell you about my family. Now, he’s whispering to you in dreams. I think your grandpa knew about the Demon’s Grave,” I said. “What if Damien knew your grandpa?”
What if Nell knew his grandpa? Or worse, maybe Aidan knew who she was.
Aidan shook his head after a pause. “But, you did tell me about your family, or was there more?”
“There’s more,” I said and instantly regretted it.
Aidan raised his eyebrows, saying nothing, waiting for me to continue. When I didn’t he took a deep breath, looking away. “And you can’t tell me now because it would be cheating or something?”
I swallowed, “He said he’d kill people.”
This made him pause, his shoulders relaxing a little. Pale eyes darted to the black door and his mouth pinched as if he’d eaten something sour. I wished I could have asked him what he was thinking, but didn’t dare.
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