Lexi opened her mouth, but instead of words, dark blood flowed from her mouth. She sputtered, crying out before falling to the ground. Bright lights, dancing like flames, shot from Lexi’s body. Screaming, Cali backed into the corner, clamping her eyes shut. She tried to stifle her screams with her fists. She bit down so hard, she could taste the blood from her knuckles. The metallic taste turned her stomach as the blood spewing from Lexi played over and over behind Cali’s closed eyes.
“Cali?”
Opening her eyes, she looked up from her spot on the floor. The light had switched, again to the dim, red light.
“Dustin?” She cupped her hands around her throbbing head and hoped the ringing would stop. “Oh shit. Dustin, I-I.” She started to stand. “The light...” She steadied herself on a counter and searched the empty room for Lexi. There was only her and Dustin. “I ruined your negatives.”
“Shit, Cali. There’s blood on the counter. What happened?”
He rushed to the wall and turned the white lights on before kneeling to look at her. Cali put her hand to the back of her skull, and it came away with spots of blood on it. “I’m fine.”
Dustin moved behind her, and she felt his hands at her neck. “You scared me.” His voice was softer, but she still heard the panic in it. “There was banging and you were yelling. I thought something fell on you or something.”
Cali felt her shoulders rise. She glared at Dustin, defensive, but unsure why. “I’m sorry about your negatives.”
He walked over to the negative dryer next to Cali. “They look fine to me.”
“Really?” She heard a squeak in her voice. She grabbed the negatives from his hand to confirm they, indeed, were fine.
He looked around the room before looking back to Cali. “What happened?”
Cali walked around Dustin, toward the door. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” She didn’t look back. Her stomach roiled and she swallowed the lump in her throat. “I’m going home.”
“Cali, you’re bleeding. You passed out. I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“No. It’s fine. I’m fine. I just have to go.”
Dustin walked behind her and examined her wound gently. He sighed. “Fine. But I’m driving you.” He handed her a rag. “Hold this against the cut. If it’s still bleeding when you get home, I’m taking you to the ER.”
On the ride home, Cali told herself she’d fallen and hit her head and lost consciousness, and seeing Lexi had been, simply, a weird dream. There was no way she’d barged into the darkroom like that. No possible way. Cali had her fair share of nightmares starring Lexi. She hadn’t really seen Lexi.
Her phone rang, startling her. “Hello?”
“Cali?” Stacy Massey’s voice rang painfully through her throbbing skull. Checking the rag, she saw no new blood. The cut must have been small. “I can’t make it Friday,” Stacy continued.
“Stacy,” Cali complained. “We’ve been doing this since third grade.”
It was true, the two plus Lexi had gotten together almost every Friday for at least a few hours for their whole lives together.
The three of them had lived on the same block. Cali had been the newcomer, joining the two in third grade. The three had been fast friends, and even had toothbrushes at each other’s houses.
“I know.” Stacy sighed.
“You’ve canceled three weeks in a row.” She wiped tears from her face and swallowed hard hoping her voice wouldn’t betray her thoughts. “Jeremy?” Stacy had been dating the line cook at Tom’s Diner for years.
“Yeah. He has this whole date planned. He forgot about the Friday night thing. He made reservations and got me flowers and the whole nine yards.” Stacy was pleading. “I’m sorry. I know. I’ve been bad lately. Next week, for sure.”
“You keep saying that.” Cali sighed. Disappointment sapped her energy. She’d been looking forward to seeing Stacy.
“I have to go. I’m on break, but it’s kinda crazy here.”
Cali could hear the noises of Tom’s Diner in the background. “Yeah, no problem. Bye Stacy; call me later.”
Dustin pulled into her driveway and turned the engine off. The ringing in her ears was gone, though she still felt dizzy.
“Thanks, Dustin. I’m starting to feel better.”
“Do you want me to stay?” he asked hesitantly.
Cali shook her head and smiled, hoping she looked better than she felt. Moving her head made it start pulsing again. “I’m just going to go wash up.” She gently touched the back of her head and there was still a small amount of blood seeping, but she stood without wobbling.
The large house she lived in had been divided into a top and bottom duplex and she could hear her dog whining behind the door that led to the basement where they lived. She waved to Dustin.
“Can I come back later? I have a little bit of stuff to wrap up at work, so it will be a few hours,” he asked.
Cali nodded. He waved and drove away as she went inside.
“Hey, Tesla,” Cali said to the small brown terrier who wiggled in excitement.
Cali got in the shower and ran it over her head until there was no more blood in the water. Throwing on sweats and a t-shirt, she headed out the back door. Tesla sprang into the yard with a bright green tennis ball in his mouth. He ran circles around her feet and barked, though it was muffled by the ball he held.
Cali lobbed the tennis ball across the lawn, but Tesla made no attempt to go after it. She sighed. Tesla turned to growl at the empty chicken coop. Confused, she squinted into the mostly abandoned acre behind the yard. Tall weeds and a pasture with a broken fence sat empty. The coop itself was the only thing Tesla could be barking at. The hairs on Cali’s neck stood on end. It had been boarded shut long ago, but someone could have pried it open.
Tesla stopped barking and rolled over. Cali let out a nervous laugh and sat at her splintering picnic table. Her dad had made it when she was little. Her senior year in high school, she and Lexi had painted it. Lying on the faded blue bench, she stared at the afternoon sky. The sun warmed her skin, and she watched the puffy white clouds race across the sky while tugging on the half-heart necklace she wore around her neck. Tesla barked at a passing car.
She closed her eyes and ignored the throbbing at the back of her skull. Cali had moved to Colorado from Boston while in elementary school. She remembered meeting Lexi. Third grade, their assigned desks were next to each other and they both had the same cereal that morning and watched the same cartoon. They had instantly bonded. Cali could only remember one fight, and she couldn’t even recall what it had been about. It had been in fourth grade, and they spent a whole week not speaking to each other.
“Tesla.” Cali opened her eyes as he licked her hand. “You scared me.”
Tesla let out a huff and walked to the nearby shadow of a tree. Cali rolled over on the table so she could see the cracking paint. Running her finger absentmindedly over one of Lexi’s chipping flowers, Cali read the loopy letters proclaiming Alexia Harper and Cali Fox would be best friends forever. And they had been. She thought about the warm summer day when they had painted the words. Cali wished they could go back. Things were so easy when they were children. She wondered when life had become so cold and hard.
Of course, she already knew the answer. She knew exactly when her life had turned to gray, but there was nothing she could do about that anymore. She often thought about leaving Jaydee, but she couldn’t leave Lexi. Even if they didn’t have what they did before, and never would again, she couldn’t leave her best friend. The thought brought tears to her eyes and blurred the letters of the table.
A raindrop landed on Cali’s arm, and she looked up at the sky. She’d all but convinced herself she’d imagined the rain when the sky darkened and drops started to fall. Tesla ran in circles barking. Cali got up and Tesla growled. Quickly checking the yard, she was glad not to see another terrifying hallucination. Touching the tender spot on her head, she chastised herself for being so stupid. She’d hit her head. N
o one had bleeding eye sockets in the darkroom.
Tesla ran towards the chicken coop with a strange bark Cali hadn’t heard before. He stopped in the tall weeds but Cali could hear his growl. She ran towards her dog and scooped him up. The rain stopped. He rolled over in her arm, tongue lolling out of his mouth.
She approached the coop. It was nailed shut. She wiggled the door. Secure. Tesla licked her arm. She pressed her ear to the door. Silence.
She shook her head. Crazy dog, she thought.
She carried Tesla inside and closed the door behind them.
Retiring to the couch, Cali watched the rain pick up again outside the window. Tesla curled up next to her and slept. Listening to the rain lessened her anxiety. Her bad mood and headache had all but faded away.
Just as she turned away from the window, she saw Lexi outside. For just an instant, the two girls locked eyes. Lexi blinked and disappeared as if she were a mirage.
Cali jumped off the couch, ignoring Tesla’s groan of protest, and ran to the window. There was nothing outside except for the rain.
Tears ran freely down her face and her stomach lurched from fear and uncertainty. She hadn’t visited Lexi in over a week. Shuddering, she couldn’t shake the bloody visions of her best friend in the darkroom. Whatever that had been. A hallucination, or something. Guilt from ignoring her best friend had started to manifest in odd ways. She would be busy doing something and she would get the feeling that Lexi was next to her, but her friend was never actually there. Cali seemed to always have Lexi on her mind. The distance between them wasn’t her fault and couldn’t be helped, yet Cali felt guilty all the same.
She shook her whole body as if trying to shake off the dust of the bad memories. There was no one outside. Even so, Cali stood with her forehead against the cool glass, searching. Fogging from her breath, the window pressed the dark frames of her glasses against her face. Lexi didn’t just show up at her doorstep anymore. Sure, Cali went to see her, but it wasn’t carefree and happy like it had been. They didn’t have spontaneous fun anymore. Lexi didn’t show up in her little blue car and expect Cali to jump in so they could just drive. That little blue car had been totaled, along with a friendship. Cali knew it but she seemed always to be waiting for Lexi. Nothing had been the same since that night.
And you listened to it right outside, the words whipped through her mind as they had a million times since that night. The grinding of metal rang through her memory and her throat tightened.
She stood in the same place, absent-mindedly staring into the backyard. The ghost of her reflection looked back at her with red-rimmed green eyes. She focused on her image, confronting the judgment she saw there. She’d seen Lexi because she missed her, not because she’d done anything wrong. The back of her head was tender to her touch but had stopped bleeding.
The doorbell chimed, making Cali jump.
“You couldn’t have done anything,” she said out loud. She repeated the words and finally turned away from the window to let Dustin in.
Chapter Three
Alexia took a long deep breath and picked at her hair. The morning sun was just starting to drift through her window. She flopped her arm over her eyes.
The nightmare about her car accident had woken her early. She had it every single night and somehow, it still terrified her. She yawned and told herself it was nothing to worry about. It was just a dream. The same dream. The same terror. The same song on the radio. The same night. Over and over every time Alexia slept.
Then, the song had been about getting away while she was young and still free. Now, it was a warning. A warning to get out while she still had time. A warning she had ignored.
Time had run out.
But it was a dream, and it couldn’t hurt her.
Alexia drifted back to sleep for what seemed like only seconds, but she opened her eyes to sunshine streaming through her bedroom windows. Something bright shone in the corner. A stranger with dark hair and a clenched jaw stood in her room. Grabbing the sheets and gathering them at her neck, she was immediately aware that the thin, white tank top she wore had twisted and showed too much skin. He wasn’t looking at her, though. He was looking out the window. Lit so brightly from the sun streaming in, it was as if he were the source of the light.
She opened her mouth to yell at him, or maybe just cry out, but no sound escaped. The man only blinked and stared outside, where muffled birdsong sounded. Her terror started to subside as she considered she might be dreaming. The longer she looked at the man, the less fear she felt. He looked familiar somehow. The man shuddered, stiffened, and glanced around the room looking more and more confused as if taking in his surroundings for the first time. His blue eyes widened when he saw her looking at him. His breath hitched as if he wasn’t expecting she would be in her own bedroom.
Caught in his eyes, she gawked. Like the cloudless sky in summer, his eyes comforted her. He walked toward her, stopping next to her bed and making her stomach flip. She tried to stand, but she was still pinned to her mattress. She told herself again and again that it was just a dream and as if that was some kind of release, she was able to move. Not far, she couldn’t escape him, but she was able to sit up against her headboard. A choked sound escaped her throat.
He reeled back, but paused so he was hovering above her. A string of emotions flashed across his features. She thought she saw confusion, relief, worry, and something like a mixture of joy and real sadness. He reached his hand out and stroked her face with the backs of his fingers. His tan and warm hands left hot trails along her skin as if he radiated heat and she’d been freezing. He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and held his fingers behind her neck. A spark raced through her and clenched in a knot behind her bellybutton.
“Who are you?” Her words were breathy. The heat of her blush rushed to her cheeks.
“Alexia?” His voice was right next to her face.
“Do I know you?”
Instead of answering, he reached for her hand. A current raced through the space between them and through her upon contact.
The world started spinning and, when she bucked away from his hand, she slammed her head against the headboard.
“Are you all right?” His voice broke through the pain radiating at the back of her head. He stood with his hand offered to her, his eyes full of worry.
She wasn’t in her room anymore.
The ground around her was rocky and uneven. Mist clung to the air, giving it a slight chill. A horse huffed nearby and pranced with its front hooves.
His was different. Long black hair. Brown eyes. Shoulders of a body builder, he looked nothing like the man in her room, but he felt the same. She was sure he was the same person. Somehow.
She put her hand in his. Her skin sizzled where they touched.
“Just dizzy.”
Alexia understood the words, but she realized they weren’t English, and it wasn’t her voice. Alexia had never heard the coarse language before, but she was surprised to find she recognized it. It seemed perfectly normal. It felt like there was another voice in her head that understood what was happening, and she was just riding along like a parasite, sponging the information from the other voice.
She glanced down at her clothing; short, soft boots tied at her ankles with soft leather pants, and a worn-in jacket. She had a tie around her waist adorned with an elaborate, golden, horse-shaped brooch.
“You fell pretty hard, Arga.” He put his hands on her hips. She smelled his deep earthy scent as he helped her back onto her horse. “Can you ride?”
She noticed he was wearing similar clothing to hers, but he wore a pointed felt hat. He handed her a bow and her hands placed it against her back like she’d done that every day. The body she was in was a warrior. She did do it every day. Alexia could feel the woman’s details filtering into her brain like they belonged there. Like it was her past, not just the strange woman whose body she was trapped in.
“I’m fine, Lik.”
She held on
to the horse, noticing her tan skin and her long, defined muscles. Her hair felt heavy and long as she shook it out of her face.
Alexia didn’t have tan skin or defined muscles. This body felt different. Leaner, stronger, older. She felt the mind of the body she was in. Her own mind pressed against the other’s thoughts, but she had no control; she could only observe. Wherever she was, whoever she was, she wasn’t Alexia. Not here.
The stranger’s head pounded and, all at once, Alexia could hear the other mind’s thoughts. She didn’t want to say anything about how much she’d hurt herself. She shouldn’t have fallen; she’d just let herself get distracted. She nudged her horse and, as the crisp wind rushed across her face, relaxed. Her horse was strong and smart. They had traveled far together. The setting sun cast long shadows across the spot her clan had settled on. As the shadows lengthened, Arga slowed. She stopped and dismounted as they reached the group.
Lik closed the space between them. He took her face in his hands and brushed his nose across hers. He pressed his lips to her forehead and she breathed in his scent. Alexia felt the body respond to him, pressing their curves together.
“Don’t scare me like that again.” His voice sent warmth through her.
She closed her eyes as he leaned down to kiss her.
The mind sharing space with hers wanted this. Her body buzzed with anticipation. The heat of the man warmed her face, but it took too long for their mouths to connect. Alexia opened her eyes and found herself lying in bed, alone in her room with a beam of sunshine streaming across her face. Sitting up, she shot a glance toward the corner where the man had been. No one was there.
She convinced herself that the man in her room had never been there. He was just as much of a dream as the warrior woman had been.
The place he had touched her face still felt warm and when she touched her lips, she felt her thighs clench.
She shook herself, let out a huff, and flopped back down sideways on the bed. While staring at the wall, it dawned on her: this had been the first new dream she’d had since her car accident. Every other night it was just the crash over and over again. Something new should have been welcome, but it left her feeling alone and empty.
Last Time She Died Page 2
