“It’s rough out there today.” As he spoke, she watched his mouth.
Alexia had no idea what was happening on the floor. It could be dead or slammed, she couldn’t be sure. She remembered none of it. She didn’t actually care.
She just watched his mouth. She should ask him to dinner. Or over to watch a movie. She could wear her new lacy panties and matching bra. Her heart sped up as she imagined kissing him.
His mouth was moving, but she wasn’t listening. Her train of thought had gone wildly off track and tried to focus.
A fit of giggles in the hallway made her jump and both of them looked the direction it came from. Stacy and Jeremy rushed into the bathroom together. Stacy caught Alexia’s eyes as she closed the door and held her finger to her lips.
“Didn’t expect that,” he said.
“What’s wrong, Leland? Haven’t you ever been in love?” she teased, batting her eyes at him. She couldn’t feel her mouth moving. If she hadn’t been able to hear the words, she would have been sure she wasn’t actually speaking. Her voice sounded husky.
She felt a pang in her stomach like she was forgetting something. Something about Leland. She fought to remember if she’d talked to him, but her mind was so foggy.
Leland’s face sobered and he looked at her with an emotion she couldn’t identify. “I have.” The expression on his face vanished. He smiled and ran his hand through his hair. “You?”
“Umm. No.” Her voice tipped up. “I don’t know.” Warmth danced just behind her bellybutton. She had to fight herself to not reach out and touch him.
“You don’t know?” Leland’s voice echoed around the room.
Alexia looked around. The break room had never echoed before. “I know. It’s just that, had you asked me in high school, I would have said yes. But I was just young. He was young. We weren’t in love...” She trailed off. “I’ve dated, but just…I don’t think any of that was love either.”
The lights flickered in the room and some kind of memory flashed inside her mind. She couldn’t quite catch it.
Leland nodded.
“Hello?” a voice down the hall drew their attention again.
Alexia stood as Stacy came to the doorway. She hadn’t seen her leave the bathroom. Her shirt was a different color. She had different eyeshadow on. What happened in there? Alexia wondered.
“Am I the only one in this restaurant that understands the concept of work?” Stacy asked.
The lights flickered again before they went out completely. Light flickered on light candlelight and she stood in front of a pale woman in a voluminous blue dress.
“Am I the only one in this family that understands basic decency?” the woman in blue asked, obviously hurt.
“You being alone isn’t my problem, you old maid!” The body Alexia occupied spat the words and she realized they were speaking French. Alexia didn’t speak French, but the body she was in—Anne Durant—did. This was far before Alexia’s time.
The woman in blue, Anne’s sister Symonne, shifted her gaze to the beautiful parquet floors. The Palace of Versailles was stunning, but neither woman focused on it.
Symonne swallowed and straightened her long sleeve. “We were promised to each other.”
The feeling of sharing a head with someone was getting familiar. She fought for control. Fought and lost. Anne was in control and Alexia could feel the triumph in her mind. She was gloating.
“But we love each other.”
Symonne shook her head. “It’s not proper.”
“My Lady.” A voice behind Anne made her smile.
She spun to greet her new husband. “Louis.” Her voice dripped with excitement. Anne threw a look of triumph over her shoulder at her rejected sister.
“Why are you ladies hiding back here?” He gestured to the large room around them. Music played and dancers covered the floor. Anne and Symonne stood in a dark corner. Anne had been at the French court of King Charles VIII long enough not to be awed by it anymore. She was a distant cousin of the King and had spent most of her life near these walls.
“I’m ready to leave.” Holding Louis’ gaze for a moment, she turned her lips up into what she hoped was a seductive smile. “I need to speak with you. Privately.” Her words were barely audible.
With a faint blush, he nodded.
Anne threw one last smug look at Symonne who took a deep breath but had smoothed her features in a mask of complete composure.
“Good evening,” Symonne said in a brittle tone Anne knew she was trying to hide. She, in spite of everything, glided away as if floating.
Anne watched her mingle back into the crowd and Alexia felt her jealousy as so many male eyes watched her prettier, older sister, step out of the shadows.
Louis squeezed Anne’s hand, drawing her attention back to him and they escaped through the giant doors together.
Finding their way to their quarters, Anne turned to face Louis. Running her finger from the outside of her cleavage—made obvious by her corset—to the center of her chest, she simply asked, “Do you want me?”
“Yes,” he breathed.
Her lips brushed his earlobe.
He began pulling at her heavy dress, careful not to disturb any of the fancy beading or pearls. Alexia noted, if left to her, she’d never figure out how to find her way back into the dress. It was Alexia’s last thought as her mind was completely consumed by Anne’s. The passion between her and Louis was unrelenting. He ran his mouth down her naked body starting at her neck and pausing at her navel. Simply exhaling on her skin, he sent shivers through her entire body.
They melted to the floor, lost in each other.
As Anne lay spent on the floor, her heavy eyelids fluttered shut. Alexia took in a sharp breath and Anne was ripped out of her head.
Laying on the floor of the breakroom, Alexia looked up at Leland.
She jumped up from the floor. “Who the hell are you?”
***
Cali had fallen asleep warm in her bed pretty quickly after her night out with Stacy. Shivering awake, she sat up. She wasn’t in her bed. She was outside in a bed of snow. Standing at the fence at the back of the property in a numb state of shock, she saw a thick blanket of snow coated the ground while more dumped from the sky. It was only the beginning of September. There shouldn’t have been snow. Even with Colorado’s crazy weather. It had been warm when she’d gone to bed.
She’d gone to sleep in her bed. Not in the unkempt field behind the house.
Cali wore a thin tank top and pajama shorts. Trembling, she started toward the house. The snow fell so fast it was already up to her shins and Cali wasn’t wearing any shoes. She cried out for help but the wind swallowed her voice. Pinpricks of pain shot through her feet as she trudged the frozen path.
Tripping, she realized she would never make it to the house. The air from her short, quick breaths froze her throat and as she scanned her surroundings, she found the old chicken coop. It hadn’t been used for anything since she’d moved into the house. It was in bad shape but still had all its walls and a roof. There was nothing else close enough. She wasn’t far from it but wading through the snow slowed her down. The door had been nailed shut at some point and the cold had frozen it over. She slammed herself into the icy door over and over until the old wood split and she sprawled through the threshold and rolled onto her back.
From the floor, Cali tried to see through the dense blackness. Her shoulder bled and ached from breaking through the door. With each throb, she felt warm blood flowing out and pooling around her.
“Hello?” Cali cried out, knowing no one was nearby.
Something wasn’t right. Her voice bounced back at her like it was trapped in a tiny space much smaller than the chicken coop. The air around her was stale and, aside from her breathing, there was no sound. The wind and cold from the snow vanished and Cali’s heart sank with the realization there was no way she was still in the chicken coop. The air around her grew putrid, like rotten eggs.
She felt something under her, but the space she was in was so small she couldn’t move enough to examine it. She could hardly move her arms out at all before they reached a wall. Pointing her toes, she could feel a wall just below them, too. Above her there was a little more space, but not enough to sit up or even turn over.
Clawing the space around her, Cali searched for an escape. Her head pounded in the hot, still air. She wondered how long it would take to run out of air in her confined space as she felt each exhaled breath blow back from the low ceiling above her. Her strangled cries echoed in the tiny space. Kicking so hard, her whole body vibrated and the ceiling cracked. Her hands flew up to the sound and she felt a fracture growing in the hard surface overhead. It widened enough so she could almost fit her fingers through when dust started to pour through the fissure.
As the crack widened further, clods of dirt filled her hair and covered her body. Dirt poured into her mouth as she cried out. She covered her face with her hands, trying to cup them over her airways so she could continue to breathe. Unsure of where she heard it, she remembered something about being buried alive. She tried to slow her brain enough to remember it all, but it wasn’t coming back. All she remembered was oxygen runs out faster from breathing heavy and she didn’t want to swallow the dirt. She pulled her shirt over her face, difficult to do in the cramped space, but she managed. She kept her hands at the top of her head, inside the shirt, with her elbows bent, creating a tiny tent over her face. While the dirt fell in from the crack above her, she focused on slowing her breathing and her heartbeat.
Her shoulder throbbed in time with her leg and she could hear the roof over her continue to break. She convinced herself not to move until the dirt had stopped falling. Moving could make it worse.
After what seemed like an eternity, the cracking stopped. Cali took a deep breath from her hot, stale tent before freeing her arms and allowing the dirt to cover her face. With her eyes still shut, she reached out to dig out of the pile of dirt. Her progress was slow at first, but soon the dirt felt looser and she could get through it easier. Before long, she was in an upright position, but her head was still underground. She wiggled and tried to get herself up higher.
Her lungs burned and she was sure if she didn’t break through the surface of the dirt soon, she would die in the ground. Her body fought her, trying to take a breath. Just when she thought she couldn’t go any further, her fingers stopped meeting resistance. She pulled herself up as quickly as she could through the loose dirt. As soon as her head was free she took in a deep, cool breath. She spit mud from her mouth but could still taste it. Breathing heavily, she rested for a minute with her head on the crumbling soil and the lower half of her body still in the ground before she moved to pull the rest of herself free.
Her eyes burned as she tried to open them. Dirt blurred her vision, but she could see green all around her. She wasn’t sure where she was, but she wasn’t in her snowy backyard. Cali worked to pull her legs out as her eyes watered to flush dirt out. Her face lifted to the sky when she felt moisture dropping on her. She noticed something in front of her. Through the blur of her eyes, it had looked like a rock but as her vision cleared, she saw it for what it was.
Chapter Eight
“Alexia?” Stacy’s eyes were wide.
“We’ll be right out,” Leland said.
Stacy nodded, smiled, and walked away. “Have a good break,” she said from down the hall.
Alexia glared at Leland. “What the fuck?”
“I’m here to help you.” He pointed to the red bench she’d jumped from inviting her to sit back down. “What do you remember?”
“Who the fuck are you? You think you can just show up here and, what? I don’t know, stalking me. You’ve been in my house!”
“What do you remember from before?” His smile wavered only slightly.
“Before you started stalking me?”
“I am not stalking you.” He sighed. “You called me.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Alexia darted away from the wall and moved toward the doorway of the break room. “You think—” Once she was in the hall, she turned back toward Leland.
He was gone.
Alexia crept back into the small room.
“Leland?” The room smelled musty and dirty like it had been sealed up for a decade. There was a strong smell of rotting Alexia hadn’t noticed before, and she wondered how. It was so overpowering that she left the break room and headed toward the kitchen. There was still no one to be found. A light plinking sounded in the distance, like water falling on metal. It was the only noise besides her breathing, which was hard and raspy.
In the dark kitchen, cobwebs stretched from heat lamps and dust motes floated through the air. Alexia investigated the dishwashing station, the extra dish storage, the banquet room; there was nothing, no one. The now room-temperature walk-in freezer smelled of moldy food. Dirt-caked windows let in dingy light.
Her heart thumped in her chest, breaking up the silence.
“Hello?” she called out. Her voice was swallowed by the nothing around her. Alexia ran her hand through a thick coating of dust on a counter she’d used earlier. It was leaned on so often, it never had a chance to collect dust.
“Hello?” a small voice echoed from the kitchen. “Lexi?” it said a moment later.
Cali was the only person alive that called her Lexi.
Moving toward the fryers in the corner of the kitchen, she looked for the source of the tiny sound. A flash of light blinded Alexia from where she was certain the voice had come from. She heard soft crying but couldn’t find anyone.
The lights flickered then hummed loudly back to life, and the crying stopped. The air around her, thick with dust and heat, yellowed like an old picture. The rotting smell of old eggs, or sulfur, intensified, and was strongest near the fryers.
“Screw this,” Alexia yelled to the empty building. “I’m going home.”
She fished her keys out of her apron as she ran to the back door. She didn’t look in the break room when she passed it. The air outside was still stale, but it didn’t smell rotten. She rushed to her car and started it before her door was all the way closed.
Her cell phone beeped at her indicating a voicemail and she paused with her foot depressing the clutch. The small, blue, blinking light signaled she’d missed a call from Cali.
Her ringer was on. It was in her pocket. Yet she hadn’t heard it ring.
She looked around wondering when she’d come out to her car. Her running car. She popped the clutch, accidently killing the engine.
Wasn’t I on break? Was I going home?
The memory of the day was vague and full of holes. She didn’t know if she’d finished working or just walked out. She was in her gray Tom’s Diner shirt and had an apron still tied around her waist, so she had, for sure, been working.
She grasped the phone so tightly, pain shot through her palm. As she shook out her hand to try and rid herself of the ache, her small phone flew from her palm and bounced on the floormat. The blue light blinked up at her. Picking the phone back up, she stared at the screen. She called Cali back. After two rings, there was a horrible screeching sound and a woman told her that her call could not be completed as dialed. Trying three more times gave her the same result.
She considered going inside Tom’s, thinking it might jar her memory. Her car door was already open. Perhaps she’d been in the middle of doing just that before she called Cali. She swung her feet out to the gravel parking lot.
Cold settled in her stomach and her heart quickened. She pulled her feet back in, closed the door, tossed her phone back to the floor, and drove away.
“Fuck this,” she whispered shakily to her dashboard.
She pulled up in front of her house, turned off the engine, and untied her apron from around her waist before flinging it into the passenger seat. She laid her head against the steering wheel.
Her thoughts slowed along with her breathing. Little memories of the d
ay started to float in, but they weren’t scary. They weren’t really anything. Just individual moments with no context or meaning. Filling in time around her like a paint by number with only orange and green crayons and some of the numbers rubbed away. There was something there, but no telling what.
She jerked upright when tires squealed. A car drifted down her dark street, almost fishtailing before righting itself. The illumination from the streetlights followed it like a spotlight.
Flashes of light lit up bits of scenery for brief moments. As the car lurched and spun across the road, Alexia watched. Bile rose in her throat. The spotlight followed the uncharted path of the tires.
Glass exploded, sparkling as it dusted the street. The back tires careened into the yard in front of it, taking out a path of solar lights and almost hitting a tree.
Alexia turned and threw up in the passenger’s seat.
An odd sound outside made Alexia look back up.
No one was moving in the car. Heat radiated off the hood and Alexia saw the paint begin to curl just before a spit of flame reached out.
Alexia moved as if on autopilot. Grabbing her phone from the floor, she jumped from her car and dialed 911. She ran across the street as a female dispatcher picked up and asked what the emergency was.
The streetlights went out before she answered. A moment later, a black and white version of the world faded in around her. The blue car was under the streetlight and in color. As she watched, it began to fade until it was hardly different from the colorless scene around her.
Growing brighter, the fire shooting from the hood was unnaturally large. She moved to the front of the car and the flames parted.
Alexia stared at herself inside the burning vehicle.
Gasping, she stumbled backward. Her foot gave out and she hit the pavement, dropping her phone. She’d slipped on a headlight. All around her were pieces of the little blue hatchback.
The car. It was her car. Her totaled blue hatchback.
Not like at the diner. This wasn’t some trick her mind played. Her hand bled as the squares of littered glass bit into her palms.
Last Time She Died Page 7
