by Tracey Tobin
Contents
Dedication Page
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
For anyone who has ever gone through a tough time and had to find a reason to keep pushing forward.
Special thanks to Nikki and Eric for helping convince me that this story was ready to be shared.
Prologue
“Someone tell me what the hell is going on in there!”
Marianne had to plant herself firmly in the doorway with her arms stretched out in order to keep Mr MacKinnon from charging into the emergency room. From the opposite side of the double doors came a scream that made both of their faces blanch, but all one-hundred-and-ten pounds of Marianne stood firm.
“I’m very sorry, sir,” she said, hoping that she sounded more authoritative than she felt. “You can’t go in there right now. It’s a sterile room.”
“Then could you at least find out what’s happening?” the stricken man begged, his eyes flicking from the young nurse to the door and back again. Another scream made his eye twitch and his fists clench. “It sounds like she’s dying in there! I know it’s painful, but Christ, that can’t be normal!”
Marianne bit her lip. She completely understood where Mr MacKinnon was coming from, but she wasn’t clear to enter the room either. “I’m sure… I’m sure she’s just fine, sir, and-”
The emergency room doors swung open quite suddenly, knocking the concerned father-to-be and the nurse to the side as a procession of medical staff came hurtling through. They were pushing a cart with a small, bloody bundle of blankets in the center of it. From behind them, in the delivery room, Mrs MacKinnon let out an ungodly wail that sent a chill through every last person in the waiting room.
Marianne’s hand crept up toward her mouth as the procession rushed around a corner and out of sight. Mr MacKinnon stumbled and fell against a wall. His eyes were wide with shock and disbelief.
A long, horrible heartbeat passed, and then another, and then Marianne found herself moving down the hallway, though she couldn’t feel her legs moving. No… she was thinking. It can’t be… The young woman had known what she was getting into when she’d chosen her profession, but she’d only been on the job for a few weeks and she wasn’t ready for something of this caliber. Not yet.
Blinking back the hot tears that threatened to fall, she found herself standing outside a set of gleaming silver doors, reaching forward with a quivering hand. She was terrified to go in, but also terrified not to. She felt, foolishly, that she could somehow change the outcome by making the proper decision, and she was afraid to choose wrongly. A few deep, shaky breaths later she stormed through the doors, only to stop so suddenly that the swinging steel rectangles struck her backside and almost sent her flying to the floor.
At first the scene didn’t seem to want to compute in her mind; it was far too quiet and far too still. There were eight people in the room, and six of them - the doctor, a midwife, and a handful of nurses - were standing still as statues, arms at their sides, eyes staring straight forward, unseeing. They appeared hypnotized, almost lifeless, like empty shells.
The last two people did not, by any stretch of the imagination, belong in a hospital’s critical care unit.
The man may have been handsome under other conditions, but right at that particular moment he looked like he’d been through hell and back. A long brown cloak and a pair of old leather boots were caked with mud and covered in grass stains and jagged rips. The mop of shoulder-length hair might have been a brownish-red, but it was impossible to tell for sure under all the dirt. His stubble-covered face was white as a ghost’s and his dark brown eyes were haunted as he clung miserably to a bundle of blood-soaked blankets.
The woman, however, was the polar opposite of her companion: so clean and white that she almost seemed to glow. Her long, pearl -colored cloak covered her entire body aside from a pair of pale, smooth hands with snow-white nails peeking out from the sleeves. Her hood was pulled down so low that only a pair of blood-red lips could be seen under its shadow. In the woman’s arms was cradled a gently sleeping baby girl in a pristine pink blanket.
Marianne stood in the doorway, mouth agape, fingers twitching, unsure what to do, unsure what to say. Her gaze flicked nervously from the mesmerized hospital staff to the strangers, who were looking back at her with two very different reactions on their faces.
The ethereal woman raised one hand and motioned for Marianne to come closer. For one hesitant moment, the nurse thought about backing out the door and running in the opposite direction, but instead she found herself complying to the woman’s summons. Though it was difficult to tear her gaze away from the strangers, she forced herself to look down at the baby. The newborn had been cleaned and swaddled, and looked perfectly healthy, as far as Marianne could tell. Around her neck was a delicate white gold chain, and on the chain hung a beautiful crystal pendant that seemed to shine from within.
The filthy man fidgeted uncomfortably. “Are you sure about this?” he asked his companion. He gripped his bloody bundle tight, and he had eyes only for the sleeping child.
“We have little choice,” the woman replied. Her lips barely moved, but her voice filled Marianne’s head as though it was coming from within her own skull. To the frightened nurse the woman asked, “Her parents - are they good people? Will they love her and take good care of her?”
Marianne felt stunned. She wanted to pinch herself to see if she was dreaming, but instead she opened and closed her mouth several times before finally spitting out, “Y-yes. I believe so.”
The woman gave a small nod, then inclined her head ever-so-slightly toward her male companion. “This is the safest refuge we can offer her,” she told him. He seemed to consider that, and after a few long breaths he nodded as well.
Before she knew what was happening, Marianne had the baby girl in her arms and the strangers had moved around her, heading for the doors. In her shock she froze, staring down at the baby with her jaw hanging and her heart beating like a hammer. Then she whirled around. “Wait!” she cried. “Who the hell are you people?”
The strangers stopped, mere inches from the door. The man couldn’t seem to bring himself to turn and face her again, but the woman twisted her head just enough so that Marianne could see those lips smiling out from beneath the cloak. “It really matters not, my dear, but if it makes you feel better, you can think of us as her godparents.” And then they pushed through the doors together and were gone.
Marianne gaped, stared, and then ran off after them, but in that half a moment of hesitation they’d somehow managed to vanish. She stared up and down the halls, but they were nowhere to be seen and the nearby orderlies showed no indication of having seen anyone strange. In the room behind her the mesmerized hospital staff had suddenly come to their senses and were making quite a commotion.
Shaking a little, her mind whirling with questions, Marianne gaped down at the little infant in her arms. The child let out a tiny yawn and slept on, unperturbed.
“Okay, tell me this, little one: how on Earth am I going to explain this one?”
Chapter One
The car shuddered to a stop in the far rear of the school parking lot. Tori took a long, deep breath and then let it out as slowly as she could. It did nothing to abate the mad thumping in her chest, so she took a few more. They helped marginally. Once she was confident that she wasn’t going to drop dead of a heart attack right then and there, she removed her
hands from the steering wheel and placed them in her lap. She’d been gripping the vinyl wheel-cover so tightly that her knuckles were red.
Sitting there, staring at the main double-doors to her high school, the teenager found that she couldn’t move.
“You can do this, Victoria,” the seventeen-year-old whispered to herself. “No big deal. This is nothing. Absolutely nothing.” The lie grated against her ears. She reached up to pull the rear-view mirror toward herself and looked hard into the bright green eyes that stared back at her. They were pretty eyes - she’d always thought her eyes were one of her best features - but they were filled with a twisted cage of emotion that she just couldn’t seem to hide under shadow and mascara. With a sigh that was saturated in frustration she swatted the mirror away and slammed her head against the steering wheel. Strands of long blond hair fell around her face.
For a long time she stayed there, digging her nails into the steering wheel, wondering if she shouldn’t just turn around and go home right now before things somehow got worse. But the thought of sitting around in that empty house for another day… No. She had to make some kind of effort. Anything would be better than sitting all alone in that quiet, empty house…
Her hand found its way into her hoodie pocket and her fingertips stroked the cap of the prescription bottle that she hadn’t let out of her reach for weeks.
Taking one further deep breath, Tori forced herself out of her beat-up Camaro, slung her backpack over her shoulder, and marched straight for the school doors with her head held high.
She had been expecting a reaction, of course, but not one quite like that which greeted her. As she pushed through those doors, the main foyer of the school welcomed her with the kind of din that only teenagers can create, but within seconds of her otherwise unspectacular entrance there was nothing but a horrible, deafening silence. Heads turned, mouths gaped, and all eyes were on the girl who had just arrived. Her chest constricted, her shoulders fell, and she very nearly turned right around and ran.
“Tori!” The voice was surprised, but friendly. Before she could blink away her fear and find the source of the call, Jared was standing in front of her. His face was lined with a concern that was just barely masked by happiness.
“Hey,” Tori forced herself to say. “Um…I’m back.”
Jared’s face broke out into a grin. Tori tied to return the gesture, but she felt that her face was instead twisted into a grim mockery of a smile. Jared put his arm around her nonetheless and began pulling her down the hallway. “Come on,” he insisted. “Let’s go find Krista. She was just talking about how we should come visit you.” He played it off like he’d been the cool one in the conversation, but when he spoke Tori remembered his numerous visits to the hospital just a few weeks prior and suspected the idea had been more his than anyone’s.
All eyes were on them as they moved past lockers and classrooms, but the silence was slowly being replaced by whispers in every direction. Tori felt her face flush red hot as her name was hissed from numerous mouths. She struggled to keep her eyes straight forward and felt Jared’s arm tighten around her.
“Ignore them,” he hissed. “Vultures, every one of them. They know nothing.” There was a real anger in his voice that was very telling of the situation. With a cringe Tori wondered what people had been saying while she was gone. Until quite recently she had never realized just how cruel and pitiless people her age could be.
The eyes and whispers followed them all the way to the cafeteria, where Tori was able to blend into the crowd a little by keeping her head down and staying glued to Jared’s side. She felt like a soldier infiltrating an enemy camp. She was surrounded by loaded guns.
“Oh my gosh!” another friendly voice cried, and suddenly Tori was enveloped in an exceptionally tight hug. A little hiss of pain escaped her lips before she could stop herself, and just as quickly as she’d been grabbed, she was released.
“Oh my god, Tori, I’m sorry!” Krista exclaimed. “Are you okay? I’m such an idiot!”
With some amount of effort Tori was able to push the cringe from her face and replaced it with a weak smile. “It’s okay, Krista,” she assured the other girl. “I’m just still a little sore, that’s all.” Without even realizing she was doing it, she pulled her hair forward and laid it over her shoulders to keep the marks on her neck hidden from sight.
A voice came then, unbidden, from somewhere in the crowd. It was hushed, but plenty loud enough for everyone in the vicinity to hear: “I hear she’s been sitting at home, drowning herself in vodka for the past two weeks.”
Tori’s face went red-hot. Krista made a sound like an angry mama bear and Jared’s head nearly twisted off his neck as he searched the crowd for the offender. All of a sudden every student in the cafeteria was looking everywhere but at Tori.
“Can we… Can we go somewhere quieter?” Tori whispered. She felt the beginnings of tears pricking at the corners of her eyes and she couldn’t stand the thought of making any more of a scene. She didn’t want to give the enemy soldiers any more ammo.
“Yes, of course,” Krista replied, keeping her voice low. She took Tori by the hand and tugged her along. “Come on, Jared. I think the Home-Ec room is empty right now.”
The two friends flanked Tori as best they could manage to keep the prying eyes away from her as they rushed through the hallways. It seemed to Tori that the short walk took a lifetime to traverse and brought them past as many enemies as possible, but eventually they were shut inside a quiet room, surrounded by sewing supplies and piles of kitchen equipment. Krista closed the door and, after a second thought, locked it for good measure.
Before either of her well-intentioned friends could speak, a confession spilled from Tori’s trembling lips: “They’re right, you know. About the drinking, I mean.” She found herself scratching at her wrist as the horrible words poured out of her, without her even meaning them to. “The only reason I managed to force myself here today is because I’ve drunk every drop in the house and I don’t know anyone with an ID who would be willing to buy me more.”
There was no response for what felt like a long time, so ultimately she had to raise her eyes to take in their reactions. There stood her only true friends in the world; Krista, small and delicate, with short dark hair and deep, soulful eyes, and Jared, tall and protective, with bright blue eyes and a shaggy auburn mop of hair. They both looked concerned, caring, and warm-hearted. But their eyes were also full of pity.
“Oh please, don’t look at me like that,” Tori groaned. Her hand found a ball of yarn and in her frustration she threw it at Jared’s chest. It bounced off ineffectually and rolled across the floor. “It’s bad enough getting it from everyone else,” she added, “but I can’t handle it from you guys too!”
The two shared a quick look that said they weren’t particularly surprised by her outburst. “We’re sorry,” Krista said. “It’s just that, well, it’s not healthy, you know?”
Tori must have looked like she was going to say something explosive, because Jared jumped in quickly with, “We’re just worried about you. You’ve been through a lot, after all.”
It was a true enough statement, and kindly said, but at that moment Tori could see the flash of judgment behind her friends’ eyes and she just couldn’t stand it. She moved swiftly, dropping her backpack and abandoning it in her desperation to get to the door. “This was a mistake,” she muttered. “I shouldn’t have come.”
“Tori, wait-” Jacob cried. He made to move toward her, but she’d already held out a hand to stop him. The other lifted to her face to swipe away the tears that had dared to escape the corners of her eyes.
“I can’t handle this,” she hissed through a swelling throat. “I can’t handle everyone staring at me, thinking that I did it all to myself, that everything that happened was my own damn fault. The judgment, the rumors…” The tears were coming with purpose now, and the back of her hand was powerless to stop them.
“It should have been me who d
ied,” she whispered.
When neither of her friends could come up with a suitable response, Tori fumbled with the lock, whipped the door open so violently that it slammed against the wall, and ran for her car as fast as she could, past the eyes, and the whispers, and the judgment.
Victoria MacKinnon stood outside her bedroom door, glaring at the stainless steel knob. She didn’t want to go inside, but there was something she felt she had to do right now, while she had the faintest hint of determination, and before she lost her nerve. So, with a particularly large gulp of breath, she pushed open the door and stomped inside. She ignored her books, her games, and the pile of clothing on the floor. She ignored the abandoned schoolwork, the vanity full of makeup, and all the random items that had once defined her as a person. Instead she made a direct beeline for the photo frame on her bedside table. She didn’t look at the photo - she couldn’t have possibly forced herself to face it - but she knew what it showed. Inside the baby-blue ceramic frame smiled a blond-haired girl in a cheerleading uniform leaning against a black-haired boy in football gear. They were the stereotypical high school power-couple; the kind of sweethearts whom you expected to be together forever.
Tori snatched up the frame, marched herself outside to the garbage box at the end of her driveway, and flung it in as hard as she could. The glass shattered in a very satisfying way, but for some reason the sound made her sob aloud and drop to her knees.
The tears had just begun to dry up when a quiet voice from behind asked, “Feel better now?”
Tori rubbed a sleeve across her damp face and turned to find Jared and Krista stepping out of Krista’s little blue sedan. Jared was holding Tori’s backpack.
“Not really,” she croaked. “I just… I wanted him out of my parents’ house.” She felt a lump forming in the back of her throat, and although part of her brain was screaming for her to keep her mouth shut, she couldn’t help it as a waterfall of words began tumbling from her lips again. “You know he didn’t even come to the funeral?” she hissed. “Two years of my life, and… But he didn’t even care enough to come to my parents’ funeral.” She broke into another sob, but cut it short with a growl and forced herself to her feet. She tried to recover from the moment by reaching down to brush the little bits of gravel from her jeans.
