by S. H. Kolee
“You can scream as loud as you want. No one will hear you here.”
Ryan slowly licked the flat side of the knife with his tongue as his insane eyes bored into me. He was definitely crazy but I still tried to reason with him.
“Please don’t do this. I don’t know why you’re doing this, but I know this isn’t really you. Ryan, I care about you. You’ve helped me so much these past few months. I know deep down that you care about me too. Please don’t do something that you’ll regret.”
“Now you’re trying to whore yourself to save your life?” The lunacy of his expression told me that there was no reaching the sane part of him. His lips widened in a gruesome imitation of a smile. “I guess you’ve noticed that he’s been panting after you. It’s sickening, really. He thinks you’re so special and so powerful. Well, who’s the powerful one now? You’re as weak as he is!”
I stared up at him in horror. He was talking about himself as if he was another person, but I didn’t think a vardoger was inside him. My powers hadn’t worked against him, but maybe it was possible that I just wasn’t strong enough to destroy his vardoger. It gave me renewed hope because that meant Ryan was in there somewhere, and he could fight against the vardoger.
“Ryan, fight!” I cried as I started funneling my power to try again. “I know you can hear me and I know you’re strong enough to take control of your body. Don’t let the vardoger win!”
He threw back his head and laughed. I took the opportunity to slam my energy into him again, but it did nothing. When he looked back down at me, his eyes were still crazed.
“I’m not a vardoger, bitch. Enough talking. Now it’s time to do some cutting.”
I struggled wildly as I saw him lowering the knife, refusing to believe that this was the end. I gasped when the sharp edge of the knife sank into my cheek. Wetness followed the sting and I waited for the knife to sink in deeper, afraid to move in case I made it worse. I was surprised when the knife lifted but didn’t come back down. I looked at Ryan’s face and he looked as horrified as I felt. He dropped the knife and let go of my wrists. I took advantage of the opportunity and roughly pushed him off me so that he fell back onto the ground. I grabbed the knife he had abandoned and stood up, backing away quickly. I held the knife out in front of me, just waiting for him to rush me so I could sink it into his heart.
Instead of rushing me, he stayed on the ground but he had dropped his head so I couldn’t see his expression. All the fear I had been trying to suppress rushed through me and I almost choked as I screamed at him.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you crazy?”
Ryan raised his head, his expression looking haunted, but I didn’t care about the remorse I saw on his face. Remorse didn’t mean much when he had been about to slice me from top to bottom. I raised my hand up to my cheek that was wet with blood, but thankfully the cut was shallow. I didn’t want to think about what would have happened if Ryan hadn’t stopped himself.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “That wasn’t me.”
A part of me wanted to just turn around and run, to get as far away from him as possible, but I couldn’t deny the fact that I still needed him to track down my father. I wasn’t sure how he was going to help me since he had proven himself to be insane, but I had no other means of finding my father. I also admitted to myself that, despite everything, I was concerned about him. I had grown to admire and respect him, and if I was being honest with myself, I cared about him more than I would ever admit out loud. My heart belonged to Simon but I felt a kinship with Ryan that no one could understand unless they were a seer. He understood me in ways that Simon never could. I also couldn’t forget that he had saved my life more than once.
Despite my feelings, I was still incredibly wary of him. “Who was it then?” I asked. “Was it a vardoger?”
He shook his head and his voice trembled when he spoke. “No, it’s my sister.”
“You mean your sister’s vardoger?” I asked in confusion.
“No, it’s my sister’s soul.”
“Okay, you’re going to have to explain what that means,” I said in frustration. “I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Do you remember what I told you about my sister?”
“Of course.”
When Ryan spoke again, he was looking at me but his eyes were glazed as if he were reliving the past. “I wasn’t able to destroy her vardoger. It overtook her but instead of her soul being extinguished, I somehow absorbed it into my body. I think it happened when I used my powers to try to kill her vardoger.” Ryan’s eyes cleared and he was looking at me like he was seeing me again. “It wasn’t my sister that killed my parents. It was my sister’s vardoger. She could never do anything like that. The person that’s in the mental hospital right now isn’t my sister. It’s my sister’s body with her vardoger inside.”
I raised my eyebrow. “So if it’s your sister’s soul in your body, how does that explain your psychotic behavior?”
Ryan’s expression was grim. “I think something inside her broke when she saw what happened to our parents. She had to see herself killing them, even though she wasn’t really responsible. I’m not able to communicate with her but I can feel her pain.”
I looked at him in disbelief. “And that’s supposed to explain why she’s batshit crazy and tried to cut me up?”
He shook his head, imploring me to understand. “She’s not herself. She has all this anger that she doesn’t know what to do with, so she turns to violence. She’s angry that she’s not in her own body so she tries to take control of mine.”
“Did you hear the shit she was saying to me?” I asked incredulously. “That’s not normal anger.”
“I hear and see everything she does when she takes control, but that’s not how she really is. If I’m just able to get her back into her body and destroy her vardoger, I know she’ll be okay. She’ll go back to normal.”
“You’re the one that told me she wanted her vardoger to overtake her so that she could destroy you.” Ryan seemed to be in denial. I understood that he loved his sister and wanted to save her, but even he had to recognize that his sister was seriously imbalanced and it had nothing to do with being ejected out of her body. “It sounds like she’s had some mental problems from the beginning.”
“No, she’s just angry!” Ryan’s voice rose, no longer imploring. “I’m responsible for her being like this because I fucked up when I was trying to destroy her vardoger. Somehow I pulled out her soul instead of the vardoger. Luckily it entered me instead of expiring.”
“You’re crazy too,” I muttered, backing away. “There is no way in hell I’m being a part of any of this.”
He scrambled up when he saw me moving away, but he didn’t come any closer when I swung the knife towards him in warning. He put his hands out in supplication. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
I laughed bitterly at his words. “What about sister dear? She was ready to slice and dice me.”
“Look, you need me. You won’t be able to track your father without me.”
“So I should risk your sister rearing her ugly head again? Sorry, I’m not willing to risk it.” Even as I said it, I wondered what the hell I would do without Ryan. I not only regretted losing his tracking abilities, but I deeply felt the loss of someone I cared about. Because the Ryan I had known no longer existed.
“I’ll take measures to make sure she can’t hurt you.” He looked chagrined as he spoke. “I can usually control her but lately she’s been too strong for me to suppress. I have a pair of handcuffs in my car. You can restrain me while I help you find your father.”
“And why do you want to help me?” I asked skeptically. I refrained from asking him why he kept handcuffs in his car. I didn’t want to know the answer.
“Because I think you can help me,” Ryan said. “With your powers, I think you have the ability to draw out my sister’s vardoger and help me put her soul back in her body.” His voice quieted.
“And I care about you. I don’t blame you if you don’t believe it, but I care about what happens to you.”
I ignored his last statement. “You’re just as strong as I am. Why do you need my powers? I saw how you killed all those vardogers at once.”
Ryan grimaced and then pulled something out of his pocket. I felt a slice of white fury go through me when I saw the palladium and iridium disk in the palm of his hand. “It was because of this. Somehow it made me stronger. Strong enough to destroy all those vardogers. I have a feeling that your strength using this will be unparalleled.”
“You asshole. You stole that from me. Or was it your sister?” I spat out the last word as if it was distasteful.
Ryan looked ashamed but it didn’t make me feel any better. “It was me. I got greedy because I thought it could help my sister. I wasn’t thinking much beyond that.”
I didn’t know if I was willing to help him because I wasn’t convinced that his sister wasn’t just plain evil. I had a feeling she would be just as evil in her normal body. It was ironic that I was so worried about vardogers only to be faced with a human soul that was almost more evil than any vardoger I had ever encountered.
I decided I would play along, because no matter what, I needed Ryan’s tracking abilities. I would determine later on whether I would hold up my end of the bargain.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll help you if you help me find my father. But if your sister starts any shit, it’s over.”
Ryan nodded eagerly, looking grateful, and I pushed away the twinge of guilt since I was pretty sure there was no way I was going to help his sister. I held a hand out. “Throw me the metal disk.”
He tossed it towards me and I kept my eyes on him as I caught it deftly. “Now take out your gun, put it on the ground and walk away from it.”
I was relieved that instead of claiming he didn’t have it on him, he took it out of his waistband and did as I asked. I walked towards it, keeping my eyes on him, and quickly bent down to pick it up. The gun felt heavy and foreign in my hand but I gripped it tightly. “Now walk back to the car and don’t look behind you.”
I followed Ryan from a safe distance as I tried to suppress my anxiety. I wondered if I was a fool for not just dumping him and trying to find my father on my own, but I didn’t think I’d have much success without his help.
“Where are the handcuffs?” I asked when we reached the car.
“In the trunk.”
“Get them.” I watched as he opened the trunk and reached in, pulling out a pair of handcuffs along with a key. I took the key without comment when he placed it on top of the trunk after he had closed it. I guided him to loop the handcuffs through a hole in the armrest of the passenger car door and watched as he cuffed himself so that both hands were trapped. I briefly wondered if I should cuff him in the backseat, but I didn’t want any surprises from behind.
I slid into the driver’s seat and looked at him warily. “Can you feel my father’s energy?”
Ryan nodded. “He hasn’t gotten that far away. I have a feeling he knows we’re following him and wants us to catch up. Just keep driving on this road.”
I pulled back out onto the road. We were both silent as I drove. A dozen thoughts were crowding my mind and I tried to think back to see if I had missed any signs of Ryan being possessed by his sister. That is, if I believed it. It was an eerily familiar feeling to what I had gone through with Simon when he revealed that he was actually a vardoger. I felt more than a little bitterness that I apparently couldn’t take people at face value.
“Has your sister taken control of your body any other time besides today since I’ve known you?” I glanced at him. “Tell me the truth. I won’t help your sister if I find out you’re lying.”
“Yes,” Ryan said in a low voice. “I used to be able to control her, but she’s been getting stronger and stronger. The first time she took control was when she slipped the palladium coin into your pocket when Grant’s vardoger tried to overtake him.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. Surprised and deeply hurt. All this time his sister had been trying to hurt me and he had let it happen without a word of warning.
“Go on,” I said grimly. I knew what I was waiting to hear. I was waiting to hear if his sister had been involved in Jenny’s death. If she was, I would kill him without a moment’s hesitation.
Ryan seemed to know what I was waiting for. His voice was strained when he spoke again. “She didn’t kill Jenny, I swear. She wasn’t in control of my body when that happened. Jenny’s vardoger was stronger than any I’ve encountered. I don’t know if its strength had anything to do with Simon and I being thrown back like we were electrocuted when we tried to help her, but it had nothing to do with my sister.”
I processed his explanation for a few moments and then nodded my head, willing to accept it at this point. I waited for him to continue.
“She took control of my body for a few moments when we were being attacked in Marie’s apartment.” Ryan rushed to continue when he saw me tense. “But she didn’t attack Marie.” Ryan hung his head in shame before continuing. “For some reason she wanted to get rid of Marie. I think she thought you had too many people on your side. So while you were being attacked, she told Marie she had a flash of premonition that her sister was still alive. She told her that she had to go to her immediately because her sister was about to be killed.” His voice was hoarse. “Of course Marie believed her because she thought it was me telling her all this. She trusted me. She asked me to tell you why she had gone, but I knew I couldn’t without telling you about my sister.”
Ryan’s betrayal just cut deeper and deeper the more he spoke. “Is Marie okay? Where did you make her go?”
“She’s fine. She just ended up going to an abandoned building. She probably just thought that my premonition was wrong.”
I sighed heavily and stared at the endless road before me. “Any other times?”
“No, that’s it besides today.”
I didn’t speak for a long time as I thought back to the dreams I had about Ryan. In it, he had warned me not to trust the untrustworthy, but the last person I thought he would be referring to was himself. But now I realized my dream had been warning me not to trust Ryan. Despite trying to keep a guard up around him, I had let my defenses down and trusted him because I believed in him. My own instincts had betrayed me.
In the second dream, he had pressed his mother’s bloody medallion into my hand. I now believed that it was supposed to represent his sister’s murder of his parents, to shed light on the connection Ryan shared with his sister, but I just hadn’t put the pieces together. His last words to me in that dream had been that I didn’t know the difference between waking dreams and reality and to not take things at face value. I had taken Ryan at face value. I had trusted him and confided in him, and all this time he had been deceiving me.
The fact that I wasn’t able to interpret the meaning of my dreams until it was too late was frustrating, but that was the least of my problems now. I had a crazed person who was potentially possessed handcuffed to the car door and I was barreling straight into what was probably a trap to try to save Simon and my mother. My world seemed to be teetering on its edge and I prayed that I was able to right it before it was too late.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“We’re close,” Ryan said. We had been driving for almost an hour and we were still in the middle of nowhere.
“How close?”
“Close enough that we’re going to be on top of him in a few miles.”
Instead of slowing the car down, I pressed on the accelerator. Trap or not, I wasn’t going to let my father hurt anyone else I loved.
“Turn right.”
I followed Ryan’s direction onto a narrow dirt road covered by low overhanging branches. It added an eeriness to the night, as if skeleton arms were reaching for us. As we continued to drive, I saw a large barn come into view in the distance. Lights were blazing through the windows as if
someone was waiting to welcome us. I had a feeling I knew who it was.
“Are you planning on just driving up and saying hello?” Ryan asked sardonically. He seemed to have pulled himself together during the drive and was able to look me in the eye without guilt.
“What alternative do I have?”
“Park the car here and we’ll go the rest of the way on foot. I’m not sure if your father knows how close we are, but we can at least try to have the element of surprise.”
I nodded since I didn’t have a better plan. I stopped the car a good distance from the barn and killed the engine. I grabbed the gun that Ryan had briefly explained how to use on the drive over. I just hoped I would remember how to use it when it mattered. I looked at him warily.
“If I uncuff you, can you control your sister?”
“I think so. But if I can’t and it’s a matter of life and death, don’t hesitate to shoot me.” Ryan’s hazel eyes were deadly serious and I swallowed at the significance of his words but I just nodded my head. He had seemed so desperate to save his sister earlier, but now he was giving me permission to shoot him, along with his sister, if necessary. I wasn’t sure whether it made me feel grateful or uneasy.
I unlocked his cuffs and we swiftly but quietly exited the car, leaving the doors ajar since the last thing we wanted to do was alert my father to our presence by slamming them shut.
We walked quickly up the dirt road, careful to keep close to the trees so that we were camouflaged. My pulse quickened and I tried to regulate my breathing as a mixture of fear and anticipation surged through my veins. I was aware of my throbbing head from Ryan’s earlier attack, but I barely felt the pain. I was more than ready to face my father after our last encounter, and I had a feeling that only one of us would make it out alive. I was determined that it would be me.
