“Are you okay?”
Silence was her only response as the unsettling mask of Chloe’s expression remained nailed to her face. Alexia fought a burning desire to flee. Chloe wasn’t well—wasn’t herself. Something tragic must have happened, and she was partially responsible. If she would have stayed home last night, none of this would have happened. Chloe wouldn’t have gone out. Neither of them would have taken drugs…blacked out. But they had. And because of that, Alexia had to stay. She had to keep talking…pray for a response.
“Chloe? What happened last night?”
There was no reply.
“I think the Adderall was laced with something,” she continued. “I don’t rememb—No! Chloe, no!”
Alexia scrambled to her feet as Chloe reached forward, gripping the rail that separated the catwalk from the twenty-foot drop to the stage below. There was nothing more she could do except scream when Chloe flipped headfirst over the bannister. Her knees bent in a disturbing fashion as she plummeted the colossal distance to the ground, arms glued at her side as if to ensure her neck would break the fall—break in the fall.
In the split second before impact, Alexia squeezed her eyes closed, not wanting the splattering of Chloe’s fragile body to haunt her for the rest of her days. But there was nothing she could do about the noise. The gut-wrenching sound of flesh smacking the floor was so loud it carried above Alexia’s cry.
Then she fell too, legs buckling beneath her as shock took hold of her body. She didn’t lose consciousness, but her eyes remained shut, unable to bear the sight of Chloe’s mangled body. She screamed until her throat was raw.
CHAPTER 11
It seemed hours passed before another sound accompanied Alexia’s nightmare. A door opened and closed. Footsteps hurried forward.
“Alexia!”
A hand found her shoulder. She shook it off.
“Go to…her.”
But the person was resolute in their decision to remain at her side. She wanted to scream at them that it was useless—that no amount of human touch would pacify her. Chloe was the one who needed urgent help.
The voice spoke again, and through her delirious haze, Alexia recognized it as Kelly’s.
“Are you okay? Alexia, what happened?”
What happened? Look! Just look! Chloe’s…Chloe’s…dead!
As soon as the thought took form in her mind, she regretted it. She didn’t want Kelly to look. That sight would break her. That sight would break anyone. She needed to get Kelly out of there. She needed to call the paramedics.
In a slow, struggled motion, Alexia opened her eyes. Kelly’s manicured eyebrows were arched with worry, creating an angled roof for her anxious eyes.
“What happened?” she repeated.
Alexia tried to reply, but words grated her throat like sandpaper.
“Ch—Chl—”
She stopped as her gaze did the inevitable—snaked its way around Kelly’s side to the spot Chloe had fallen.
The spot which was empty.
No corpse appeared through the feeble light. The surface of the stage was an uninterrupted flat line feeding into the wing of the stage. Propping herself up, Alexia scanned a wider area, wondering if her collapse had disorientated her. She found nothing. Chloe was gone.
Kelly came back into focus. “Did you fall? Have you hurt yourself?”
“No,” Alexia replied, raising a hand to her head as if to wipe away her confusion. “I must have fallen asleep stretching. Had a bad dream.”
The words came out as an excuse, but they hung in the air, exposing the possibility of truth in her own lie.
Was it just a dream?
No one could have survived that fall head first. Chloe wouldn’t have been able to move at all, let alone crawl off stage. Alexia’s sight trailed back to the dark section, haunted by something unseen. Her anxiety grew the longer she stared into the darkness, it’s hold over her only broken only by Kelly’s sigh.
“Thank God, you scared the crap out of me. I mean, I’m sorry you had a bad dream and all, but how unlucky would that have been if you had injured yourself the day before the show?”
Alexia’s hand never left her temple when she nodded feebly.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Kelly pressed.
“I’ll be fine. I—I just need to splash some water on my face.”
Her legs wobbled like jelly when she stood. Shock had a way of undermining everything, turning the simplest task into an impossible feat. Alexia stumbled to the dressing room, relieved to find it empty. She wouldn’t have been able to put on a fake smile and utter good morning pleasantries while inside she was still screaming.
By the time she reached the bathroom, Alexia nearly collapsed on the sink, hands groping the vitreous china with such force she was sure it would break. She remained there, sucking in air with desperate gasps. Minutes passed before she trusted her balance enough to lift one hand and reach for the tap. When water shot out of the nozzle, she jumped.
Get a grip. It was a dream. It must have been a dream. Chloe would never have done that.
But her heart knew the truth. It had happened. She had seen it, and had not been under the spell of sleep.
It was happening again. The cracks of the real world were revealing themselves to her, forcing her to look straight into The Concealed Layer. It was the first time she’d glimpsed the land between living and dead since she had put Xander’s soul to rest. Now that world was back. For what reason, she didn’t know, but this time was different from the last. Xander had been a comforting presence; angelic, divine. Now, evil was at play. Something sinister was brewing, and she didn’t like it. Not one bit.
The door to the dressing room opened. The sound registered in the haze of a distant dream. A coldness seeped through her bones, and even though the entrance was hidden from sight, she knew who it was. She felt her presence.
Alexia’s hand shot up to turn off the running water. With a slow, creeping step, she exposed a sliver of one eye to peer around the corner.
The change in Chloe’s appearance was like night and day. Pigment had returned to her skin and negligence to her demeanor. Her motions were heedless, tossing her bag into the locker carelessly before returning her attention to her phone. She didn’t notice Alexia. She wasn’t attuned to anything except herself. Alexia dared reveal another inch of her face. Choe’s vivaciousness seeded doubt in her mind. She was too alive to be dead. That wasn’t unusual though; Alexia saw the dead as though they were real. Exactly how they would have been seen in life. Which is what made it so difficult for her to distinguish the two.
She struggled with the internal debate, leaning out farther as she lost herself in thought, studying every inch of Chloe for further clues. She trailed her gaze down the principal dancer’s thin body, then back up.
Alexia gasped.
Chloe’s eyes were on her.
“Are you staring at me?”
“I—no.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m pissed at you, you know?”
Alexia could only bring herself to take a single step out of her hiding place. Half of her body was still shielded by the corner wall as if it might offer some protection.
Pissed at me? For what? Discovering her secret? Finding out that she’s a ghost?
Alexia returned her anger. “You revealed yourself to me.”
Chloe’s face morphed from confusion into disgust.
“Revealed myself? You were watching me change?!”
“Huh? Oh, no!” Alexia flushed. “I meant—”
“Whatever,” Chloe interrupted. “Just stop telling people that we went out together when we didn’t. That’s messed up. If you were trying to impress Leo, you’re going the wrong way about it anyway. He doesn’t like me, so the joke’s on you.”
Alexia could only stammer incoherently as she processed all the words coming at her. She had given Chloe the perfect opening, told her that she knew. Either Chloe was playing some twisted game with her, or she wa
sn’t actually dead.
Then an answer floated from the back of her mind that explained everything; they were both suffering side effects from the drugs. It was possible Alexia had hallucinated the earlier incident on stage, and Chloe’s memory had been wiped clean from the night before. The principal dancer wasn’t toying with her; she honestly didn’t remember going out.
In a desperate attempt to save face, Alexia said, “I didn’t tell him to brag. I was worried about you. We did go out last night. We took some pills your friend gave you. You said it was Adderall, but I don’t think it was clean. My memories are foggy too.”
Chloe’s eyebrows pinched together so close it looked like she had a unibrow. It was the first time Alexia had seen her resemble a normal person instead of a god. Her lips thinned as they parted like the cap of a chimney, ready to vent.
“Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was with Marque all night, so just leave me out of your twisted delusions going forward, got it?”
She didn’t wait for a reply before marching through the stage door, hips swinging high in her raged stride.
Alexia closed her eyes, imprinting every word of their conversation to memory. She needed to process it, understand the psychological games Chloe was playing with her.
The rest of the girls began to trickle into the dressing room, then out onto the stage. Alexia watched them go, remaining where she was. She knew she couldn’t stay hidden away forever. The performance was tomorrow. She had to pull herself together. Her career depended on it.
With a deep breath she returned to the stage, joining the others as they warmed up. Chloe was in the front row, arching her limbs with such deftness that if she were still upset, it would have been impossible for anyone to guess.
As much as Alexia was dreading the start of rehearsal, once it began, dancing turned out to be her saving grace. It pulled her out of the nightmare that reality had become, and into her own world. One she knew, one she loved, one where she felt safe.
It wasn’t until after she’d left the auditorium and the cold Parisian streets that her anxieties crept back to the forefront of her mind. Alone in her hotel room, Alexia revisited that morning and all its terror, wondering if she could have hallucinated something that had felt so real.
Digging hard into her mind, she excavated another thought. It hadn’t just been that morning. She’d been seeing things ever since her first day of rehearsal; the window covered in black frost…the same frost that had infected the hallway of the opera house two days later. All visions had one common factor—Chloe. There was something amiss with her. Something supernatural.
But she couldn’t be a ghost; everyone could see her.
Xander had once explained that only those with The Sight, a special ability to peer across the threshold of the living, could see the undead. But Chloe was the principal dancer of one of the world’s greatest ballet academies. She was famous. Alexia knew for a fact that everyone who could see her didn’t have The Sight. Besides, if she had died, the news would have made headlines worldwide.
Alexia tossed and turned in her bed, its size too big for her liking. It was as if she were lost in a sea of mattress with crumpled sheets as waves that rocked the waters. She was drowning in her own thoughts. She needed a lifeline. She needed help.
The idea was almost as unbearable as shouldering the burden alone. Only one person knew her secret, someone she had gone to high school with, someone she’d discovered also had The Sight. Garth.
Alexia hadn’t spoken to him in ages, but that was just the excuse she fed herself. She knew who she really wanted to tell. They were the same people she’d been dying to discuss the intricate details of Xander with. Her best friends.
Alexia could never bring herself to raise the subject with them, a small part of her afraid of being judged. What’s worse is that she wouldn’t blame them for it. Learning your best friend could see the dead was a hard pill to swallow. How would she even broach the subject?
Hey, so you remember my first boyfriend? Turns out he was dead the whole time. Oh, and you know Chloe? I think she’s a ghost too.
Alexia palmed her forehead, cringing at the thought. Deborah would laugh. Amy wouldn’t believe her. Carrie, well, at best Carrie would hear her out without interrupting. The longer she mulled over their reactions, the more shame slithered through her. She was judging their reactions before giving them a chance to react. She was guilty of the exact thing she hoped they wouldn’t do. Shaking her head, Alexia dragged herself out of bed and left the hotel room before she could change her mind.
A frigid December wind blew loose papers down cobblestone alleys on her way to her friends’ apartment. Her finger shook as it found the buzzer, and it wasn’t because of the cold. Before she had time to deliberate further, she jabbed it hard and fast.
Deborah’s voice crackled through the intercom.
“Are you a hot French man?”
Alexia’s blood warmed with rising irritation. “Not since I last checked.”
“Then you better have come bearing gifts.”
There was a loud buzz as the lock disengaged. Alexia entered the lobby, feeling weaker by the second.
The front door of the apartment was cracked open. She pushed it wide to find Carrie, Deborah, and Amy lounging in the living room, resting their feet after what appeared to have been a long day.
Sightseeing must take such a toll.
Alexia caught herself before rolling her eyes. She wasn’t upset with them; she was envious, wishing she too could have been exhausted from strolling around the exotic city with her best friends instead of being terrorized by the evil forces out to get her.
“Hey,” Carrie called as she walked in. “How was your day?”
A million words froze on the tip of her tongue.
How was my day? How was watching one of the most talented dancers in the world leap to their death? How was it being reminded that I can see dead people? Something I’ve tried for so long to bury, and never wanted to revisit. How does it feel to know I’ll never be normal, and that you might not understand? To know that what I’m about to say might ruin our friendship forever?
Before she could turn away, Alexia’s emotions said all the things she couldn’t. Tears fell in an uncontrolled stream as she reached her breaking point of physical and mental exhaustion.
Carrie dropped her magazine and rushed to Alexia’s side. “Hey!”
Attuned to the grim atmosphere, Deborah and Amy glanced up.
“I’m sorry,” Alexia blubbered, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
That was all she could say. She didn’t know how to explain, and there was no stopping the tears that flooded her face like a broken dam.
“It’s okay, here, come sit down.”
Carrie guided her to the emerald sofa, where her friends curled up around her like a comforting blanket.
“Is it something with the show?” Amy asked.
“Something with a boy?” Deborah added, her voice slanting in a way that made her assumption seem like fact instead of guess.
Accepting a tissue from Carrie, Alexia blew her nose. There was no turning back now. If she was going to tell them, it would have to be from the beginning.
“Yes,” she replied to Deborah when she was calm enough to speak. “It has to do with a boy, but not the one you think.”
Alexia discarded the crumpled tissue on the coffee table before reaching for a second. The apartment was quiet for a moment, but everyone respected the silence. Not even Deborah tried to rush her.
“I realize how this is going to sound, but I need you to hear me out for the whole story.”
She couldn’t bring herself to look her friends in the eye, only trusted they were nodding.
“You remember last year…the year I solved the mystery of Xander DuBois’ murder?”
The question was rhetorical; she knew they remembered, and continued without waiting for a reply.
“Well, I didn’t do it alone. I m
ean, in a way I guess you could say that. But I really had help…help from someone unexpected, someone personally tied to the crime.”
Alexia finally raised her head. Curious eyes stared back at her, quietly encouraging her to continue.
“That person was the guy I was seeing.”
“Xander?” Carrie asked.
Alexia nodded. “Xander DuBois.”
“Hold it,” Deborah commanded, raising a palm in the air. “You were solving the murder of someone named Xander DuBois, while you were dating a guy with the exact same name?”
Alexia inhaled deeply. “They were one in the same.”
She held her breath as she took in the reactions around her. Carrie’s lips pursed in sincere contemplation; Amy fell against the backrest as if she was unable to keep herself upright; and Deborah pulled a face that a child would give someone speaking a foreign language.
“I’m not following.”
Developing a reserved confidence, Alexia projected her voice louder.
“I always thought that if ghosts exist, they’d match our conception; brief shadows, noises in the night, an uncomfortable feeling. There one moment, gone the next. But Xander was different. He was real—alive. To this day I have a hard time wrapping my head around it, but I know it happened. I have the scars to prove it. And she’s still behind bars…”
Alexia trailed off as she wandered into the recesses of her mind, forgetting her friends until Deborah cleared her throat.
“So you’re saying that guy you were hanging out with, your mysterious lover, was a ghost?”
Spoken plainly, it sounded ludicrous, but Alexia kept her expression firm.
“I know you may not believe me, and I wouldn’t blame you. If it wouldn’t have happened to me personally, I wouldn’t believe it myself. But it did. When I found out, I was really thrown for a loop. I thought I was losing my mind until I spoke to Garth—”
“Wait,” Deborah interrupted, “Do you mean smelly Garth? That weird kid from our English class?”
“Just because someone isn’t attractive to you, doesn’t mean they smell.”
Black Frost Winter: The Black Seasons Book Two Page 14
