The scream came shortly after dawn.
Lara was sitting on the floor in her bedroom, her eyes raw from scrubbing at her tears. Beyond exhausted, she hadn’t had a clear, tangible thought in hours. Instead, colorless images flashed through her mind incessantly, like an old movie reel.
She saw herself admiring a knife…
Kabran’s fingers dripping with her blood…
Marc’s eyes…
Her mother’s still body…
She saw herself laughing…
Kabran’s lips…
Marc’s tears…
Paige’s stricken expression…
She saw herself handing the knife away…
Kabran’s sneer…
Marc’s artificial smile…
Tim’s flared nostrils…
She saw herself crying…
Lara couldn’t make sense of the images, couldn’t remember when she’d seen any of them. And they did not pause long enough for her to try. She sat helpless as they continued to flash, regardless if her eyes were open or closed.
Then the scream came, and the images suddenly fled as her mind sputtered to life. Her head snapped up.
But almost as soon as it started, the scream was abruptly cut short by a loud thud.
Heavy footsteps pounded over Lara’s head.
“Paige!” Tim shouted from the third floor.
A resounding silence was the only reply.
And then the footsteps resumed, faster now, as Tim ran down the hall and then down the spiral staircase.
“Oh, God! Paige!” he shouted again. But there was still no answer.
Lara was breathing hard as she listened. A sickening dread spooled in her stomach as she remembered Kabran’s words: Just come to me now before you regret it. And I will make you regret it!
She shot to her feet. Her legs were stiff from sitting for so long, but she barely noticed as she ran out of her bedroom. When she reached the stairs, she looked over the railing, down to the first floor.
Paige was lying lifeless at the foot of the stairs, blood dripping from her parted lips. She was still wearing her nightgown and slippers, and her hair was disheveled. Lara remembered that her aunt usually went down to the kitchen early in the mornings to start the coffee machine before getting in the shower. She must have been on her way down when...
When, what?
Had she simply slipped or had she been pushed?
Tim looked up at Lara, his eyes starting to redden. “Call an ambulance,” he yelled.
But she didn’t move.
That face. She couldn’t stop staring at that impossibly still, unnaturally pale, fine-boned face.
Her mother’s face.
“Lara!” Tim shouted again.
Don't let me die, Larissa. I don't want to die.
“Go call 9-1-1! Do you hear me?”
So you don't want to die now, Lara, is that it? Well, you will.
Impossibly still. Unnaturally pale.
She spun away, her hand pressed over her mouth as she doubled over, trying not to heave. She frantically drew in a breath through her nose, but it wasn’t enough air. Not nearly enough.
A soft, dark laugh made her lift her head. Kabran was standing in the hallway, leaning against the wall. Smiling.
Lara stared at him, feeling the heat of her hatred emanating from her eyes. Then she slowly straightened herself, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing her fall apart.
“Come on, Paige,” Tim gasped from the first floor. “That’s it. Stay with me.”
Oh God, her aunt was still alive.
Lara curled her lip at the ghost, giving him a nasty smile, thinking, Take that, you bastard. And then she turned and ran down the stairs without looking back.
“She’s still breathing?” she asked Tim as she headed for the phone, making sure that she’d heard him right.
“Yeah,” he replied. “Yeah, I think so.”
Her hands were shaking terribly as she picked up the cordless phone and dialed. She kept her eyes on Tim and Paige while she talked to the emergency operator, hardly even aware of what she was saying. Her uncle was leaning over Paige, as if he wanted to embrace her, but was afraid to touch her. Afraid of breaking her even more than she was already broken.
Lara knew that feeling.
She didn’t remember hanging up, but she must have because she found herself kneeling next to Tim with no phone in her hand. Her uncle was sobbing, sniffling loudly as he let tears run down his face, unashamed.
And Lara was in awe of him, of the way that he let himself cry. Not even Marc had been this utterly artless and childlike with his tears.
Tentatively, she reached up to put her hand on his back. She’d known how to comfort someone once, but after losing her parents and withstanding the useless and superfluous comforts that her friends had offered, Lara now felt awkward. She was terrified of doing the wrong thing.
But Tim turned to look at her and he took her hand in his, squeezing it as he held on for dear life.
“She’ll be okay,” she whispered to him with sudden conviction. These weren’t just words, damn it. Paige was still alive and Lara was going to make sure that her aunt stayed that way.
Kabran could go to hell.
“I know,” Tim said with a sniffle. He gave her hand another squeeze.
She looked into his eyes and nodded firmly. And in that moment, she felt the same sort of kinship with him as she did with Marc. They were a team. Family. And they would help each other through this.
The ambulance took nearly twenty minutes to arrive. Lara remembered that from the car crash–paramedics in the real world were never as fast as they were on television. And when you were panicked, terrified, screaming for help that refused to defy the laws of physics and just be there already, the wait was a veritable eternity.
She could barely understand the medical jargon that the two paramedics bounced off each other before lifting Paige onto a stretcher and rolling her out into the ambulance. Tim followed them and got into the back, then held his hand out for Lara.
“There’s not enough room,” one of the medics said, shaking his head.
“My car keys are on the coffee table,” Tim told her as the other medic slammed one of the back doors. “Follow us to the hospital.” And then the other door was shut as well.
She and Tim sat together in the emergency room, their hands clasped. Her uncle seemed to need it and his grip was so tight that Lara wasn’t sure that she could have pried her hand away if she wanted to.
And what surprised her was that she didn’t want to. She had the feeling that she was Tim’s lifeline right then and it felt...nice.
There was a soft buzzing sound and her uncle used his free hand to dig into his back pocket for his cell phone that he’d set to vibrate.
“It’s Marc,” he said to her in a husky voice. “He must be wondering why there’s no one home.”
Lara listened to Tim’s half of the conversation as he told to Marc what had happened. “No, no. You don’t need to come down here,” he said. “You should just head home. I’ll call you when we know something.”
After a long pause, Tim handed the phone to Lara. “He wants to talk to you,” he said. His expression was still grim, but there was a smile in his red-rimmed eyes.
“Are you okay?” Marc asked her, his voice sounding strained on the line.
“Yeah,” she answered. “We’re both okay.”
“What happened?”
“I...” she said, trailing off. God, she needed to tell him about Kabran, but couldn’t do it in front of Tim. And she didn’t want to explain over the phone anyways.
But Marc read her hesitation too well. “Lara. Tell me that this was an accident.”
She bit her lip, shaking her head, even though he couldn’t see her. “I can’t.”
“Was it him?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“I’m coming down there.”
“No, don’t. There’s nothing you can do. Paige is going to be fine.”
Marc was quiet for a long moment. “You sound like you believe that,” he finally said. And Lara could hear an odd note in his voice. It almost sounded like he was proud or impressed.
“I do.”
“Good,” he replied. “But I’m still coming down there.”
“You really–”
“Look, I care about Paige. And I care about you too.”
Lara looked down at her lap, trying to hide her smile, though she didn’t know why. “Well, when you put it that way...”
“See you in a few.”
She closed the cell phone and handed it back to Tim. “He’s coming.”
Her uncle nodded. “He really likes you.”
Blushing a little, she shrugged. “I guess. God knows why.”
“Does it matter?”
“It does to me.” She reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear. “I haven’t exactly been a picnic.” To put it lightly. And the truth was that she couldn’t imagine what Marc was getting out of their...friendship? Relationship?
Christ, she didn’t even know where they stood on that issue. She knew that she liked him and admired him. He was a better person than she could ever be. But as twisted as it sounded, she almost thought less of him because he refused to give up on her. Anyone else would have cut their losses by now.
For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out why he would want to stick by her. He thought she was pretty, sure. But there were countless girls out there who were much prettier and far less crazy than she was. Even at the party he’d brought her to, there had been several girls staring at him longingly—ones who hadn’t killed their parents, who hadn’t nearly killed themselves, and who weren’t being terrorized by the ghost of their sadistic, former lover. And yet Marc wasn’t interested in any of them. He kept coming back to Lara. Maybe he had some masochistic issues of his own.
“I’m sure he just sees something in you that you don’t see,” Tim said, rousing her from her thoughts.
Lara snorted. “Yeah? Like what? I’m crazy and I killed my parents.”
“You did not.”
“Sure.”
He made a tsk-tsk sound through his teeth. “Okay, I’m going to tell you a story. When I first met Paige, I was a real loser. I had dropped out of high school and was working landscape. I think it was my fourth job in less than a year...I just couldn’t hold one for very long.”
Intrigued, Lara turned in the chair, leaning her back on the arm so that she faced her uncle directly. It suddenly occurred to her that she’d never really talked to Tim before. He’d always seemed like a big goof who made bad jokes, but she saw now that there was more to him. A lot more.
“I was always late for work,” he continued, “or I just didn’t show up at all because I didn’t care. I was drinking a lot, betting, still living with my parents because I never had any money.
“Anyways, we had a job out at this new office building one day and as I was standing there, helping this other guy lay down fertilizer, this girl walks past us on her way into the building. She was beautiful, wearing a light-colored dress and her hair was all pinned up. And as she walks by, she looks right at me and smiles.”
He laughed. “My jaw dropped. I mean, imagine it: there I am, sweating and disgusting, smelling like manure, and this gorgeous girl who was totally out of my league smiles at me. The entire day, she was all I could think about. She didn’t come out of the building before we were done for the day, so I figured that she worked there. So the next day, I actually showed up for work on time, just to make sure that I didn’t miss it when the girl walked into the building again. She smiled at me that day too. And the next day. And the one after that.
“I was too scared to do anything but smile back at her. She was like...untouchable. But I guess by the end of the week, she’d gotten tired of waiting for me to make a move, so she came right up to me and asked me out.
“For the first six months, I had no idea what Paige was doing with a jerk like me, but I wasn’t about to complain. She was always encouraging me to get my act together, and I finally started to listen to her advice.”
“So you changed for her?” Lara asked.
“Yeah, at first. But then I realized that it was easier to actually do my work than to keep having to find a new job. And it was nice having my boss tell me that I was doing a good job. I started saving my money instead of drinking it or betting it all away, and after a while I saved enough to get my own place.” He chuckled. “That was a heck of a lot better than living with my parents. And I actually got paid more after I’d finished my GED. So, yeah, I started to change for Paige, but I kept on doing it for me.”
Lara bit her lip. “But...she wanted you to be someone else. Didn’t that bother you?” She was afraid that he might be offended by the question, but she needed to ask it. “I mean you always hear that you shouldn’t try to change someone. You should like them for themself.”
“Right. But the thing is that she did like me for me. I mean, not when she was smiling at me those first few days. She did that and she asked me out because she thought I was hot.” He patted his stomach and laughed shortly. “I was in better shape back then. But anyways, she didn’t stay with me because she wanted me to be someone else. She told me once that she could sorta see the ‘me’ that I was supposed to be trying to get out. It was just hiding because I was scared shitless of being a good guy.” He paused, wincing at his curse. “Sorry. But do you get it?”
She nodded, remembering again what Marc had said to her at the fair: I think that you’re better than this. Or you could be, if you tried. Those words had given her the strength to stand up to Kabran last night.
“I think so,” she murmured.
A short, gray-haired man wearing blue scrubs came into the room then. Lara could glean nothing from his closed expression. “Are you Mr. Hartwick?” he asked Tim.
Her uncle stood up. “Yes.”
“I’m Dr. Matthewson,” the man said. “Your wife is in the ICU right now. Her spleen ruptured from the fall, but we were able to stop the bleeding. She also broke her right arm and has a concussion.”
Lara swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “Is she–”
The doctor nodded. “I expect her to make a full recovery, but it will take some time.”
“Oh, thank God,” Tim exclaimed. He wiped his face with his hands. “Thank God.”
Dr. Matthewson went on to explain the care that Paige would need, but Lara was distracted by the blond-haired boy she saw over his shoulder, standing in the hallway. “Excuse me,” she said, walking around the doctor and out of the waiting room.
Hurrying towards Marc, she felt somewhat shy. So much had happened since last night that it seemed like she hadn’t seen him in weeks. She found herself memorizing his face, his beautiful green eyes as she closed the distance between them and threw her arms around his neck.
His strong arms came around her waist, holding her close against him. “How is she?” he asked.
“She’ll be okay,” Lara whispered to him. “I told you that she would be.”
He exhaled sharply, his warm breath tickling her neck. “I know you did.”
After a moment, he pulled back slightly. “Listen, can we go somewhere to talk?”
About Kabran. The words were left unspoken, but she still heard them.
She turned back towards the waiting room where Tim was still listening intently to the doctor. When she finally caught his eye, she gave him a pleading look and he nodded in understanding.
Then she turned back to Marc. “Come on, let’s go outside.”
They walked around the hospital grounds until they found a small, grassy clearing lined with wooden benches that was across the street from the pediatric wing. The staff probably ate out there on nice days, but the mid-morning air was already thick and sticky with humidity. No sane person could resist the hospital’s air conditioning on a day like this.
Neither of them sat. Lara just stood, crossing and uncrossing her arms nervously. How could she possibly explain last night to him?
Marc stood still and unruffled as he looked at her steadily. “Tell me what happened,” he said.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “When I got home last night, he was waiting for me. He said that he’d been watching me, and I think he was pissed off about you.”
“Why?”
Lara shrugged one shoulder. “He was jealous. I told him to give me a reason why I should choose him over you, and he started...talking to me.”
“What do you mean, talking?”
She was at a loss. “It’s hard for me to explain. His voice...did something to me. It was like I was in a trance. It happened once before, the night that he first hit me.” Lara looked away from him, ashamed of what she had to tell him next. Her words came in a rush, as she tried to get it over with. “He told me that I needed him, that I wanted to be with him. He handed me a knife, told me to use it. I was about to do it–I was still totally out of it–but then I remembered you, and my head cleared and–”
“Me?” he interrupted her.
Lara finally looked back at him, afraid that she would see disappointment marring his face. He’d thought that he’d gotten through to her last night at the fair, but she wouldn’t have even considered suicide if he had. She knew that she had really let him down. Again.
But he didn’t seem disappointed at all. The corner of his lip was turned up in a smile that looked almost playfully smug.
She couldn’t help smiling back, but it slipped away too fast. “I remembered you asking me if I wanted to live,” she said, “and I realized that I wanted to. And then it felt like I was waking up from a bad dream. I gave the knife back to Kabran and said that I didn’t want to die. And he snapped.”
“What exactly did he do?.
“He, uh, told me that I always chose him. This apparently isn’t my first life after...my first life. Maybe that wasn’t my first either. I have no idea. But I guess he’s haunted me before and has gotten me to, uh, kill myself for him all those other times. But I shouted at him that I wouldn’t do it this time. Then he hit me and said that he would make me regret it. That I would want to die by the time he was done with me.”
“So you think he attacked Paige to punish you?” he asked icily.
She nodded. “I know he did. He actually thought that he’d killed her..”
Marc began to pace with anger that he was struggling to contain. He might be afraid of his own rage, but just then, Lara thought that it was breathtaking. His eyes were clear and smoldering; he looked like an avenging angel. “So how do we get rid of him?”
“You don’t, Adonis,” Kabran said as he suddenly appeared between Marc and Lara. “I get rid of you.”
Marc went rigid. He’d seen Kabran once, that morning in the hallway, but that had only been a brief glimpse. Now the ghost was sublimely vivid and undoubtably menacing.
“No!” Lara shouted at Kabran.
And then he moved towards her, his gaze heated as it trailed up and down her body. “What’s the matter, angel?” he purred. “Can’t you live without him? I know that I couldn’t live without you. I wonder if your uncle can live without his wife.”
“Paige is alive, you bastard,” she spat.
Kabran smiled slowly. “For now.”
Her stomach turned and she tasted bile in the back of her throat. “I hate you,” she hissed at him. And God, she truly did. Her entire body burned with it.
“Oh, I know,” the ghost replied softly, but Lara could feel the savage intensity hovering just under the softness. It shook her. His dark eyes were locked on hers, drawing her in. “You love me, you hate me. This is how it is with us, angel. You know that. And no matter what you may feel about me at any given moment, one simple fact remains: you need me.”
“She lived sixteen years without you,” Marc said. His words broke the escalating tension between her and Kabran, and she was grateful for it.
But the ghost did not spare him a glance. He just started to circle Lara, like a predator stalking his prey. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” he said to Marc.
"What do you want?" the blond boy demanded with quiet heat.
"I want her," Kabran replied, "just as you do."
"No," Marc countered. He moved to stand in front of Lara protectively. "I don't want her the way you do."
The ghost laughed contemptuously. "He is noble, angel, I'll give you that.” Then he turned his fierce gaze on Marc. “But you're right, Adonis. I want her for who she is. You want her to be someone else."
"That's not true."
"Isn't it?" Kabran asked with a smile. "You think you know her? Have you had her in your arms, begging you to hit her?"
"Have you ever held her, stroking her hair while she cries?" Marc retorted and Lara saw fury flash in Kabran's eyes. "You're the one who doesn't know her; you had your chance with her and she chose death over you. So just let her go.”
Kabran actually stepped back and looked away. "I can't do that any more than you can," he replied coldly. But Lara could feel it, the wrath inside him starting to ignite. He charged so quickly that she barely saw him move until he was upon Marc, swinging a low punch to his gut.
"No!" she started to scream from behind Marc, but the words never made it past her lips. Kabran's fist flowed through the blond boy’s body like water and hit Lara with enough force to make her fall to her knees on the ground, the air knocked out of her.
"Lara!" Marc gasped, crouching down by her side.
But she couldn't take her eyes off Kabran. He had stood back and his expression was puzzling and yet so familiar. As she coughed painfully, she struggled to remember when she had seen that look on his face before.
“Be careful, angel,” he warned in a muted voice. “He isn't the only one you have to lose.” Then he was gone.
Lara coughed again, sucking in a hitched breath.
“Are you okay?” Marc asked, pulling her up.
“Yeah,” she said hoarsely.
“What the hell just happened? His fist went right through me. Why didn’t it go through you?”
“I don’t know,” Lara whispered. She pressed her hand against her stomach. She’d have another bruise there soon–a bad one–and it didn’t seem beautiful or alluring any more.
Lifting her head, she saw her uncle walking towards them on the sidewalk just outside of the hospital. “Come on,” she said to Marc. “There’s Tim. We should get back.”
“But we need to figure out what to do,” Marc insisted.
“We will, but I don’t think Tim should be alone right now. We’ve only been gone a few minutes and he’s already looking for us.”
“Yeah, all right.”
Lara’s uncle was still heading in their direction, stepping off the sidewalk, when she saw Kabran again, standing on her side of the street. And he was flickering. It was surreal, seeing his dark figure rapidly appearing and then disappearing in the bright sunlight outside of the hospital.
Tim saw the ghost too. He had stopped short, frozen in place in the middle of the road, the blood draining from his face as he stared, his eyes wide with fear.
And belatedly, she saw the car.
Time seemed to slow, then. She screamed her uncle’s name, and Marc started to run towards him as the driver of the car braked. The tires squealed and, startled, Tim finally turned his head away from Kabran to see the blue sedan bearing down on him.
But it was too late.
The car slammed into him, throwing him onto the hood before he slid off and fell back to the street on his side.
Part 10
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