Ashes to Ashes (Experiment in Terror #8) (25 page)

She continued, “And I’d said
that he wasn’t my type, that we were just flirting together but it
didn’t mean anything, because, hello, lesbian here.”

I couldn’t even breathe.

“
Well, that
was all true. But…” She looked away, eyes drifting to the ceiling
as if there was something interesting there. “One night, around the
time that all of this was happening, maybe the first week of
filming the show…erm….stuff kind of happened.”

This was not happening. I was
not here. It was not the middle of the night in a haunted
sanatorium and I wasn’t in the bathroom with one of my best friends
hearing her say what I feared she was going to say.

“
What kind of
stuff?” I asked, my breath hitching.

She looked back at me,
chagrined. “Well, at least that time I didn’t get pregnant from
it.”

My hand flew to my mouth and I
gasped. “What the actual fuck?”

“
Sorry,” she
said, swallowing hard. “We never told you because we’d pretty much
forgotten about it.”

“
You slept
with Dex!” I yelled, my voice surprising me.

She winced. “Ugh, yes, please
don’t be mad. It’s really not what you think at all.”

“
How do you
know what I think?” I cried out, my fists clenching at my sides.
“I’m thinking about hitting you right in your face, did you know
that?”

She looked uneasy. “I figured.
But seriously, Perry, it was nothing. It was my fault. I got really
drunk and Dex was there and I knew he was into me and it just
happened.” I gasped again, I couldn’t help it. Now I felt like I
was going to be sick. “It meant nothing, which is why we never
spoke of it again. It was just…a bad time all around, even though
I’m sure Dex thought he was brilliant.”

I pressed the palm of my hand
to my forehead and closed my eyes, trying to stave off the coming
headache. “Oh god, please shut up.”

“
No, you have
to know,” she said, getting off the toilet seat. “You have to know
that it was something we put past us as a stupid silly thing. I
like pussy, not dick. And Dex, well I knew he could
tell.”

“
Oh god,” I
mumbled. “Why are you still talking?”

“
We were
better off as friends, both of us knew that. A few days later he
started shagging Jenn. This was so long ago.”

Finally I snapped my head up
and looked at her. “Will you please just shut up? Why the hell are
you telling me this now if it didn’t mean anything? Look, I get
that the past is the past and I have no control over it but…Jesus
Christ, Rebecca, you’ve made everything really fucking weird for us
now.”

“
I know!” she
exclaimed in a shaky voice. “I know I have, but that’s why it was
weighing on me. Because you didn’t know. And it probably should
have stayed buried but I just thought…”

“
You just
thought what?” I asked, folding my arms. “That because you’re
having a shitty time now that you’re pregnant, you thought I should
have a shitty time too? And Dex? Because believe me, if you think
I’m not going to have it out with him over this, you have another
thing coming!”

“
Perry, please
listen to me.”

“
I did listen
to you. I’ve had enough.”

“
I just
thought you guys should…have no secrets at this point in your
relationship.”

“
No secrets?”
I repeated. “That’s really none of your business, you know. And
this point…what point is that, exactly? All this does is prove how
little I actually know Dex. You think I didn’t have enough to think
about trying to ignore what Uncle Al said to me, that we’ve only
known each other for eight fucking months?”

“
That wasn’t
my intention,” she said, angrily brushing her hair behind her ears.
“It was the opposite. You guys are in this for the long haul, I
know this. You know it too.”

I groaned and turned away from
her. I couldn’t deal with this anymore. Dex and Rebecca had slept
together. Suddenly every single time he acted like he was hitting
on her or hinting at a threesome seemed less like an endearing joke
and more like something he had prior knowledge of. Fuck, I hated
this. Hated it. It changed the way I saw the both of them forever.
I couldn’t believe that all this time they never said anything to
me about it.

“
Perry,” she
said again, her voice cracking a little.

I walked over to the door and
glanced at her over my shoulder. “I’m sorry that you’re pregnant
and everything,” I told her. “But I just need some time to process
this.”

What I really wanted was time
to think. And considering it was the middle of the night, I had it.
But the last thing I wanted was to go back to bed beside Dex—I just
couldn’t do it. On the other hand, I didn’t exactly feel like going
for a stroll on the first floor. With my luck I’d see Shawna again
and this time she wouldn’t be as coy.

“
I’m going to
spend the night in the teachers’ lounge,” I informed her.
“Okay?”

She sniffed, looking absolutely
forlorn, but nodded. “Okay.”

I started walking away but she
called out to me. “If you’re staying up, do you mind rolling the
camera? You know, just in case? It’s our last show and all,
and…”

I sighed. It was a good thing
that Rebecca was a lesbian because the two of them were way too
alike.

I headed down the hall, my pace
quick, my eyes downcast, not wanting to see any shadow people in
the walls, and went back into our room to grab a blanket and the
camcorder.

“
What the hell
is going on out there?” asked a groggy-voiced Dex from his bed.
“Are you having a pillow fight or a cat fight?”

With blood boiling in my veins,
I switched on the small light by his bed and turned to face him. “A
pillow fight? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I sneered.

He raised his brow, eyes all
squinty. “This is a trick question, I can tell, and as such, I
won’t answer it.”

I glared at him. “Rebecca is
pregnant.”

His mouth dropped open.
“What?”

“
Oh don’t
worry, it’s not your baby. I’m sure you used a condom when you
fucked her all those years ago.”

Oh yes, there it was. The look
of utter doom on Dex’s face. His wide eyes stared at me like he was
caught in headlights and I could almost see his brain trying to
make sense of what I just said, trying to figure out how to play it
off.

For once, he was actually
speechless.

Finally he licked his lips and
said with a tilt of his head, “Perry…”

I rolled my eyes and moved over
to my bed to get the blanket. “I’m sleeping in the teachers’
lounge.”

“
Perry,” he
said more sharply this time and reached out to grab me by the
elbow. “Seriously, don’t go. Stay here. We’ll talk. I’ll tell you
everything.”

I wrestled out of his grasp. “I
already know everything. Rebecca told me—she told me more than I
wanted to know.”

“
Well why the
fuck is she telling you this shit?”

“
I don’t know,
cuz she’s gone hormonal and crazy?”

“
Oh god, come
on, baby,” he said, swinging his legs off the bed. “I understand
you’re mad, but it’s in the past.”

“
Well what the
fuck else is in your past, huh?” I asked angrily as I picked up the
blanket. “Anything else you’re hiding, any other affairs I should
know about? Any secrets you’ve been harboring?”

He seemed to flinch at that
before running his hands down his face in exasperation. “Baby, I
don’t even think about it,” Dex said. “Seriously. Never. Just like
I never think about any of the other women I slept with. Do you
think about the other men you’ve slept with?” His voice became
harder there at the end.

“
All two of
them? No, Dex, I don’t.”

His nostrils flared for a
moment before he exhaled noisily. “Let’s not fight here. We can
fight back in Seattle, but not here, not in this place. This place
is already fucking with us and it’s our last show.”

“
I’ll fight
with you wherever the hell I feel like fighting with you.” My
stomach twisted like a hot knife was inside it but I kept to my
guns.

“
This is
dangerous,” he warned. ”Please, stay here with me. Or I’ll go in
the lounge and you can stay here.”

“
With Rebecca?
No thanks. I don’t feel like seeing either of you right
now.”

I tried to walk away but he
suddenly stepped in front of me, all hard lines and steely eyes.
“You’re not going anywhere.”

“
Get out of my
way, Dex,” I told him, looking up at his face and matching him
glare for glare.

“
Sorry,” we
heard Rebecca say and Dex turned around to see her standing in the
nurse’s office, her face in shadows. “I didn’t mean to cause a
fight.” She looked to Dex. “I just thought you’d want her to
know.”

I took that opportunity to
squeeze past Dex and head out to the hallway.

“
Perry,” Dex
called after me in frustration, but I was quick on my feet. I
ignored Rebecca as I walked past her and headed straight for the
lounge. I could hear him yelling at Rebecca now. “What the fuck did
you do that for? What’s your problem?”

Rebecca yelled back at him,
something about “having a clean slate going forward” and then I
didn’t want to hear anymore. I went into the lounge, flicked on the
lights, and immediately closed the door after me. I leaned against
it and breathed in deeply through my nose. Okay, I was going to be
okay. Eventually this sick feeling would pass and I would get over
it. I only wished I was one of those people who didn’t let
everything bother them, who didn’t feel everything. My mind knew
that what happened between Dex and Rebecca was in the past, that it
really didn’t mean anything to a lesbian and a man-whore. But
still. It was going to take some time to get the images of them
having sex out of my head, let alone the fact that they had both
kept it from me.

Now, of course, I could see why
they did. This was going to be an awkward shoot for the next day.
As if we didn’t have enough to deal with already in this hellish
place. A part of me wished I was a little less stubborn, so I
wouldn’t be holed up in the lounge by myself to make a point.

I sighed and stepped away from
the door. I laid the blanket out on the couch and pushed the couch
further down the wall so one arm was against the side of the
kitchen counter. If I were to get any sleep, it had to be so that
there was no space behind me so I could clearly see the door. I sat
on the couch and looked around, feeling vaguely protected. I stuck
the camera up on the counter above my head and then got up and
pulled the two beers out of the fridge that I knew Dex had stuck in
there earlier. Beer was my only way out of this night.

I went back to the couch,
pulled the blanket up over me, and drank, staring intently at the
door as if I were expecting it to open, and listened to the muffled
sounds of Dex and Rebecca as they were fighting. As much as I
didn’t want to see them at war, their blurred obscenities were
soothing, reminding me that I wasn’t alone.

I drank until their voices
faded.

Then I close my eyes and
slept.

And I dreamed.

***

Everything was cold. The air
whooshed past me, whistling quietly in my ears, and even before I
opened my eyes, I knew I was someplace else.

I opened them cautiously,
preparing for what I might see. In front of me were white swirls
rising up from the ground, waltzing a ghostly dance in the night
sky. It was snowing lightly, the air filled with that muffled,
peaceful sound that comes with snowfall, and I was standing in the
middle of an empty bridge. Only it wasn’t just any bridge. It was
the Brooklyn Bridge, and beyond the trails of snow, I could make
out the lights and the glowing skyline of Manhattan.

“
New York
City,” a voice said from behind me.

I whirled around, my hair
swinging around me as if in slow motion, and I saw Pippa sitting on
a chair a few yards away. Just sitting there in the middle of the
bridge’s walkway, the cables framing her on either side, making
criss-cross shadows appear on her face.

Her face. My god, she looked
even worse than the last time I saw her. She was hunched over in
her coat, her hands in her lap looking as breakable as twigs, her
legs nothing but bone under her long skirt.

“
Pippa?” I
said gently.

No need to
speak,
she said weakly.
I must save my energy.

Why are we in
New York?
I asked, hugging myself against
the cold. It was amazing that even though I knew I was in one of my
dreams, I was feeling everything like it was real. The damp smell
of snow, the cutting chill of the wind.

It all
started here
, she said.
Everything. For both of
you.

Me and
Dex?
I asked.

And me.

Pippa had moved to New York
after she left Sweden and became a nanny to Dex and his older
brother Michael, but I wasn’t sure how I came into it.

She gave me a sly look
with her tired, hooded eyes.
You come into it because that’s where I saw you, Perry.
When I first used the Veil to look into your life. It’s where Dex
and Michael were born, brought into this world. Where both Dex and
I were put away. It’s the beginning of so many horrors. And I
believe it will be the end.