Secret Worlds (409 page)

Backing toward the window so she can keep an eye on me, she bumps the wall. The curtains are open and the girl peers out, down to the street.

“You won’t be able to get out that way either,” I tell her.

The girl slides to the floor and wraps her arms around her knees, eyes on me the whole time. “Did you bring me here? What do you want?”

She doesn’t know. Fuck, why is this so hard? “What’s your name?” I ask.

“Kat.”

“Kat? Okay. What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I don’t know, my mind is blank. Shit, tell me this is a dream.” She stares at her hands, and then turns her wrists over. “Did you do this?” She holds up her arms and deep bruises circle her wrists.

“No. The first time I saw you was when you came into the room.”

Kat shakes her head as if trying to dislodge a thought. “Party.” She snaps her head up. “I was at a party. Did you spike my drink? Have you..?”

When she pales and checks her clothes, my stomach turns over. “I haven’t touched you!”

“Then what the fuck is going on?” she shouts.

I don’t have time for this shit. “Kat. You’re dead. A Shade - ghost. You’ve passed through from where you were stuck and back to the world because there’s something you have to do before your soul can be at peace.”

The huge-eyed response from Kat is accompanied by her laughing. When I don’t laugh, she stops abruptly. “Right, sure...”

“You have no memory of the Void?”

“The what?”

Obviously not.

“Do you want to get out of this room?” I ask

She tips her head. “Is that the stupid fucking question of the century?”

“Where did you live?”

“Where do I live? Manchester.”

“At least we’re in the right city then,” I say. “When you remember what happened to you, then you’ll know why you’re stuck, I imagine.”

“So, can I get out of this place?”

Beneath the tough-girl make-up and piercings, she’s lost. She needs someone to help her understand what’s happening; however, I need to get to Rose. When I come back, she’ll be trapped in the house. I’ll talk to her then.

“Listen, Kat. This is going to sound really weird, but you can get energy from me to leave this room.”

“Oh, no. No. Don’t touch me...” She pulls herself up and backs into a corner.

“Shit!” I drag my hands into my hair. “Wait there.”

I slip out of the room before she gets a chance to see what I’m doing. I need a mirror. I don’t have one, and the one in the bathroom is bolted to the wall. I jump two steps at a time to Rose’s room. Ignoring the pang of fear and loneliness I get from searching her things, I find a mirror propped on top of the drawers with her hairbrush beside it. Grabbing the mirror, I head back to Kat.

I step inside and she stumbles back, rubbing her knuckles. “Nobody can hear you,” I tell her, and immediately wish I hadn’t because every word I say makes me sound more and more like a creepy guy who abducts women. “Look”

When I thrust the mirror at her, she looks at me as if I’m insane. The small mirror wouldn’t make an effective weapon, and I can tell this is what she’s weighing up.

“Look in the mirror.”

Kat’s eyes widen as she gazes at the mirror, and then she turns it over before looking back to me. “What the fuck is going on here?”

“You’re fucking dead!” I yell. The visit to Rose’s room has upped my fear over what’s going to happen to her, and this stupid girl, who doesn’t know she’s dead, is pissing me off.

“I’m not!” she yells back “You’re a psycho!”

“I need to find someone, to get over to where you came from.” I inhale, aware of how the next words are going to sound. “Kat, when you look at me, do you feel anything?”

“Like punching you?”

“That would be a start. Maybe if you touched me.” She inhales loudly. “Not like that! Shit! I have the energy inside me to make you able to stay here and do whatever you need to be at peace. Take it from me.”

All this time, I’ve kept my distance when I could’ve just attacked her in the hope she retaliates. But she’s a small, frightened girl, for fuck’s sake. Like Rose.

Rose.

Fuck it. I grab Kat’s hand. She screams at me and drags herself backwards, pulling her arm taught. I grip on and she digs her long nails into my hands. I wince but can’t let go.

“This won’t hurt you, it’ll hurt me.”
Again with the creepy dude words
. I slam her palm onto my chest and ready myself. “Don’t stop until I disappear,” I say through gritted teeth.

Holding onto her hand is hard when the pain grips my chest. The tearing feeling of the life ripped from within engulfs me, and I lose sight of where I am. I’m shocked by he suddenness of the room morphing to black and white, and by the strength of the Shade. The anguish of losing Rose, the fear of what’s to come are wiped away by the overwhelming sadness and defeat as my body loses the energy I need to stay alive. The Shade’s desire to become whole overrides Kat’s fear and confusion because as the black and white world greets me, and my grip on her hand loosens, she doesn’t let me go.

ROSE

If I knew which door led to the Void, I’d open it and leave. There’s nothing here for me; the longer I stay with the white walls closing in and the fluorescent light hurting my eyes, the more terror sets in from not knowing what this alternative I’m trapped in is. The Void contains other people... things. They can’t all be bad, right? But here…I’ve counted twenty identical doors, twenty identical rooms and there’s more. They stretch on for eternity - my eternity? I’ve listened. I’ve walked. I’ve touched.

But I’ve refused to cry.

There’s nothing else for me to do but hope the nurse-like guy comes back for me. I open a door and step inside the small room, sit on the black seat and cross my arms and legs defensively. Someone will come.

I’m not sure how long I sit in silence with my eyes closed, again willing myself to wake up from the coma I’m sure is responsible for the nightmare. I trace over my life, from childhood to the day of the accident, and push away thoughts of Alek, Finn, and strange houses. They don’t exist. I’m dreaming. I repeat the mantra over and over.

Metal against metal sounds as the door handle is pushed down. A mix of relief and trepidation over who will walk in accompanies my gaze to the opening door.

Alek hesitates outside.

I jump to my feet, and rush to the door, terrified it might close again and he’ll disappear. His dark-circled eyes are dull and skin pallid and he straightens his slumped stance when he sees me, mouth parting in surprise. Is he another figment of my nightmare or a horrible indication I’m not dreaming at all?

“Alek?”

He doesn’t speak, just shakes his head numbly, and wrap my arms around his waist. He’s real. The arms encircling me and crushing me to his chest are real. The heart beating beneath my cheek is the person who came here for me, who told me he loved me in his strange way. Only this time, I’m not overwhelmed with the energy which usually flows between us. I’m aware of the softness of his lips on my forehead and the comfort of his embrace.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he says hoarsely into my hair.

I withdraw from his grip and trace my fingers across his face. “It’s you? I don’t... feel you.”

Alek strokes my cheek with the back of his warm hand. “We haven’t got any energy, we’re... I don’t know, something else.”

“Shades?”

“No. I’m not sure but I don’t know where this place is. I thought I was going to the Void but I found myself here.”

“How did you get here?”

Alek takes my face, and rubs his thumbs along my cheeks as he holds me gently, eyes searching mine. “You’re right, about the energy, though. I’m not overwhelmingly drawn to pinning you against the wall and...”

I tug my brows together. “Not appropriate in our current situation, Alek. And I’m not stupid, I know you’re changing the subject.

“It’s a good thing,” he whispers. “It proves you’re more than the physical addiction.”

“I think you coming here to find me proves that,” I say.

Something else surges inside, not relief but genuine affection for Alek. Whatever it took for him to come here, he did because of me. Not affection. More. I wind my hands around his neck, stroking the nape with my fingertips, and place my mouth gently on his. The situation around us is crazy and unreal, but we’re here together, and this kiss is different. There’s no searing lights, burst of energy, or desperate need to consume, just a gentle connection as if we’re kissing for the first time. The awareness of how soft his fingertips are on my skin and the surge of butterflies as his mouth moves against mine is the opposite to the hungry desire we normally share. This kiss is with a man whose life I want to be part of, who’s prepared to give himself part of me he never wanted to.

Does Alek feel this, too? He slides his lips from mine and nudges my cheek, sighing quietly. “I hope I’m doing the right thing.”

“What do you mean?” I peel his arms from around me and rest against the wall, studying him for clues. “Are we trapped? Will we be here forever now?”

“I’m getting us out,” he says, but he’s not happy.

“How?”

“Do you know who sent you here?” he asks.

“I presume Finn; I felt him take the energy.”

He hesitates. “Yeah. And when we go back, he might do it again.”

“Then why try? We can stay here?”

“Really, Rose?” he gestures around us. “Here? The Void? Hell?”

“Hell?”

“Finn got rid of you because you’re his mistake and that’s where we belong. But we’re being given a chance to go back and keep fighting.”

All I can hear in my mind is the word Hell. “So I am a demon?” I whisper.

“No. We’re not demons! We’re Between!”

“Are we? Isn’t that just a species of demon? Don’t we want exactly what they do?” I slide to the floor and wrap my arms around my head. Hell.

Alek crouches in front of me. “We’re not demons.”

“We are! What are demons, Alek? Things that want to escape an eternity in Hell - their only option, if they can’t go wherever Reapers take them. Over - what is that? Heaven? Is that where Reapers come from?” I run my hands over my hair; I never believed in Heaven or Hell before. “Whatever, we want to escape an eternity trapped and can never be good enough to pass Over. So yes, Alek, we’re demons.”

Alek stands. “I don’t think your soul is as damaged as mine.”

“Do you know something I don’t?” I ask him.

Footsteps echo along the hallway; I can’t tell which direction they’re coming from. A short, balding man dressed in a brown suit scrutinises Alek.

“Are you Alek?”

“Yeah.”

“Perfect. My name is Eric. Come on.” He appraises me. “Are you bringing her?”

Something in the way Alek refuses to meet my eyes, in the strange aura surrounding this man, sets me on high alert.
Man
. He’s probably not even that. “Bringing me where?”

“Home,” says Alek.

“It’s that simple?” I say doubtfully.

“For you,” smiles Eric, showing yellowing teeth.

“And Alek?” He’s staring at the floor. “Alek?”

“We have to take someone with us,” he mumbles.

The man claps his hands together. “Chop, chop! Come on!”

Something is very wrong here. Alek comes for me then someone comes for both of us. I know Alek well enough to sense his wariness. “No.” I turn away from them.

Alek walks around and dips his head to look at me. “You have to come with me. Please. I’m doing this to help you.”

“Doing what, exactly?”

“There’s someone who needs a lift to the living, and I agreed to do it.”

“Someone? Who?” Alek shifts his look back to the tiled floor. “Who, Alek?”

“It doesn’t matter. All that matters is you get out of here.”

I step back. I don’t know what’s happening but I’m certain whatever it is, I don’t want to be involved. “Yes, it does! A demon?”

“Rose, it doesn’t matter; it won’t affect us!” pleads Alek, glancing between me and Eric.

I shake my head. “No, Alek. Leave me here.”

“And get stuck in the Void?”

“I don’t care!”

“You will!”

He attempts to take my arm and I shove him. “Finn made me, then took away the power he gave me, and that sent me here; is that right?” Alek nods. “So to go back to the world, a Dark needs to give me the power the same way Finn did last time, is that also right?”

“Yes,” he says, voice barely audible.

“Then no! I won’t allow myself to become a demon.”

Eric chuckles. “Oh, dear, this is awkward.”

“You won’t be! You’ll still be Between!” protests Alek. “Please, Rose.”

“Created by Dark - Finn told me the difference! They’ll own me, like they own you. No!”

“Tell her what’ll happen,” says Alek, gesturing at me. “Tell her she’ll go to Hell if I don’t bring her back!”

“No, she’ll stay in the Void,” says Eric.

“No. Hell. Julian said if I didn’t come here, she’ll go to Hell.” Alek’s eyes open in realisation. “Fuck! You bastards! You weren’t going to?”

“No, she’s more useful to us here.”

Alek launches himself at Eric, who sidesteps him with more skill than I’d expect. “Now, now, Alek. This was always inevitable. You just needed a little encouragement.”

“No!” Alek seizes the smaller man around the throat with both hands and slams him against the wall.

Eric’s face transforms into something more sinister; eyes blackening until they appear to sink into deep holes in his face, a face morphing into anger. “Bad idea,” he chokes.

A split-second later, Alek is flung across the corridor by an invisible force, head smacking on the wall between the doors opposite. Eric stands, hand outstretched in Alek’s direction, as if holding him there. I back up, heart thumping in my ears, waiting for the same treatment.

“She can choose whether to go with you, Alek, or stay here in the Void. We can’t send either of you to Hell right now, you idiot, not unless your souls are completely broken.” He steps closer and Alek winces, putting his hand to his head. “We can break your soul if you don’t do what you’re told; we own part of you. We don’t own her. Yet.”

The horror of what I’m witnessing cements my decision.
How could he think I want involvement with these people?
“Don’t you see, Alek? If they give me the power to go back, they’ll own me, like they own you!”