The Misadventures of Daria Pigwidgeon (40 page)

His body jerks and spasms as one scream after other seeps from his gaping lips. The flesh under my hands softens and becomes so warm and wet. Then it starts to get hot, too hot. And it spreads, but not to me. I watch as the skin on Toby’s arms blisters and melts. It travels upward and outward over his entire body. He lets loose a high pitched squealing sound as he thrashes to free himself. But I hold tight. And I squeeze tighter. Soon there is smoke rising off of him. Then there are flames.

His cries become crazed as the flames cover him entirely.

At this point I release him.

When I do, he simply crashes to the floor. The flames continue to eat him alive. I’m not sure when he stops moving or making a sound, but I do notice when the flames jump from him to the room around me. That’s when I get moving. Or what resembles the act. Doing what I just did, just about took any ounce of strength I might have had, and now I have nothing. Dragging myself to the door, I press my back into it to get it open. The flames are nearing my feet as the door only eases open.

I fall backwards as my body slips through the crack of the door. Freezing cold air passes over me, clearing my lungs of the smoke I didn’t realize that surrounded me. Heat pushes at me and a burning touches my feet. Thrashing my legs, I scramble backwards. Slipping over the threshold and into the snow, I continue to drag myself away from the flames. The next few moments goes on of me simply staying conscious as I move. At some point I realize that I’m no longer moving, but lying immobile.

My eyes open briefly to find that I made it clear across the parking lot. Somehow I’ve even hoisted myself onto the curb. I don’t remember doing that. In front of me is the enflamed building of my prior place of employment. Inside is the boy that befriended me, the demon that tried to kill me, and the person that I murdered. I should probably feel something about that, I should feel anything at all, but I’ve gone numb.

No.

I’ve gone cold.

Ice slips into my veins and has replaced the spot blood once lived. There is no pain, no fear, no longing to survive. I’m oddly at peace in the cold. The end has finally reached me. A laugh wants to spill out, given that I really did make it to the snow to bleed to death, but my eyes are closing and I’m so tired now. Vaguely, I think the knife might still be inside me. Did I or Toby take it out? Does it matter?

The sky is too bright around me and all I want is to close my eyes. My breathing takes a slow crawl in and out of my restricting lungs. And I think I’m ready to let go. Or I would be if the smoke and flames from the building weren’t trying to reach me. I seriously hope I die before catching on fire. That would suck. But then something strange happens. Shadows seep out from the flames and rise up into the sky above me. They curve around in an umbrella shape and hover some feet away. What’s stranger still, is the fact the no smoke or flames penetrate it.

Essentially they keep me from harm.

For only one flickering heartbeat do I worry that Toby is still alive. In the next flicker all of the waning breath inside me stills. My eyes slip shut. I feel myself pulling away from my body and I travel in the wake of incomprehensible whispers. Whether they guide me or just part of my dissolving imagination I don’t know for sure. But soon my own chant joins in on the musical chorus. I call out for Chance. His name is the last thing I comprehend before I fade away.

Then there is nothing but darkness.

There is movement in the darkness where there was once nothing. Shocks of pain course through the body that I try desperately try to flee from. I barely feel it really. All I know is the sensation that the body is moving. It’s being lifted and jerked about, as if whoever is involved is struggling. There is no sound, only the demanding quiet of my ethereal spirit. The longer I linger to the body though I’m able to make out little things, like the heat that comes off of the hands that hold it. They are sturdy and sure.

And I think I might recognize them.

That thought alone brings me closer to the body.

We’re moving quickly now, almost running. The one that holds us stumbles and we teeter. A cold wetness seeps through to us, startling a jolt of something familiar in me. But I lose what I’m trying to hang on to when we’re up again and moving. It’s faster this time, urgent. Then we stop. The one holding us gently places us on something warm and soft. The hands disappear for a moment and I’m tempted to flea again. But then they are back and so am I.

At first there is a feather light touch on the body’s cheek. It stirs something inside that has me floating closer to the body. We’re almost one, that’s I close I linger. I’m able to distinguish that the touch is fingertips as they turn into palms that cup and grasp. They are warm and give me the sense that in their hold I’m safe; the body is safe, we’re safe. They call to me to come closer. Then they tighten and I’m sucked back into the body, my body.

And oh how there is such pain waiting for me.

But there is also sound, just not made from me.

I’m trapped in my own body now, unable to move and scream.

The hands tighten once more. “
Rabbit
…please…oh God, please. Open your eyes.”

Rabbit?

The hands belong to my Chance. He came for me.

But he’s too late; even I know that I can’t stay in my body for much longer. I don’t belong.

His hands fade for a moment and I want to cry out for them to come back. There is a slamming sound and the surface I’m on shakes ever so slightly. A heavy solid weight scoots closer to me and I’m lifted and draped across it. His hands are back, but only one is placed on my cold cheek, the other clutches me to his steaming chest. He feels like he’s on fire or maybe it’s just that I’m so cold. All I want is to fade away and go to sleep and never wake, but the pain that churns inside me keeps me trapped.

Something purrs and rattles beneath us and I get the sense that we’re moving again. Yet I lie so still in Chance’s arms. It takes me a moment to realize that we might be in the back of someone’s car. That’s when I distinguish other voices to know that we are in fact not alone.

“Chance, is she breathing?” Is that…Mellissa? “You have to be certain if you want to save her.”

The hand on my cheek moves down so that it’s placed flat against my chest. I urge it to move so that he knows that I’m still here, but it remains immobile. I scream and thrash from the darkness inside myself, but he doesn’t hear me. His hand clenches around the fabric of my clothes and his body quivers around me. I think he might be crying. I silently and uselessly call out for him again.

Mellissa sighs. “Chance, I know this is horrible and unfair, but I
need
you to focus right now. Daria
needs
you to focus. What you have to do right now is to take the knife out of her. If there is a remote possibility that you can heal her, then it has to come out. But hurry and be gentle.”

The knife?

Oh. It must still be inside me. I forgot about that.

“I don’t know if I can.” Chance whispers. “She’s so cold mom…what if…”

“You can’t think like that Chance. If you’re the one meant to protect the Paragon, then everything will be all right. But you
have
to get the knife out fast before it’s too late. You can do it, I have faith in you.”

Chance eases us up into a sitting position and gently places me down across the seat. The warmth and weight of him disappears for a moment, but I hear him stretching out before me between the seats. I feel his hands hovering over me before they are placed on my stomach. Seconds are I feel him warmth, all I feel is the striking pain of him being so close to my wound. He moves his hands so that he cups the knife that is sheathed inside my body. They slid up so that his touch fades and I know he’s gripping the blades handle. I can almost feel him tense right before he deftly pulls it free.

He and I cry out at the same time, him in tortured agony and me in suffering silence.

There is a tinkering clatter sound and then Chance’s hands are back on me. They press on the hole the knife once lived. That’s when I realize I actually have enough blood left in me to seep out. If I concentrate enough, I can feel it sliding out and moving through his fingers, like a caress, as if I’m able to finally return his touch.

“Mom, she’s really bleeding back here. What do I do? Oh God…what do I do, what do I do…
oh God
, please!”

“It’s all right, trust me. It’s good she’s bleeding; it means we’re not too late. What I need you to do is really focus, do you understand, you have to focus on what you want. Force the want to save her. Heal her.”

“What! I don’t understand. I can’t-”

“Dammit Chance, yes you can. It’s the way of the Keepers. If this is your destiny, then you have it in you to save her. All you have to do is try and push it.”

Chance cries out for me and hunches over my body. His hands press so tight to my stomach that it feels like he’s trying to climb inside me. Sobbing convulsions grip him and hold him even closer to me. Oddly, I don’t mind leaving right now. With him so close it feels like I’m given an opportunity to have my goodbye. I only wish it wasn’t goodbye. But I know it is. There is no saving me, I’ve held on long enough. The pain that I’ve been trying to ignore starts to fade and in its place is a comforting numbness. I feel my spirit beginning to float upward and trying to extend itself from the body.

But then something keeps me locked in.

A warmth seeps from Chance’s hands that cling to me. It feels like the heat that only comes out during the summer at mid-day, full of life and possibility. His hand twitches as it spreads to my wound and moves inside me. Then the warmth transforms into searching tendrils of burning ecstasy that flexes its great hand outward. It pulls at me, at my everything, seeking to guide and heal. Everywhere is caresses I feel myself becoming whole again. I feel the flesh of my stomach slowly closing, the muscle beneath sticking back together, and fresh warm blood filling and spreading all throughout me until it reaches my still heart.

At the first life inflicting pump, my chest moves the slightest bit.

Chance flinches above me, his convulsions pause and he goes silent. With the next beat of my heart, my lungs fill with an intoxicating breath that hurts as much as it is pleasurable. My chest rises and my dry lips part. A faint gasp of air escapes me. It causes Chance to jerk up off me, but not his hands, no they remain pressed on me as if we’re molded.

“Holy Shit.” Chance laughs. “Rabbit?”

I want to call out to him that yes, I think he did whatever it was that he did, and that I’m going to be all right. But no words come to me yet. I’m not finished. The radiating warmth circulates through me in a spinning cycle of new life. The numbness that held me slips away and I snap back into the sensations of being alive. There is no pain, only the truth that I won’t be dying today. As fast as it came, the warmth vanishes. The pressure of Chance’s hands on me eases and we become separate entities again.

I open my eyes then.

The first things I see are Chance’s crystal clear blue eyes. And they are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. It makes me smile up at him. He healed me. How, I don’t know, and I don’t think I care. All I know is that he brought me back from the brink I never want to go on ever again. This is sure to change things. I can feel it. Something different within me, within him, making us connected in a way we weren’t before. But it doesn’t scare me. It comforts me.

Chance’s hands find my cheeks and moves in close. “Are you really real?”

I want to laugh at his whispering shock, but I don’t. It’s a valid question. Am I real? I think he made it possible that I am. So I nod. This makes him smile, his eyes shining so bright.

“You saved me.” I try to say, but it comes out as nothing more than a hoarse whisper that dissolves into a cough. My throat is so incredibly dry; it feels like I’ve been on a dessert for months without an ounce of water.

Chance’s eyes widen in alarm as he wraps his arms around me and lifts me up into a sitting position in one swoop. The sudden movement makes me gasp, but not from pain. More like a rush of tingles that come when you’ve been sitting for a while and need time to adjust. But the new position does clear the frog that seemed to take residence in my lungs. I can’t believe it.

I’m really alive right now.

I turn to Chance in awe. “You saved me.”

He kisses me then.

***

Getting the edge of shirt tight in my hands, I slow raise it up so that my skin is exposed. I clench my eyes shut before I can peak. Instead, I take a calming breath that really has no effect. It’s now or never. There is nothing to be afraid of. It’s just my body. I’ve had the thing for years. Nothing bad has ever come from looking at it. I force myself to stand straight and tall, squaring my shoulders. Only then do I open my eyes.

And face my startled and wary reflection.

I see my dark eyes that appear too black to be normal and my hair that is just as dark as it hangs loose and long down my back. My gaze wanders down so that I’m just about to see my exposed flesh and for a moment I stop before looking. I’m afraid at what I’ll see. But I have to know. So I finally look and when I do, a gasp escapes me. There is nothing to see, no marks or scars, just my flat stomach. For all intents and purposes, it appears as if nothing has ever happened.

But I know the truth.

Slipping one hand free, I spread it wide across my abdomen. To the right of my bellybutton is where I was stabbed from the back the first time and a little further up to the left is where I was stabbed for the second time. And right where my hand rests is where both of Chance’s lie when he healed me. I twist slightly so that I can see my back and with both hands I inch the hem of my shirt up. This too is smooth.

My shirt falls down as I drop my arms to my sides.

I step up to the mirror as close as I can without having to climb my dresser. My hands seek refuge and a little balance from the top as I stare at myself. I still can’t get yesterday out of my head, any of it. I can still feel the pain of the knife sliding in me, the shock of finding out Toby was my stalker, the knowledge that he was going to kill me, and the fact that I killed him first before he could succeed. There was a moment before I was lost that I could have sworn that I failed on that last one, but I must have been hallucinating, because I’m still here.