Beyond (Afterlife book 1) (18 page)

I sighed and flew closer to him. I wanted to
hug him and tell him I had missed him, but this wasn’t exactly the
moment.

“
I had to do something. He
was being really mean to your mother.”

Then I saw something change in Jason’s
normally kind eyes. They became filled with a fiery blaze. I felt
his rage even from the distance still between us. I felt it like a
heat wave or the air from a blow dryer—a force so strong, it made
me unable to come close to him. He became unreachable to me, as
though he had a force field as a shield of anger around him,
keeping me out. Every time I tried to come closer to him, it felt
like I was burning.

“
Where is she?” he
asked.

“
She’s hiding upstairs in your
room …” I wanted to say more, but he just stormed past me and
started running up the stairs.

“
Wait, I have something I
need to tell you,” I yelled after him. “It is really
important.”

I flew after him and caught up with him at
the top of the stairs. There I placed myself in front of him,
blocking his way. When my eyes met his, he softened a little bit,
calming him down. Yet the burning shield still surrounded
him.

“
Listen,” I said. “There
is something you need to know.”

“
Meghan, I am happy you are back
but right now I have to check on my mother and see if she is all
right.”

“
But you need to listen to me;
it is important. I know something.”

“
Not now,
okay?”

He started walking as if he wanted to walk
right through me, which he could easily do. He knew that. I tried
to stop him.

“
I know you want to protect your
mother, but I also know that something bad is going happen to you
if you fight your step-dad,” I held my hand out in front of me.
“Something really bad.”

He stopped and looked at me. Then he shook
his head.

“
Nothing bad could ever happen
to me,” he said. “While you have been gone I bought a gun. It’s in
the top drawer of my nightstand. So if he tries anything, I will
just kill him.”

I sighed deeply. There had been no gun in
the picture in the book.

“
That might be, but you …
I know for a fact that he will kill you.” There it was. I just
blurted it out.

Jason stared at me with great disbelief.
Then he shook his head again.

“
I don’t mind dying, as long as
I can protect my mother,” he said. “Then I can go and be with you.
He will go to jail for killing me. I am not afraid of dying
anymore. Not since I met you.”

I had really screwed things up. Now I knew
why students weren’t supposed to leave the school area.

“
But you don’t understand.
You are way too young to die. You have your whole life ahead of
you. Think of all the fun stuff you will miss out on.”

He lifted his shoulders.

“
I don’t care. If my time is up,
it’s up. I have to go.”

I was confused. I thought I was helping
him by telling him, but it was as if he didn’t care!

“
But …”

He stopped listening and went straight
through my body like he would walk through a wave in the ocean.

I fell to the floor, trying to catch my
breath. Meanwhile Jason continued toward the door. I heard him
knock on it. I made myself invisible.

“
Mom. It’s me, Jason. Open the
door. Are you all right?”

The key turned and the door slowly opened.
The woman’s small face appeared.

“
Who were you talking too?” she
asked with a trembling voice.

I didn’t hear him answer, but I felt the
rage growing in him again. I went and stood next to him. Then I
looked at his face. He was staring at his mother. Her eye was
swollen and she had bruises all over her face. Blood was still
running slowly out of her nose, and she wiped it off.

Jason stood motionless for a long time,
like he was paralyzed. His hands shook and his body quivered. I saw
a tear roll from his eye. He didn’t wipe it away as it rolled down
his cheek and ended on his chin.

I tried to grab his hand, but I couldn’t.
The shield burned my hand. His anger made him unreachable to
me.

“
Jason, just calm down. It’s
going to be just fine. I’m okay. This just looks worse than it
really is.” She attempted to smile but winced in pain.

“
I am going to kill him,” Jason
said with a shaky yet determined voice.

E
verything inside of him seemed about to
erupt—every little frustration buried but not forgotten, every
stroke from his step-dad’s fists that he never returned, every
humiliating situation never avenged.

“
Please don’t, Jason,” his
mother pleaded. “He will be good again once he sleeps this one off.
You know that. He’s a great guy on the good days.”

“
That’s not enough.” Jason
pushed his way past the mother.

I was sure he would go for the gun, but
instead he grabbed his baseball bat.

My heart stopped beating and I froze. I
recognized the bat from the book. It was that same blue bat I knew
his step-dad would beat him to death with.

“
Don’t, Jason,” his mother
continued.

But he didn’t listen. He had made his mind
and heart up. He walked toward the stairs. As he walked through the
living room I tried to talk to him. I felt tears in my eyes. I had
no idea how to stop him.

“
Please don’t do this, Jason,” I
said with a soft voice. “Please. That bat is the one your step-dad
will use to kill you. I have seen it. There was this book
…”

But it was as though he couldn’t hear me
any longer, like my voice wasn’t strong enough to go through that
shield of anger. I saw it now like an orange fire surrounding his
entire body as though he was glowing.

I felt my heart skip a beat. I knew where I
had seen that kind of fire before. In Portia’s eyes. She had worn
the same kind of anger inside.

Jason’s step-dad had aroused and was
sitting at the kitchen table with his head bowed when Jason walked
in, holding the bat in front of his body.

His
step-dad lifted his head and looked
at him. Then he burst into loud laughter. “Who the hell do you
think you are?” He said.

Jason’s entire body trembled. “I’m here to
kill you for what you did to my mother,” he said with a voice that
was no longer shaky, but sharp and determined.

“
You little rat.” His step-dad
got up from his chair. “You think you can come here and threaten
me?”

He took a couple of slow steps toward
Jason with a sneer and eyes that looked like he would snap at any
moment.

That was when I saw them: the small
shadows on the wall again. Just like the ones I had seen in the
operating room at the hospital. They crept along the walls, with a
moaning and growling sound. I realized they were helping the
step-dad, cheering him on. I thought about how they had gone into
my head and told me all those lies They were probably doing the
same for Jason’s step-dad right now. And he was listening to
them.

He hit his fist on the table. “I am FED up
with all your crap. You live here for free. You want me to support
you while you do nothing around here. NOTHING! I have to work every
freaking day to keep food on your table. To keep you alive. You
can’t kill me. You know why? Because without me, you and that
no-good mother of yours would starve to death.”

“
We would figure it out. I
could get a job,” Jason said.

I noticed the trembling in his voice was
back. As his step-dad came closer, it got worse and Jason backed
up. His eyes were filled with fear. Then he found his courage again
and lifted the bat higher in the air.

“
Come any closer and I
will hit you with this,” Jason said. “I will kill you. But I will
not make it a merciful death. I want you to suffer!”

That’s why he didn’t bring the
gun instead
,
I thought. He didn’t want his step-dad to have an easy death. But
the baseball bat didn’t seem to frighten him one bit.

Jason’s
step-dad burst into loud
laughter again. I could tell it scared Jason that his step-dad
wasn’t afraid of him.

“
You? You are nothing but a
scared little kid” He took another step closer to Jason. “A little
mamma’s boy, aren’t you?”

“
I will hit you with
this,” Jason stuttered.

I felt my heart break into pieces. There
was no way Jason could win this fight. It would all happen as shown
in the book. I couldn’t bear it. Had I come in vain?

The step-dad smirked and took another step
toward Jason. Jason didn’t hesitate one second. He swung the bat.
But as it came close to his face, the step-dad lifted his hand and
grabbed the other end of the bat. Just one second later, it would
have hit his face.

Jason froze and so did I.

The step-dad held on to the bat and Jason
couldn’t wrest it out of his hand. When the step-dad started
turning it, I could see it was hurting Jason’s arm and he had to
let go of it.

My heart raced. I felt so chilled inside,
like ice-cold water was running in my body causing me to
freeze.

I had to do something. If I didn’t, it
would go exactly as predicted in the book. I couldn’t let that
happen. I just couldn’t. I had to give it a try.

In that second the step-dad turned the
bat, lifted it, and took a swing at Jason, who ducked and avoided
the first blow. But the second blow hit him straight in the stomach
and he bent over in pain.

I didn’t know what to do. I felt
horrified. Jason was in pain and his step-dad lifted the bat to
take another swing at him. He hit him in the back and Jason fell
flat on the ground. I started crying and then I thought of
something. A chair in the back wouldn’t be enough this time. He
would just come after Jason at another time.

I hurried upstairs and took in a deep
breath. For the first time, I managed to go through a massive wood
door. I went into Jason’s room and placed myself close to his
mother. She was sitting on the bed, crying and holding her hands to
her head, blocking her eyes from the reality going on downstairs. I
heard Jason scream once more and felt more tears in my
eyes.

Now where had he told me the gun was? In
the top drawer of the nightstand! I turned and found the nightstand
with a little blue lamp on it.

I tried to pull the drawer open but my hand
kept slipping through. I took in a couple of deep breaths to calm
down. I tried to remember what Mrs. Ohayashi had taught us in the
Art of Transition class. It was all in my head. She had taken us to
a pond outside and made us look into the water.

“
See,” she said. “Now it
is nice and still. Your minds are like that water,” she said and
threw a rock in it. “When it gets agitated you can’t see.
Everything is blurry and unclear to you. You need to be like the
calm water.”

If I am too agitated I can’t
hold on to anything. I need to keep calm,
I said to myself while trying to
breathe deeply. Another scream came from Jason downstairs. I tried
to block it out. I couldn’t let it disturb my focus.

I reached out one more time. This time I
managed to grab the handle and hold it between my fingers. Then
carefully I pulled with all my strength.

The drawer came open and the gun appeared.
As it did, Jason’s mother heard the sound and turned around. She
looked around and then she saw the gun. She stared at it for a few
seconds before she took it up. She turned it a couple of times in
her hand like she wanted to feel it, feel its power, and then she
seemed to make a decision.

As another scream came from downstairs
Jason’s mother pulled the door open to his room and walked out with
the gun in her hand.

Chapter 21

I was scared as I followed
Jason’s mother down the stairs. Scared of what was going to happen.
Was I about to change Jason’s destiny? Had I already done it by
opening the drawer? Was that even possible? Could I change
someone’s course of life? Even if it was written in the book of
“meant
-to-be”?

Jason’s mom
walked slowly and carefully.
Every time she heard Jason scream she stopped, like she needed to
find the courage to go on. She was holding the gun between her
hands and I noticed she had a hard time holding it
still.

That was when I remembered what Mick had
done at the hospital. I started whispering encouraging words to
her, giving her the strength to go on, to help Jason. I don’t know
if I got through to her, I don’t know if she heard me, but as she
kept on walking across the living room, it seemed like she was
getting more and more strength and power in her steps. The sound of
the baseball bat hitting Jason one more time filled the air, but
this time there was no scream. As we entered the kitchen we both
saw why. He was lying completely still on the tiles—motionless,
lifeless. My heart stopped beating.

Had we come too late?

It all looked exactly as it did in the book.
This was the picture, except for one thing. The mother hadn’t been
in it.