Haunted Destiny: A Midnight Dragonfly Bonus Short Story (6 page)

Jessica moved closer to her.

“…of Pitre’s car?” I made myself finish. And as far as bombs went, mine sucked the air right out of the room. Amber stiffened. Drew’s hands fell away. Jessica let out a strangled noise.

Against my earring, my fingers froze. Sometimes games were fun. And sometimes they weren’t.

Amber’s eyes met mine. Her voice faltered. Clearly she hadn’t realized Victoria and I had seen them.

“You said a dare,” Jessica snapped. “That’s a truth.”

Either way, everyone knew the answer. “It’s all the same to me,” I said.

“Then I dare her to tell the truth,” Pitre said. I couldn’t tell whether it was possession I saw burning in his eyes—or contempt.

“It’s not your turn, Jerk-off,” Jessica snapped, as Drew took another step away from Amber.

Bethany’s light, the last one still on, shifted toward me, and even though I could no longer see against the glare, I knew they all watched. Would I give Amber a new dare, or dare her to tell the truth?

It was an unexpected moment of power, but it came with consequences. I got that. Jessica and Amber had brought me to this nasty place as some kind of initiation, but I’d held my own. And while we would never be BFFs, I didn’t want to be a total loser either.

Games were one thing. Punishment was another.

“I dare you…” I hesitated before obliterating the point of no return. “…to lie down on the mattress.” Maybe Amber didn’t deserve a do-over, but giving it to her had more to do with my sense of right and wrong, than anything to do with her.

Pitre muttered under his breath and stormed from the room, leaving Amber hugging bony arms around her body while Drew hovered nearby—but no longer touched.

Like a virgin (as if!) sacrifice, she moved to the mattresses and lowered first one knee, then the other. Then she dropped from her knees to lay with her back covering the stain.

Through the darkness, her eyes met mine. “
My turn,
” she whispered. And I knew my reprieve was over.

“So what’s it going to be?” she murmured, stretching like a centerfold. “Truth, my friend?” And before the word could really register, she shifted, smiling at Jessica. “Or dare?”

Stunned, I stood there so very, totally still, trying to figure out what had just happened. Bethany’s light swung to her sister, who negligently twirled a strand of dark hair around her finger. “
Moi?
”

“
Toi,
” Amber confirmed. “Unless, of course, you’re too scared.”

“Have you ever known me to be too scared?”

“Truth?” Amber asked.

Her friend’s eyes gleamed. She glanced at Chase, then back at Amber. “Let’s find out.”

What was it with these people and the truth?

Amber was on her feet now. “Walk down the hall,” she said.

“Alone.” Then she held out her hand. “Without any light.”

“
No.
” The flash came with the word, invisible like before, a spear straight through me. The room shifted as everyone twisted toward me.

“No?” Amber asked.

“It’s not
your
dare,” Jessica pointed out.

But the nonexistent scarf choked off my breath. “I…I just…”
Breathe,
I told myself.
Breathe.
But I saw it all again, this time through the darkness.
The walls. The blood.

“Trinity—” Only then did I realize Chase had left Jessica’s side and was moving toward me.

I shook him off. “I don’t…”
Tangled dark hair
. “…don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Long legs.
“What if someone else is here?”

“
Puh-lease.
” Jessica yanked the sole remaining flashlight from her sister and handed it to Amber, along with her Maglite. Then she flashed a bright smile and trotted from the room in the same way she took the field to cheer during half-time.

Twenty-two seconds later she screamed.

Three

We ran.

“Jessica!” Chase reached the hall first. “Stay here!” he shouted, clicking on his flashlight as he broke toward the staircase we’d used on the way up. Drew, Amber, and Bethany veered left, taking the other two lights with them. “
Jess!
”

On instinct I went after Chase, but he was already gone. I had no light and couldn’t see two inches in front of me. Behind me, the others had disappeared, as well. I could hear Amber, though, shouting.

There weren’t even shadows to guide me.

I took off anyway, using my arms to feel my way toward the end of the hall.

“Jessica!” My feet ran out of floor. “Chase!”

In response, the silence breathed.

Heart pounding, I slid my hands along the wall. There was a door there. I knew there was. I’d come through it—“Chase!”

From downstairs, I could hear him shouting for his girlfriend.

I fumbled for my BlackBerry, turning it over to reveal a faint glow. The door had to be somewhere!

“Jessie!” That was Amber. The burst of footsteps sounded like running.

Another scream.

I thrust my phone in front me as if it could protect me, almost crying with relief when I found the small knob. Fumbling, I yanked the door open and staggered through—never saw the wall of shelves. I slammed into them, forehead and waist plowing in simultaneously. The impact stole my breath. Pain sang hard. I fell back, doubled over and tried to breathe. “What the—”

My hands shook. I lifted one to my face, my fingers stilling at the stickiness.
Blood.
And everything started to spin.

I gasped for air, gagged on the smell. Stale like before, rancid now. Coppery. I went for the light from my phone, but realized I no longer held it.

Darkness took
everything
. I lifted my hand but could see nothing. I dropped to my knees, feeling my way through the grime for the opening.

Behind me, something moved.

I made myself keep going, refusing to think too much about anything. The webs my fingers ripped through, the spiders that had to be somewhere. The sound of shuffling.

The smell of whiskey—
and worse.

Through the darkness everything throbbed, bringing with it a low mewl…

Me, I realized with a start. The barely human sound was coming from my own throat.

The wall stopped me. I twisted…found another.

Tried to stand.

Couldn’t.

Tried to breathe, swallow.

Gagged instead.

Think
, I begged myself.
Think. Find the phone. Call someone.
Aunt Sara would come.

But the darkness pressed from all directions, holding me, sucking the oxygen from my lungs.

The bright flash blinded. Recoiling, I sat frozen, once again in the unsettling room with the dirty walls and grimy windows, the cell phone discarded in the corner, the girl on the bed…the dark tangled hair.

Not me, I finally realized. Not me.

Jessica.

And finally, the scream burned my throat.

Immediately something whooshed to my right, and the darkness let go. This time the stab of light did not come from the confused corners of my mind.

“
Jesus
—Trinity.”

“Pitre…” I managed, but the sound that crawled from my throat was no more than a whisper.

Flashlight in hand, he lunged inside what looked like a large closet and reached for me. “What the hell—”

The instant his hand touched mine, he looked like he wanted to hit someone. To hurt them. Bad. “
Je
sus—you’re like ice.”

I fumbled for words. “…
bad place
.” With a gentleness totally at odds with the rough-around-the-edges veneer, he helped me to my feet.

But around me, everything kept right on shifting.

“Easy,” he muttered, stepping beyond me, toward the walls of shelves that had not been there before. They hadn’t. I was sure of it. All the while he didn’t let go, kept his hand curled around my wrist.

Then he blew my mind. Slipping his hand under the fourth shelf from the bottom, he pushed something, and the shelves creaked open, revealing the vat of darkness beyond.

My heart slammed, hard. “
Omigod…
”

“Come on!” He jerked his flashlight from me to illuminate the staircase we’d used on the way up. “Let’s get out of here.”

My mind struggled to process everything. The staircase was secret, hidden. The heavy door must have closed after Chase ran through it, accidentally trapping me…

My legs felt like rubber, but I made it to the kitchen. With the muggy night air rushing me, the stench of mud welcomed. Never letting go, Pitre led me to the gaping room where we’d started, where broken windows stood like the most amazing welcoming committee in the world. I scrambled through to the backyard, where Spanish moss swayed with the breeze—and three girls stood watching.

I stopped.

“
Jessica.
” She looked…fine. “What—”

She and Amber beamed—Bethany looked away.

And in that fractured moment, another kind of flash went through me, uglier than before. And I knew. I understood.

The dare Amber had given her friend hadn’t been for Jessica at all. It had been mine. She and Amber had planned everything, long before we’d reached the awful mansion. They’d goaded me, played me, gotten me to give them my flashlight. When Jessica screamed, everyone had run, taking their lights with them. Leaving me alone.

They’d
closed the door to the secret staircase.
They’d
waited until I was inside the fake closet.

They’d
shut me in.

They’d been on the other side, waiting, knowing I was inside. In the dark. That I was scared…

“Trinity!”

Something dark and vicious took control of me. I spun toward Chase’s voice, found him emerging through the gaping darkness. “You’re okay!” he said, vaulting through the window.

I didn’t wait for him to reach me. I charged him, catching him off guard as I slammed my hands against his chest. “You knew!”

The others I could understand. But him…

“Easy,” he said, reaching for my hands.

I twisted back from him, hating the tightness in my chest. “Game over,” I whispered.

He went so very still, looking beyond me to where his girlfriend stood like a vision of saintliness. “No—” he muttered.

“Liar!”

He shook his head, eyes darker than usual. “No, I swear!”

“Bullshit!” My hands were tight fists. I wanted to hit him. “You pretended to be my friend! You pretended I could trust you!”

That he was different…
special
.

“Trinity.” His voice was softer now, lower. “This isn’t what it looks like. You have to—”

“I don’t have to do anything.” Except leave. I very much had to do that.

“Let me explain—”

“What, you think I’m an idiot? That because my grandmother homeschooled me I’m stupid?”

“No—I didn’t know—”

“Save it.” I spun and started toward the front of the house, my flip-flops crunching down on broken glass.

I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have noticed if any had sliced straight through.

“Wait!”

From his voice, I knew that he was right behind me.

I kept going, didn’t turn back.

“You can’t just—”

This time I did stop, spin. “Don’t.”

From beneath a sweep of bangs I’d once fantasized about brushing from his forehead, he stared hard at me. “Let me take you home.”

I laughed. I really did. It was a hard sound, ugly. “Not in this lifetime,” I said as I noticed Jessica strolling toward him.

I didn’t wait. I twisted back around and made my way to the street. The cars we’d come in were by the cemetery around the corner.

I walked in the opposite direction.

The night settled around me, darkness broken by puddles from the streetlamps. The house on Prytania Street was deserted, but around me manicured lawns and cars parked in the street told me life went on. I wasn’t scared. Not for me, anyway. Walking down the old cracked sidewalk was peaceful in an odd sort of way. A major intersection was only a few blocks away. There I could find a taxi.

Instinctively my hand went to my back pocket, but my Black-Berry was gone.

I was so not going back for it.

Away. That was all I could think. I had to get away from them, Jessica and Amber, Chase…

My heart gave a cruel little thump.
Especially
Chase.

From that place—the ugliness.

From what I’d seen.

Because while the frantic search for Jessica had been staged, while me being locked in a small pitch black room had only been a joke, the strobe-light images I’d seen were
real
.

They always were.

I’d been seven years old the first time. It was my earliest memory. We’d been in Colorado by then, living in a nice little house on a huge piece of property. There’d been lots of trees, pine and aspen, towering up toward the always-blue sky. I’d been outside playing with our golden retriever, Sunshine. She’d run into a thicket after a pink ball—and I’d started to scream.

The flashes scared me, like a lightning storm dancing around me. I remembered falling, blinking, crying for Sunshine. Through the flashes I’d seen her lying on her side, so horribly still. I’d heard the whimper…

That’s how Gran found me, curled on my side, crying. I dove into her arms and held on tight, clung to her as I tried to breathe. I was trying to tell her about Sunshine when the big dog came bounding out of the trees, running up to slobber us with doggie kisses.

Two days later we’d found her dead.

Even now, all these years later, the memory made me shiver.

The things that I saw…happened. They always, always happened.

I didn’t notice the headlights until the car was right beside me. I tensed, prepared myself to tell Chase or Jessica or whoever it was exactly where they could go.

The shiny black Lexus stopped me. One darkly tinted window lowered, and Aunt Sara looked like she wanted to cry.

She also looked like she’d rolled straight from bed. Her long dark hair, so like my own, fell softly against a face with no makeup, making her look much younger than thirty-three. I could tell her shirt was the huge New Orleans Saints Championship tee she always slept in.