Sidetracked: Part 1

by S. K. Kelley

  “Give me a minute,” he says, desperation twisting his features.

  “A minute?” Ugh... I move closer, desperate to speak even quieter than I already have been. “Well, what do you want?”

  He nods, but he looks nervous and fidgety, and he glances over his shoulder again. Then he meets my gaze with a pronounced frown. A dark, purple bruise circles his left eye, the white of which is stained by pooling blood.

  This is worse than I imagined. How awful did James look as Ice bandaged his bleeding hands and acted like he’d done nothing but scare him off?

  A pang of sympathy worsens the pit in my stomach.

  I cannot let Ice catch him here.

  “I wanted...to apologize,” he says. “For what happened.”

  What? He broke into the house of someone who hates his guts and just beat his ass a few days ago, not knowing if I would even be here? Just to offer me an apology?

  “You shouldn’t be here,” I say. “You should—”

  He shakes his head and takes another step forward, leaving only a couple feet between us. His eyes are wide with fear and despair. His expression holds no obvious malice, but I’m scared to move.

  “It was a mistake,” he insists, the words spilling out, frantic and staggered. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, but you hit your head. You were bleeding. I didn’t know what to do. I just— I panicked. I’m sorry.”

  I gesture with my hands, trying to shush him as my eyes wander toward the hallway again.

  Does he not realize how stupid this is?

  “Shut up,” I say through my teeth, my attention trained not on the distressed man in front of me but on the door I know Ice is sleeping behind.

  “I know,” he groans, ignoring me. “I fucked up, but I want to make things right before I—”

  I look back to James, and my concern of Ice stepping out of his bedroom suddenly feels unimportant.

  His quivering lips form the ghost of a smile, but his jaw is set, and tears prick his wide, bloodshot eyes. It’s the face of someone struggling to hold it together. The face of someone desperately trying not to cry.

  With those injuries... Knowing what Ice did...

  My chest tightens, I ball the hem of my shirt in my hands, and I break eye contact. I can’t bear to look directly at him. I stare at the floor between us instead.

  “Please forgive me.” His voice cracks. “I don’t even care if you don’t mean it. Lie to me. Keep hating me if you want. That’s fine. I just—”

  He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be asking for forgiveness at 2AM after breaking into the house. How am I meant to respond? I don’t want to deal with this right now. I don’t even understand why he’s here.

  What difference does it make if he apologizes?

  Why does it matter if I acknowledge it?

  He flashes a pained smile, but his glassy eyes remain empty. “Please,” he begs, his voice rising. “After tonight, you will never have to see me again.”

  “Shh!”

  He visibly startles. His uneasy, about-to-cry smile falls, and I sigh.

  “Fine.” I hug my arms, trying to quash all emotion within me. “I accept your apology. Now, can you just leave before you wake someone up?”

  He lets out a shaky breath, and, as he wipes his nose with the sleeve of his damp jacket, he suddenly looks more exhausted than before. There’s something incredibly painful about it.

  “Thank you,” he says.

  “Okay, now go.”

  He doesn’t respond, and the room falls quiet.

  Watching my feet again, I shift my weight. I relax my arms and scratch an itch on my wrist. Rain patters on the glass canopy outside. James’ breathing is uneven.

  I wait without moving, but he doesn’t leave.

  Instead, he takes a step closer. He reaches for his back pocket. I look up and raise a hand to stop him—we’re too close—but I freeze as my fingertips brush cool, damp fabric.

  I hear thunder.

  James leans closer. His chest meets the resistance of my raised hand, but I can’t bring myself to push him away. I can’t speak or breathe. I can’t think as trembling lips brush the top of my head.

  What—?

  We’re so close. Far too close—my nose almost touching his jacket zipper. I smell the rain. Dirt and sweat and a hint of tobacco smoke. He touches my hand, pressing something into it. He closes my fingers around the thin, plastic object before he lets go and takes a step back.

  “I don’t understand...” My voice is so soft, I don’t know if he heard me, so I raise it a little and ask again, “Why are you here?”

  Shadowed eyes meet mine for an instant, and the room plunges into darkness. The TV shut itself off before I could make out his expression. Now, I can only watch his silhouette.

  He shakes his head.

  James turns away without answering my question. He walks to the sliding glass door. The door slides open, and the room fills with the sound of rain, but he doesn’t step out.

  He glances at me again, darkness obscuring his face.

  “Bye,” he says. “Sorry for everything.”

  Then he steps out onto the patio. The door slides shut, the click carrying an uncomfortable finality, and I’m standing alone with the lingering scent of rain in the air and a plastic card in my hand.

  I tear my eyes from the door and turn around. The faintest hint of light reflecting off the River Sapphire’s polished gemstone catches my eye.

  He didn’t even mention it.

  But he left...something. It’s too dark to see, so I turn on the nearest lamp and hold the card under the light.

  A vertical California driver’s license.

  James Nathaniel Reid

  He left his ID?

  Why do I have this?

  Heart racing, card in hand, I spin toward the sliding glass door—the place he disappeared through. The thin edge of the card digs into my palm and fingers.

  A familiar sensation. A jolt of anxiety. A slow, sinking dread.

  A flash of red. Dripping blood. A puddle forming on a dark, wood floor. A hand—

  My stomach twists, and I move without thinking. One hand hits the edge of the door, and the other drags it open. I stumble outside and flip the nearest light switch. The fairy lights illuminate the backyard, but it’s empty.

  James is gone.

  My eyes wander down to the card again.

  I barely recognize the guy in the photo as the one who just left. He’s not smiling—not really—but he looks like a normal person. He turns twenty-one next month.

  A flash of lightning startles me. I gasp and look around, unable to ignore the nagging discomfort as it settles in my chest. I rub my arms to flatten the goosebumps, and I turn the lights off before I step back inside.

  I lock the doors. I pick the remote up off the floor and return it to the TV stand. Then I sit on the loveseat.

  And I realize I’m still holding James’ driver’s license.

  Using my phone as a flashlight, I stare at the amber eyes and neutral expression in the photo and can’t help but compare it to the wreck of a person I just spoke with.

  Why would he leave this with me?

  What am I supposed to do about it?

  forty-seven

  ~ ∞ ~

  IT’S DARK AND SO, SO quiet.

  I see nothing. Hear nothing.

  After a long moment of surreal desolation, impossibly dark shapes materialize out of the shadow and drift about within the murky depths like deep sea creatures.

  When I try to move, my body doesn’t respond. It’s as though I’m floating in a vast ocean of nothingness—and I am part of that nothingness—but that can’t be right. I must be somewhere. This can’t be nowhere. I can’t be nothing.

  So where am I?

  From the dark, flashes of stark white shock me. The light is blinding compared to the darkness around it. Images and short scenes that play out like old film clips join the jarring lights, the images so brief and blurry I can’t begin
to identify them.

  The light is painful, but I can’t look away or close my eyes. I’m forced to watch—to experience it all.

  A flash of white teeth.

  An open door. A dark silhouette runs through.

  Several faces pass by in such quick succession their features muddle together.

  Nervous laughter. A hand held over the mouth.

  Hardwood floors. Clean, white walls. A reflection in a mirror.

  The glint of polished steel.

  I have no physical body in this strange place, but that doesn’t stop the emotions and sensations that accompany the images from washing over me. A sinking horror. A wave of nausea. A sharp, hot pain. One after the other.

  Heavy sobs echo around me, growing louder and louder until they’re deafening and threaten to drive me mad. I finally reach my breaking point, but, just as I do, the sounds and lights and foreign emotions vanish as quickly as they came.

  Once again, I’m plunged into a silent dark.

  The sound of breathing rises around me. Soft. Quiet. I can’t sense the emotion behind it, and it soon fades.

  A scene replaces it, exploding from a single point in space before me. A sunset sky awash with oranges and fiery reds. The tangy scent of saltwater. The gentle breaking of ocean waves upon a distant, unseen shore.

  The beautiful scene envelops me, comforting me. It’s peaceful, like everything in the world is perfect in this one, fleeting moment.

  There’s no concern. No fear. No pain.

  But a flash of light erases the sunset all too soon, and my surroundings fade to black. It’s painfully quiet for so long. Like sitting in a room without so much as a ticking clock. I worry I’ll be trapped in this lonely place forever.

  BANG!

  An anguished scream breaks the silence as a blinding, white light obliterates the impossible darkness. While someone laughs coldly, another person weeps. Pain. Grief. Loss.

  It’s too bright.

  The light hurts. Burns.

  I fight to squeeze my eyes shut in a desperate attempt to block out the awful light. To my surprise, I finally can, and I relish the natural darkness that closing my eyes brings.

  The laughter and crying fade until the only noise remaining is a quiet dripping. Drip, drip, drip. Like a leaking tap. Something about the sound—some quality I can’t quite explain—makes me deeply uncomfortable.

  I open my eyes and find I’m neither in the bright light nor the pitch black.

  Instead, I’m standing in the middle of a dimly lit hallway lined with wooden doors. Illuminated by only a yellowed light fixture on the dark ceiling, the hallway seems to stretch on forever in both directions before eventually fading out of sight.

  Weird.

  I glance down.

  Hands.

  They don’t quite look like my hands, but they’re drenched in blood. I stare at my palms as the warm, red liquid drips in thin ribbons from my skin to the floor, where a puddle forms on the dark hardwood.

  What—?

  What happened here?

  The hands disappear. The hallway does too, and the darkness around me morphs into a deep, crimson red. It’s hot and sticky, and I am drowning—suspended in an ocean of blood. The salty, metallic tang overwhelms my senses as the thick, warm liquid chokes me.

  Unable to breathe, I desperately wish to claw at my throat. I would do anything to make the pain stop. Though, if I have a body anymore, it refuses to respond.

  The space goes black once more, and I fall to the ground.

  As I cough and wheeze, I hear myself for the first time since the nightmare began. I open my eyes. I have legs. I’m sitting on my knees. I have hands too.

  My hands.

  I touch my face. My hair. My arms. My chest.

  I am here, and I am myself. Jayde Palmer. In the middle of the suffocating darkness. It’s strange, but my body is somehow fully illuminated against the void.

  Once I catch my breath and recover my strength, I stand up to better survey my surroundings. But there’s nothing. No walls, structures, or details off in the distance. There aren’t any visible lights in the area, nor do I cast a shadow on the smooth, black ground.

  Seriously... What is this place?

  When I turn, someone is there.

  How?

  I was alone. When did someone else show up?

  The person—a man—stands several yards away, his back lit up the same unnatural way I am. His form sticks out against the darkness like a shining beacon. Messy, orange hair and dark clothes.

  It’s James.

  I call out to him, but no sound leaves my throat. Confused, I try again with the same result. It’s no use. For some reason, my voice doesn’t carry through the air.

  Despite my apparent inability to speak, James turns to face me. Bile rises in my throat as he does—and I catch his expression. His eyes are wide and pleading. His mouth twists in horror as he calls back, but the dark void absorbs the words the same as mine.

  Then he raises an arm to point in my direction, and I freeze.

  Behind me?

  I turn around to find Ice standing inches away.

  When did he get here?

  His bright, blue eyes seem to glow in the low light as he smiles, but something isn’t right.

  Something...

  Before I can figure it out, his smile hitches up on one side.

  The floor drops out from underneath me with a sharp, musical sound reminiscent of thin glass shattering. My body is missing, as before, but I somehow still register the sensation of falling through space.

  I fall down, down, down through the dark expanse.

  An electronic beeping wells up around me. A slow and steady sound with a deep, unsettling emotion following it.

  I want to cover my ears, but I don’t have hands.

  I want it to stop, but I have no control here.

  The further I fall, the darker and colder the air becomes. An impossible color, darker than black. An uncomfortable chill. Then, slowly—so slowly—everything fades into the cold, inky darkness.

  Even the beeping ceases.

  Dark. Quiet.

  Finally, I hit the bottom.

  ~ ∞ ~

  forty-eight

  BLOOD—

  I sit up with a start, my heart pounding. My hands trembling. My cheeks warm and wet with tears. I hug my knees to my chest until my breathing calms, but I...

  This isn’t the first time I’ve had a dream like this.

  The Fourth of July. The two dreams were related, if not identical. I don’t know why or how I know, but the flashes of blood... The dread. Paranoia. Itchiness.

  This is similar, but it’s different too.

  Instead of a haunting discomfort and the prickly sensation of being watched, I’m suddenly filled with determination. Drive. A rush of energy. The inexplicable but overwhelming desire to find James Reid.

  I don’t care about the storm—the wind or the rain still falling. We need to talk. What was he thinking? Why show up to apologize like that? Why—

  Lips brushing my hair.

  Something was wrong.

  Something was very wrong.

  I need to find him, but I can’t tell Ice. He wouldn’t understand. The two have history—serious bad blood by the sound of it. They knew each other in high school, but Night won’t elaborate beyond that. She doesn’t want to talk about it either.

  If I find James, can he explain more?

  Maybe I should know exactly what happened when Ice caught him outside. Or what he did to earn Ice’s hatred in the first place. Maybe it isn’t important in the grand scheme of things, but...

  Something is wrong, and I can’t sit here and do nothing.

  I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand and glance around the den. I’m alone. My phone is on the floor beside the couch—it’s just after 7AM. James’ driver’s license is still under the pillow. I slip the card beneath my phone and set both on the TV stand as I leave the couch.

  I pull th
e curtain over the sliding glass door open. Light floods the den. The backyard is empty, the world grey and miserably wet.

  Am I seriously about to walk through that?

  With a sigh, I leave the den and creep down the hallway.

  I press my ear to Ice’s bedroom door, but I don’t hear anything. Slow and quiet, I turn the knob, crack the door, and peek inside. Ice’s human form appears to be fast asleep with his back to the room, half covered by the grey comforter.

  He doesn’t shift, so I let myself in.

  As I dig through my duffel bag, the most suitable clothes I find are skinny jeans, a light jacket, and my new leather fashion boots. Not ideal—or warm—but I didn’t pack any rain gear, and the boots will work better than my old Converse.

  Once dressed, I grab my wallet. The candy-striped house key is still inside. I’m not moving in, but maybe this will come in handy.

  When I stand again, Ice hasn’t moved. His shoulders rise and fall gently as he breathes.

  For a moment, I second-guess heading out. But I recall the fear on James’ face—both in that stupid dream and during his apology last night—and I know what I have to do. I slip my wallet into my pocket, sling my jacket over one arm, and leave the room.

  I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My reflection reveals a soft frown and green eyes shadowed by concern.

  Concern for what? For whom? Myself? James?

  Ugh.

  I put my jacket on and comb my fingers through my hair before pulling it back into a long ponytail. As I fix my bangs, my eyes land on the empty space where the River Sapphire normally rests below my collarbone. I turn to the TV, where my phone and the necklace sit on the low stand. The light shining through the sliding glass door reflects off the polished, blue gemstone and leaves a spattering of bright white on the ceiling.

  The River Sapphire hasn’t done much good so far, has it?

  Instead of wearing it, the necklace goes into my jacket pocket with my phone and James’ license. Then I head to the great room, where I make a bowl of cereal and brainstorm a note to leave behind on a pad of sticky notes I found on the counter.

  I assume Night will see the note first, but I don’t dare mention James. Something about going out for a walk. Something about being back later. Vague. Ultimately meaningless. I sign the note with my name and a smiley face and leave it on the dining table.