by Sara Clancy
She could see Benton through the gaps. His fingers gouged out chunks of the carpet as his wrists flattened against the floor. His legs thrashed but he couldn’t move his feet. The muscles of his jaw tightened despite struggling to open his mouth. He fought with everything he had, but he couldn’t break free of the force that pinned him down.
Bruises began to appear on Benton's ankles, weakening his already diminished strength to break loose. She could only watch the damage spread as she helplessly pulled at the bed slats. With a cheek pressed against the carpet, Benton released a pained moan as he thrashed. The damaged skin went from tinges of gray and blue to a rotted black as his blood swelled. She still couldn’t see what was doing all this to him, but he could. That was clear by the horror that twisted his features, and the strangled sobs that worked their way out of his throat.
His legs ceased to function as a new bruise began to emerge. Before her eyes, the injury spread until a perfect handprint had formed on his left calf. He gasped again, a pained, pitiful noise as a new mark began to take shape, this one just above his knee on his right leg. Every last trace of air escaped Nicole’s lungs when she realized that the creature was crawling up him.
Releasing her grip on the slats, she quickly darted her eyes around the room. There didn’t seem to be anything that was sturdy enough to break through the wooden bed frame. Her eyes fell on the small table and she rushed to it. The single, metal stand of the base was heavy enough that she had to use both hands to carry it, but it would work.
Standing on the side of the bed, she lifted it as high as she could and tried to decide the best place to strike. If she could break a couple of the slats, she might be in a better position to use her body weight on the others. But if she missed, if she accidentally struck the wrong board, she wouldn’t be able to stop both the splintered wood and the thick table leg from driving into Benton’s exposed back. Images of the damage she could cause filled her mind’s eye, and she hesitated.
Lightning struck, its glow blazing through the curtains as the sky released a thunderous roar. The stark white light turned Benton almost silver, highlighting the bruises that now covered his hip, his side, and his shoulder blade. She swung down, driving the end of the table leg into the last wooden plank with all of her strength. It split in two instantly, and she stumbled as she pulled the weight back up. The second blow broke the next plank, creating enough space for her to stand in. Just enough for her to reach down and touch Benton’s hand.
Letting the table drop wherever it would, Nicole jumped into the space she had created. The jagged edge of the broken wood sliced at her bare feet and knees, scraping at her skin. She reached with one hand, the awkward angle making her shoulder ache, but she managed to grab his wrist. She still couldn’t pull him up. A dark bruise began to surface around his neck. His frantic breathing turned into a splutter then stopped, his eyes growing impossibly wide. With both hands, Nicole shoved at the next plank. It slid in its run only a fraction of an inch before it locked into place. She screamed for him again as she reached for him, this time with both hands, grabbing him under his forearms.
A rush of arctic air slammed into her. Hard enough to slide her back until the end of the bed frame smacked against her spine. Benton came with her, the tension that had been holding him down snapping like a rubber band. Both caught off guard, they were unable to stop his skull form colliding painfully with her knee. The blow stunned Benton. For a moment, his body lay still, then began to quiver as it remembered how to breathe.
“It’s okay,” Nicole sobbed. She tried to force more confidence and control into her words, but it wouldn’t work. “You’re okay. Come on, let’s get you up.”
Pain zipped along her nerves as she straightened up, radiating out from where Benton’s body had struck her. Each time she tried to put weight on her seriously injured leg, the knee would threaten to buckle. It made it harder to pull both herself, and the still gasping Benton, from the ruins of the bed frame. It wasn’t until he mustered enough strength to offer some help that they managed to escape and tumble onto the floor.
He seemed content to just lay there and panted through his aching throat, but she couldn’t believe that it was over. She tried to be gentle, but her movements were hurried, propelled on by a consuming need to know that he was there, that he was okay, that he was safe. He grunted at her manhandling, but helped her pull him into a tight hug.
“What happened?” she asked, even as her mind screamed at her that he needed time to recover. “What was that? Is it gone?”
“She followed me,” he managed to say between gasps.
He was gaining some strength and placed one hand on the floor, taking on some of his weight but not holding himself up entirely. She wasn’t ready to let him go, but pulled back just enough to check his neck. The mark was there, but not as prominent as the others. With trembling fingers, she reached out to trace the faint lines, as if touching it would somehow make all of this seem real. She was gentle, barely making contact, but he still winced.
“Sorry,” she gasped.
Before she could pull back, he reached up and grabbed her wrist. He didn’t say anything. He just stared. And it took her a lot longer than it should have to realize that he wasn’t looking at her arm. His gaze was solely focused on her bracelet.
“She only let go when this touched her.” His bewilderment was clear in his voice, making it useless to ask why. It was clear that he didn’t know.
“Is she gone?” she asked, instead.
It took a lot out of him to lift his head and glance around the room. “Yeah.”
“Okay. Good,” Nicole muttered, mostly to herself.
Benton moved with her when he thought that she was trying to get him on his feet. That cooperation changed the moment he realized that she was instead removing the bracelet from her wrist and attempting to fasten it to his. Between exhaustion, exposure, and near suffocation, Benton didn’t stand much of a chance of putting up a decent resistance. As soon as she latched the bracelet on his wrist, Nicole cupped his face and forced him to meet her gaze.
“I’ve got the gun. You’ve got the bracelet. We’ll protect each other.”
A moment passed. The rain fell, and he surrendered with a weak nod. That settled, her adrenaline began to fade, bringing into sharp focus just how cold his skin was. He felt like an ice sculpture pressed against her side. Droplets of water still clung to him even as they soaked into her clothes, making her shiver while her fingers numbed.
“We need to get you warm,” she said as she gently released his jaw.
He still needed her help to stand, and with much stumbling she managed to direct him to the unmarred bed. The mattress sagged as he sat on the edge. He swayed slightly but managed to keep upright as she ran back to the pile of discarded blankets. She grabbed the first one she could reach and dragged it back to Benton. A soft clatter reminded her that the gun was nestled under the layers of material. She tossed them all aside until she found the weapon and tucked it into the back of her waistband. The cold pressure against her spine was uncomfortable, although she did find a certain degree of comfort in the constant reminder that it was there. Snatching up the blanket once more, she shook it out and looped it around Benton’s bare shoulders.
“Dry off with this, while I put the kettle on,” she instructed. “I’ll make you some tea.”
Mostly recovered from his shock and breathing normally, he begrudgingly obeyed, albeit with sluggish movements and a few pained grunts. Leaving him to absently wipe the rather unabsorbent material over his limbs. Nicole crossed the room to the array of items that sat atop the mini fridge. It was only when she had the electric kettle handle in her hand that she remembered the bathroom was effectively off limits and there was no sink out here to fill it up. Her injured knee throbbed as she crouched down to check the contents of the mini fridge. There were two bottles of water. She used one to fill the kettle and, setting it to boil, then took the other over to Benton.
He
took it from her with a smile of gratitude and finished it off in the time it took her to retrieve another blanket from the pile. She was about to protest the way he lazily tossed the bottle across the room when she noticed that it hit the broken remains of the bed she had just destroyed. So instead, she shook out the new blanket, held it up before him, and said.
“Come on. You can’t stay in the wet one.”
The words weren’t necessary since he wasn’t offering the slightest protest. They were more for breaking the silence and covering the now unnerving rumble of thunder. Benton made the exchange effortlessly since his shock had mostly worn off.
It was tough to not notice that he was naked. During the attack, modesty had been the last thing either of them had cared about. Now however, it seemed like something in short supply.
He tossed the damp blanket onto the floor as she draped the dry one over his shoulders. There was plenty of fabric left over and Benton awkwardly piled the excess across his lap before wrapping his arms tightly around himself. She tried to keep her eyes averted and found herself noticing how red and splotchy his feet were. And that they were still damp since he hadn’t bothered to dry them.
Sighing softly, she knelt down before him, grabbed the corner of the discarded blanket, and began to wipe the stray droplets from his toes. He flinched at each touch, a short snorted breath gushing from his mouth.
“Are you ticklish?” she asked.
“You sound surprised,” he mumbled.
“I guess I am,” she said. “I never really thought that banshees would be ticklish.”
The short, barely smothered laughs quieted as she began to clean the blackened skin that covered his ankles. They were perfect handprints. She could almost see where the nails had dug in. Neither one of them knew what to say, so they let the room lapse into stillness as she worked to get Benton comfortable. It didn’t take long for the self-imposed silence to scramble Nicole’s nerves.
“You said she followed you.” Her natural reflex was to try and cover her fear with layers of cheerfulness, to pretend that nothing was wrong until she could believe it, and normally Benton would tolerate it. Tonight was different and she focused on keeping her words calm and placid. “Did you mean from your room or from the truck stop?”
Benton pulled the edge of the blanket higher around his neck. It looked like he wanted to crawl under it and hide.
“Both.”
“Has she ever hurt you like this before?”
Benton nodded, the movement almost lost within the blanket now bunched around his ears.
She cringed. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“It wasn’t really appropriate bus conversation,” he said softly.
“And what about after? There were a hundred times you could have pulled me aside at dinner. If something’s threatening you, you have to let me know.”
“I didn’t know she was.”
“Benton–”
“It’s not like someone gave me the cheat sheet for this,” Benton snapped. “The only ghost I’ve ever dealt with before this is Oliver, and he can’t leave the house. I didn’t know she could follow me. I thought that she was there and I was here, so there was no point bringing it up.”
“No point? Benton, she hurt you. That’s significant. You can’t just ignore it.”
“I don’t do ghosts!” Benton cut in with a burst of raw anger. “I dream. That’s the deal. That’s always been the deal!” He pulled his hands free and ran them through his damp hair. But the nervous habit didn’t help him this time. “I endure whatever messed up crap they shove into my skull, but when I’m awake, I’m safe. I've had ten years to get used to that. Ten years and then they changed the rules.”
He slapped his hands down, screaming more at the world around him than at her in particular, his blatant rage deflating into something petulant and scared. “Now monsters get to be a thing. Oh, and I no longer get to be human. Nope. I’m a banshee. What does that even mean?” His exaggerated shrug turned into a violent, halfway flail of arms. “I have no clue. I haven’t got the slightest idea if any of this is even normal for my kind. For all I know, not sleeping might be the first sign that I’m losing my friggin’ mind. And now, apparently, I have to deal with ghosts, too? No! Just no! I don’t do ghosts!”
The last of his energy fled him on the final word and he rocked forward, hunching in on himself as he again ran his hands through his hair. This time the strands locked between his fisted fingers. His grip tightened until his knuckles turned white. He was too tightly compressed for her to pull him into a hug, so she edged closer and rubbed his back in a way she hoped was soothing. It took some time, but the muscles in his back eventually began to relax, and he let out a trembling sigh.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled against his palms. “I didn’t mean to yell.”
“It’s okay,” she said.
“It’s not. I shouldn’t talk to you like that.” Drawing in a deep breath, he lifted his head to look at her, keeping his movements minimal enough so that she could still massage carefully along his spine. “She’s different than Oliver,” he said before hesitating. “Being around her is like being in my dreams. I feel more like her than I do myself.”
“Like she’s possessing you?”
“Yes. And no. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s as if we’re blending together and I can handle it when it happens in my dreams, because there’s this last, dying bit of my consciousness that knows that there’s a time limit. Eventually, I’ll wake up. It can take a while, but things will get left behind, and I’ll be me again. I don’t know if there’s a time limit with her, here.”
He clamped his mouth shut, desperately trying to keep in something else he had yet to say. As gently as she could, she coaxed him to tell her. For a while, he struggled against it, the toll it was taking on him becoming more visible with each passing second. Finally, he forced it out. “She wants to kill. And she wants to use me to do that.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Nicole promised.
The look he gave her was one of both fondness and sorrow. “How can I stop it?”
“We,” she corrected. “It’s us against her and need I remind you, team banshee is undefeated.”
A small smile curled his lips. There wasn’t much behind it, but it was a good start.
“You have a plan?” he asked, with the slightest bit of humor.
“Of course, I do.”
His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “A good one?”
She bit her lip and then smiled brightly. “So, here’s the plan. While you get warm, I’ll search the internet for ways to get rid of ghosts. And then we do them all.”
His smile grew slightly wider, and finally the helpless look in his eyes began to fade.
Chapter 5
“I really don’t see why you’re being so strange.”
Benton tipped his head up to Nicole’s words, realizing a heartbeat later that the comment wasn’t directed at him but at her mother. The two women stood on the far side of the study’s small examination room and neither of them seemed to understand that whispering in an echo chamber wasn’t really whispering.
“Really,” Dorothy replied, her voice low, but completely audible to Benton. “You can’t see where I might have a hard time believing you?”
“I told you the truth,” Nicole whined.
“I’m sure you did. But when a mother walks into a trashed hotel room to see her daughter rolling a raw egg over a naked boy, she is gonna have questions.”
“That’s an ancient and very reputable way of casting out evil spirits.”
“Says who?”
“Exorcism.com.” Somehow, Nicole managed to keep her voice firm and authoritative, without the slightest hint of embarrassment. Personally, Benton wanted to disappear into the hospital-grade bed at just the reminder of it. Of all the things they had tried, it hadn’t exactly been the craziest, but it was definitely the most embarrassing for someone to walk in on. He really regretted not lettin
g Nicole put on the chain lock. “If you don’t believe me, mom, I can show you the web page.”
“Now I’m more concerned about how you determine ‘reputable’ sources,” Dorothy shot back.
“You’re making this weird.”
“It is weird,” Dorothy rebutted. “This whole thing is almost the definition of weird.”
“Well, it might have worked,” Nicole said triumphantly. “Allison didn’t come back the whole night.”
Benton squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself to fall asleep so he wouldn’t have to hear this same argument carried out for the eighth time.
“That might have just been because of the bracelet,” Dorothy said. “Iron repels malicious ghosts. Didn’t you get that from one of your web pages?”
“I did. Just like I got the stuff about salt, white sage, and avoiding mirrors. We don’t know which one worked.”
“Well, then. By all means, let me step out so you can roll another egg over him again,” Dorothy smirked.
“When are you going to let that go,” Nicole muttered.
“Not today,” Dorothy countered immediately. “And in the future, I would appreciate it if you call me. Do you know how long it took for me to calm Benton’s parents down?”
“They overreacted.”
“Benton was missing, the door was wide open, and his stuff was thrown everywhere,” Dorothy reminded her.
“Well,” Nicole stammered. “They should know by now that if he’s not with them, then he’s with me. They could have just given me a call and the whole thing would have been cleared up.”
“Yes. It’s very annoying when people don’t make simple yet important phone calls.”
Benton didn’t need to open his eyes to know that Dorothy was glaring at Nicole, or that Nicole was cringing under the weight of it. In actuality, it was probably better that Dorothy had been the one to handle the situation. If Nicole were forced to tell a lie on the spot, his parents would have been banging on the front door in five minutes. Since Dorothy had been allowed to work her magic, all Nicole had to do was keep a straight face, and explain how there was a research paper due next week which they needed to work on. Oh, and that Benton sucks at securely closing doors during a storm.