Wraith

by Lawson, Angel

  I couldn’t figure out her logic. If he could do this to her, he could do it to anyone. He’d already killed one innocent person. Her mind was so jumbled between right and wrong and abuse and love. It was confusing. I decided, though, to focus elsewhere.

  “Where are the girls?”

  “The shelter van picks them up from school and takes them back. They should be safe.”

  I nodded, relieved they were safe. She needed more, though; I could tell she wasn’t ready. I needed her ready. “Listen, the fact Evan comes to me? It’s not okay. He needs to move on but he won’t.”

  The concern and worry in her eyes was that of a mother’s, and I knew I needed to be honest. “He’s here to protect you. To make sure you’re okay. He won’t leave until that’s completed. But he’s not happy here. He’s sad and should be going on to better places.”

  “It’s not his fault. He shouldn’t have to save me. I should have saved him.”

  I pushed my hair back out of my eyes and flinched at the pain in my shoulder. “To be honest, you should have. But just because you failed him doesn’t mean he will do the same to you. And you need to take care of your girls.”

  “What…” Her voice quivered. “What do we do?

  “We fight back. We get out of here. And Evan goes on to where he belongs.”

  Ellen was quiet for a moment. Finally she took a deep breath and said, “I’m scared.”

  I grasped her hand and looked into the hauntingly familiar gray eyes. “Me too. But we fight back for your daughters and Evan. And for us. We can’t let him win.”

  She nodded her agreement and I dropped her hand to search the drawer again for the key. Frustrated, I pulled the entire drawer out and dumped the remaining objects on the floor. It was loud, too loud, the metal clanging against the cement floor.

  Ellen’s body immediately became defensive. She stood up and whispered, “Get up!”

  I didn’t, continuing to sweep my eyes over the floor. A piece of bronze stuck out next to the wheel of the tool chest. It was a key. I had no idea if it was the right key or not, but I bent over to try to reach it with my good arm.

  “I found it!” I cried, holding it up to show to Ellen, but she had moved away from me, further down the work table.

  I almost had it between my fingers when I heard the door open. Maneuvering to my feet, I nudged the key under the box, out of sight, and moved closer to Ellen. John strode over to her and grabbed her by the arms.

  “What was that noise?” His red, blotchy eyes scanned the room. They skimmed past me and landed on Ellen.

  Her entire body went limp under the pressure of his hands and words. “Nothing. I tripped and fell into the worktable.”

  The lie was weak. I could tell Ellen had little to no fight left in her, and I was terrified she wouldn’t make it out of here. John shoved her back and she hit the table with her back and a shallow cry came from her mouth. When he passed me I could smell the alcohol oozing from his pores. He’d been drinking.

  “Clean it up,” he slurred. He picked up a box of nails from the worktable. With an evil glint in his eye, he tilted the box and tipped it sideways. The room echoed with the sound of showering nails on the hard floor. “And that.”

  Ellen seemed frozen in place. In my mind I shouted for her to move, to do as he said. He looked vicious and unstable as he wobbled on his feet. I found myself taking steps away from the two of them.

  Surprising me, he laughed and flung his hand across the surface of the table, scattering all the tools and materials to the floor.

  “I said clean it up!” John’s voice thundered through the room. Like a child throwing a tantrum, his hands balled into fists, spoiling for a fight. I thought he aimed to hit her—I was sure of it, but he turned and walked to the far side of the room, toppling boxes and papers as he went. The momentary relief that he had moved away from us disappeared when I saw he was between us and the door.

  Ellen slid to the floor and began picking up nails. I crouched next to her and touched her hand. “Stop. Stop doing this. Get up.” She didn’t respond. She looked so tired, so worn, but continued cleaning up the floor. “We have to get out of here, now.” I whispered, but again got no response.

  “You have to save her, Jane.” My eyes snapped to my right. Relief. Sheer, pure relief coursed through my body. Evan crouched next to me. “She can’t do it on her own.”

  “Oh, my god,” I cried. Tears sprang to my eyes. “You came!”

  “Promise me, Jane.”

  My eyes shifted to Ellen who seemed oblivious to our exchange. “I will. Where were you?”

  “In the wrong place. I’m so sorry this happened.”

  Now wasn’t the time for regrets. “Connor—did you find him?”

  He nodded. “I did. He’s coming.”

  Again, I was flooded with relief and covered my mouth with my hand.

  Ellen looked up at me in confusion, dozens of nails in her hands. “What? What happened?” she asked.

  Before I could even attempt to explain, a loud bang sounded from the other side of the garage. John mumbled to himself while tossing paper and boxes on the floor of the room. His actions were erratic and strange.

  I gestured to him. “What’s he doing?”

  “I have no idea,” Evan replied. “But you need to get out of here—fast.”

  “I found the key to the door. It’s under the tool box over there.”

  Evan moved to go get it, picking it up with ease. Ellen watched as the key floated through the air. “Is…”

  “Evan’s here.”

  “I can’t see him!”

  “No, you can’t, but he’s here to help us.” I said to Evan. “I had to tell her.”

  “I know. Tell her I love her.”

  “He loves you. So very much.” Ellen wiped her face. I had no idea if she believed me or not but right now, she needed all the hope she could get.

  “Tell her I need her to survive this. For herself and the girls.”

  I repeated his words.

  “Tell him I’m sorry.”

  Before I could explain that he could hear her, a loud crash shook the room, followed by the sound of liquid splashing on the ground. We both stood, Evan helping me to my feet, and watched John emptying several large containers of fluid over the floor.

  “What is that?” I asked before the smell hit my nose. It was gasoline. I surveyed the room again, the debris and papers towering high. Realization struck. He’d built a bonfire. “Oh, my God. We’ve got to get out of here! Evan!”

  John tossed the container to the side and gave us the weirdest, haunting look before walking back to the door that led to the house. “Goodbye, Ellen.”

  Before either of us could respond, we heard the unmistakable sound of a match being lit. Ellen gasped beside me, but I only watched, frozen in place, as he threw it into the soaked papers and cardboard in the middle of the room.

  The fire exploded, and a whooshing sound ripped through the air, immediately turning the pile of dry paper into an inferno. The heat was instantaneous, causing sweat to pop on my forehead. John slammed the door and I ran over to the door, jerking on the knob fruitlessly.

  “He locked it!” I turned to run to the other door. The fire raged between us and the outside door. There was no way around it.

  “Evan!” I searched for him in the smoke. I waved my hand in front of my watering eyes. We only had seconds to get out of there.

  He appeared next to me and whispered in my ear. I got on my knees and crawled to Ellen and reached up for her hand. I pushed through the pain from my arm and focused on her. She coughed and wheezed in the smoke.

  “Get down,” I ordered.

  “We need to crawl out of here, okay? Don’t stand, it’s too smoky.” I pulled my shirt up over my mouth and began moving in the direction of the door. Ellen was next to me, but it was getting hard to keep track of her in the billowing smoke. It was so hot and I could barely see. Fear gripped me.

  My chest constricte
d, filling with smoke, and my body revolted—forcing me to cough. “Evan,” I called, resting my head on the ground, seeking the coolness of the floor. I just needed some fresh air.

  Two arms wrapped around me and lifted me off the floor. I felt Ellen’s hand tug on my leg, but she lost her grip and let go. I twisted to see her through the smoke but it was so thick I could barely make out her face. I saw her eyes, though. The haunting, gray eyes that were so like her son’s pierced through the haze.

  Evan. He carried me to the open door only feet away. The instant we crossed the threshold into the dark, cool night, my body reacted violently to the fresh air. The reality of the situation struck me. “Your mom!” My throat hoarse and burned.

  “I can’t save both of you,” was all he said. Too weak to protest, I fell into his chest until I was passed over and cradled by a new set of arms. Strong arms. Warm arms. Arms connected to a human body.

  “Take care of her,” I heard him say.

  “Evan…” I choked, the fresh air and my smoke-filled lungs at conflict. My eyes hurt too much to open. I lay back while I was carried away from the heat until eventually the movement stopped and someone placed me on the cold ground.

  “Jane,” a panicked voice said. “Can you hear me?”

  “Hmm…” I tried to answer, but my throat was burned. My eyes were sore from the smoke, but I cracked them open. Connor leaned over me, his face tinged in yellow and red light from the fire at the house.

  “The ambulance is coming.” he said, running his hands over my arms, causing me to wince in pain. I could hear the sirens coming.

  I coughed again, leaning over to my side to catch my breath. Connor helped me up, pulling my back into his chest.

  “I was so scared,” he said.

  “Me, too,” I said, resting my head on his chest but looking across the yard. My arm hung limply by my side. The entire house was engulfed in flames now and firemen were rushing toward it with hoses.

  “Over here!” Connor yelled. He jostled my body when he waved people over. Seconds later, medics swarmed around us.

  “Did they make it out?” I asked, but no one heard me and if they did, no one answered. Paramedics lifted me from Connor’s lap and carried me back to the ambulance where they strapped an oxygen mask over my mouth. I kept my eyes on the house, though, hoping for signs of life, but the only thing I saw was devastation.

  I WAITED IN THE ambulance. Connor was the one who sat by my side and allowed me to bite his fist while the EMTs poked and prodded my dislocated shoulder, stabilizing it for the hospital. Connor was the one who wiped my dirty face with his shirt and wouldn’t let me look at the house as the ambulance drove away. The house itself was an inferno. My eyes burned from the smoke and intense heat. Neighbors had congregated in the street with the emergency workers and news crews. Because of the crowds, I was hopeful that maybe he couldn’t come right now, that he couldn’t get to me.

  I waited in the hospital, while my mother cried and hovered. The etched worry lines on my father’s face made him appear older than I had ever seen. I closed my eyes, hoping for the blast of cool air on my parched skin that followed Evan, the announcement of his arrival, but it never came.

  He never came.

  I was on alert, hoping Ellen would show up in the hospital, maybe even in the bed next to mine. I half-heartedly answered the police officers’ questions as they tried to figure out what happened. How had I stumbled into the middle of a vicious domestic abuse situation that ended up with two dead? They wanted to know how I got out alive. How did I get through that door?

  Dead, they said. A murder-suicide. The words were foreign to my ears and didn’t quite make sense, although I supposed they were completely accurate.

  I used my smoke damaged throat as an excuse not to talk and let them come up with their own conclusions. No one wanted the truth anyway, and I sure as hell wasn’t prepared to tell them what really happened in that house.

  Connor had known something was wrong when I didn’t call him back. Panicked, he went to the shelter and found my abandoned truck and my cracked cell phone on the ground. Right before he called the police, Evan appeared and told him where I was, so he could call help. So he could come get me.

  My boyfriend, as everyone was calling him, told this part of the story to the officers in the hall while I sat on the edge of the hospital bed, and listened—filing it away for my turn. When he came back into the room we shared a look. It was an understanding. We let them think Connor saved me just in time. That I managed to get to the door before the house burst into flames. That Connor was my hero.

  Connor was my hero. It seemed it took more than one person to save Jane Watts.

  At night I cried. I missed Evan and was hurt he never said goodbye. The guilt for letting him down, for letting his mother down, was unbearable. My parents thought I was upset over the kidnapping—that’s what they were calling it. They believed my nightmares were about the fire and John. Some were, but not all. My mother came to my room each night and smoothed my hair and hushed me back to sleep with water and large pills. I tried to focus on her, the mother I had, but in my head I kept seeing Ellen’s eyes, staring at me as she clung to my leg, as Evan took me away.

  DAYS LATER, I SAT on the bench in my room staring out the dormer window. My head leaned into the glass, letting the sunlight touch my face. It was early February, and it seemed like it was still cold. I pressed my forehead to the glass to gauge the temperature. It didn’t matter, it’s not like I had plans. I wore the same pajamas I put on when I got home from the hospital. I hadn’t left my room other than for necessity.

  A tap on the door drew me from my thoughts and I croaked out, “Come in.”

  Heavy feet crossed the floor and Connor sat down next to me on the remaining space on the tiny bench. Without speaking, he tugged me from my spot into his lap and wrapped his arms tight around me.

  “I missed you today.” He nuzzled his nose in my hair. I needed a shower and although that should have grossed him out, it didn’t.

  “I smell bad.”

  “Not to me.” He inhaled. His silliness brought a small smile to my lips. He was the only one that made me feel better.

  “Gross.” I rested my cheek into his soft cotton T-shirt and burrowed a little closer anyway. If he didn’t care, then why should I?

  “Ava asked if she could visit,” he said. “I said she should call you. And Mrs. Anderson gave us an assignment to do in groups. I told her we would work together, okay?”

  I nodded and shut my eyes; his voice hummed through his chest, and his arms made me warm. He made me feel better.

  “Anything?” I asked. I thought maybe Evan would go to him instead. There was always a chance.

  “No.” His arms tightened protectively. “Sorry.”

  “Why won’t he come back?”

  Connor shook his head, and his chin brushed across the top of mine, catching on my hair. He’d stopped shaving after the fire. “I don’t know. He may not be able to find you.”

  I pulled back and looked him in the eye. “Dead is dead. He should be able to come.”

  “Have you ever thought that maybe you were successful? That you did what it took for him to pass over?”

  “He hates me.” I dropped my eyes from his.

  Connor lifted my chin with his finger. “Impossible.”

  But it wasn’t. He asked me to do one thing. I promised him that I’d keep her safe, and I failed. Ellen never made it out of that garage. She died, while I lived.

  “I promised him.”

  “It was a promise you couldn’t keep.”

  AFTER A WEEK, MY parents made me go back to school.

  I was ready. Even school would be better than another day of bad television and my own thoughts. The night before, Ava called and told me Allison Morgan had started dating some kid named Rich Foster from the private Catholic school. He picked her up in a brand new Lexus, wearing a Catholic schoolboy uniform and they made out for fifteen minutes in the
student parking lot on Friday afternoon. She figured no one would be talking about me and my absence. Somehow I doubted this was true, but I gave her an A+ for effort.

  Currently though, I wasn’t thinking about school or Allison Morgan or anything else. I had my hands twined in the loose, wavy hair that grazed the bottom of Connor’s neck, while his were curled in the fabric of my shirt, twisting at my lower back. His lips tasted like peanut butter cookies and they were soft against my own.

  Connor made the bad thoughts lessen. When he entered the room, the weight of a thousand rocks lifted from my shoulders. He couldn’t fill the hole in my chest, but he came close. His friendship was the best thing that ever happened to me.

  The kissing? Icing on the cake.

  My dad was at the shop, and my mom had left to run an errand. They were still afraid to leave me alone; Connor had come over under the guise of working on our art project.

  After the fire, Connor could do no wrong in my parents’ eyes. They trusted him implicitly. He saved me, or so they thought, and in many ways it was true. Evan carried me out of that house, but Connor took care of me from that moment on. Our relationship shifted after that night. We were bonded by the truth, and I no longer worried or fretted over my insecurities and the stupid small stuff.

  “I think,” I said into his lips, “that we…” He cut me off, but I pulled back and pressed my fingers to his mouth. “I think the mortar is dry.”

  My fingers were cold against his warm mouth. We were outside, on the large, covered back porch of my house, positioned on one of the couches backed against the wall. Connor looked over my shoulder to the makeshift table we had set our project on. I had been ecstatic when he appeared and announced we needed to work on it outside. Cold but not freezing, I craved fresh air. The project sat, partially finished, behind us. It had been at least thirty minutes since we pressed and arranged our pieces of tile and glass into the soft mortar.

  Our project was an extravagant mosaic piece that Connor had envisioned. It was large and the mortar was smelly, so my mom said we could work on it on the porch. It was slow and tedious, with down time that we used for other distractions.