by Rachel Jonas
In fact, I made up in my mind that, as soon as my emotions weren’t running so high, I’d apologize for snapping at them when they were just trying to talk. They were right to acknowledge that something was off with me. I hadn’t been myself for weeks now and I should’ve seen this conversation coming from a mile away.
Just the other day, I was about to shower when I remembered I needed to borrow my mom’s shampoo. I put my robe on and got to her door to ask for it and, as if she hadn’t been Mom to me since forever… I proceeded to call her by her first name, Rebecka, instead.
Like… it just rolled off my tongue as if I’d never called her anything else.
As soon as it left my mouth, hers went slack and the eyes I’d always found so warm and comforting, went hollow. I tried my best to cover it up with a joke, pretending to have called her by name on purpose, but her expression said it all.
I wished so badly that I could’ve taken it back, filtered my stupid mouth and called her Mom like I was thinking at the time, but… that wasn’t what came out. Thinking about it now, it only made me feel even more off than I already had been lately.
I was close to both my parents, but, like most girls, there was a special bond between my mother and I. There wasn’t much I couldn’t tell her and she never talked down to me like I was some kid who didn’t know anything about life. While there may have actually been some truth to that, she never made me feel that way.
Friends, trouble at school, boys… none of it was off limits with her. My dad tried to be cool and open-minded, too, but with Mom it was just natural. Part of who she was.
I’d been looking forward to telling her about Nick like I would have been to tell a sister or a friend. In so many ways, I guess she was a friend.
The best.
I grabbed a pair of socks from the basket on the floor of my closet and closed the double-doors, now thinking about a certain dark-haired, blue-eyed boy who only lived a hop, skip, and a jump away. I planned to read for the rest of the night if I could concentrate long enough—between the talk with my parents and now, thoughts of Nick—but before I could even take a step toward my bookcase, there was a… flicker.
I couldn’t describe it any other way.
It was a flicker of… Liam; of his world.
When I was asleep, I accepted that he sometimes forced his way inside my head. That was out of my control. However, right now, while I was wide awake, standing in the middle of my bedroom thinking about Nick, no less, no one else should have been in my head.
Over the backdrop of my bare, yellow walls, was a vision of endless forest, stretching deeper than my eyes could see. There was darkness. Everywhere. The only source of light around me being the silver glow of the moon. I lifted my head, expecting to see the whirring, white ceiling fan above, but instead… stars… and the branches of tall, thick trees towering over me like a canopy.
My chest rose and fell with heavy, erratic breaths, trying to grasp at reality as a dream seemed to be taking over without warning.
Was I asleep? Had I laid down and dozed without remembering? That had to be it. Otherwise… otherwise, it would mean I wasn’t in control anymore. It would mean I’d lost my mind completely and needed to be committed ASAP. So… I needed to believe I was asleep right now.
Had to be.
I lowered my eyes to look straight ahead again and, before me, there were arms, pumping back and forth smoothly like well-oiled cogs—inked and muscular in ways that were both familiar and foreign at the same time.
He was running. Hard. Fast. Faster than I’ve ever seen anyone run before. Either from or toward someone or someplace.
It was hard to tell.
My heart raced like I imagined his must have been, feeling it lurch when he proceeded to dodge tree trunks so closely it made me gasp; the way he cleared large rocks and logs in his path, hurdling them with ease. His vision was as keen now as it was in daylight, not seeming bothered at all by the overwhelming darkness coming from all directions.
I began putting things together. When someone’s being pursued, they typically check to make sure whoever, or whatever, is chasing them, isn’t moving in closer. But Liam never glanced back. Not even once.
He was only focused straight ahead, which meant he was the pursuant.
For the fraction of a second, I thought I caught a glimpse of a tall shadow moving up ahead, but there weren’t any distinguishable features. Just mass and… darkness.
Who was he chasing?
Why?
Fury and determination seeped into my bones—all as I watched the distance closing between myself and the tall shadow.
But none of these feelings were my own. They belonged to Liam. It was so real, so strong. I’d never felt this before. Seeing through him was never more than a spectator sport—I’d sit back and watch as life went on around him, but this time… it was like he and I were fused, sharing more than just his vision.
We shared emotions.
Listen to me. I sound completely certifiable.
“I’m schizophrenic,” I mumbled absentmindedly, thinking a split personality was the only feasible explanation for what I was seeing, but then all thought left me when, the next second, the scene playing around me just… stopped.
He stopped… dead in his tracks as if someone flipped a switch, killing the power that fueled his pursuit a moment ago. All movement ceased and the figure I thought I spotted faded into the distance. Liam’s chest heaved, drawing his massive shoulders and arms up and down in rhythm with it.
It all seemed to happen the moment I spoke aloud, diagnosing myself. The second the words left my mouth, my world seemed to spill over into his instead of it being the other way around and I felt strangely uncomfortable with that.
It was like he became… aware of me.
It’d never been that way. I never felt this exposed, this vulnerable.
My heart picked up speed, racing as Liam’s gaze darted around—behind him, to each side, in circles, above him—as if he was searching. At first, I tried to convince myself he was scanning for the shadow he’d been hell-bent on chasing, but… I couldn’t shake the feeling that… he was looking for me, trying to find the source of the voice.
My pulse beat wildly behind my ears and my mouth felt dry. Both hands were balled into sweaty fists as a dumb idea hit me at the exact same time I acted on it. I do that sometimes—act without pausing to think things through. This was definitely one of those times.
The words, “You can hear me, can’t you?” fell from my lips and, almost immediately, I wanted to take them back, knowing that if I fed into my own paranoid delusions, it’d do nothing but make them feel more real.
And these already felt real enough.
Too real.
The next moment, it was like a million butterflies were set free inside my stomach when Liam dropped down to the dirt on his hands and knees, frantically clearing away leaves, sticks, and other debris. It seemed like he’d forgotten all about the chase that started this whole hallucination in the first place. Now, he was solely focused on a new, more pressing task.
He kept one of the sticks in his hand and I watched closely as he dragged the sharp tip through the dirt. His hand went still and he stared at the ground, focusing on whatever he’d just drawn on the forest floor.
Straining my eyes, I focused on what I now believed to be letters; letters I couldn’t quite make out. Before catching myself and realizing how crazy it was to even consider it, I nearly knelt down to get a closer look. There was a sudden surge of desperation to see whatever Liam saw as our worlds bled together, as his reality became my own.
It was so dark and I couldn’t see past the blur—the one I believed to be intentionally blocking me, the same haze that acted as a barrier whenever Liam looked into a mirror or a window’s reflection. A fresh wave of frustration blazed its way up my spine, making beads of sweat dot my hairline as I strained, determined to fight past the fog. It was too hard, though. I knew I couldn’t break through
and, in a moment of desperation, I spoke again.
“I can’t… the words… they’re not clear.”
I was panting like Liam was, but I hadn’t been chasing anyone.
Or… maybe I was. Maybe I was chasing him, hoping for answers, hoping to understand why he invaded my head like this. Hoping to understand whether these experiences were somehow linked to my being adopted like I was beginning to suspect.
“I can’t see the words,” I repeated, hearing my own desperation as I finally gave in, dropping to my knees, my posture mimicking Liam’s. That tie between his emotions and mine seemed to strengthen and it took my breath away.
“Can you hear me?” I repeated one final time.
My chest felt tight as Liam’s frustration bled into me like lava, filling me with rage and venom just as completely as it did him. Maybe he was desperate, too; desperate for me to see, to understand.
I focused on his fist when he held it out in front of me… or in front of him… it was hard to distinguish between the two anymore. In the fraction of a second it took to blink, his hand reopened and… I fell back against my bed, feeling carpet beneath my fingers as I wished there had been more room to inch backwards from what I saw.
At the center of Liam’s palm, a white-hot fire burned bright—fire that didn’t consume his skin. As the flames danced in his hand, they illuminated three letters that shifted my world on its axis.
His answer to my question: “YES.”
He… heard me.
—
Chapter Four —
Nick
I should’ve gone for it—should’ve just asked if she had plans tonight instead of punking out.
If I’d just said the words, maybe she would’ve said yes and I wouldn’t have been standing at my bedroom window, staring at her house, wondering. She was new here, had zero friends, and probably needed to get out from under her parents for a night.
I’m an idiot. I should’ve asked.
There was only one room lit on the entire second floor of her house and I guessed from the rainbow-colored curtains, it must have been her room. They were sheer and I’d seen a figure pass in front of them a few times. She was probably bored to tears tonight, sulking, thinking about wherever she lived before here, missing her friends, missing having plans on Friday nights.
Man, I should’ve just freakin’ asked.
Pretty much every time I passed her in the halls, our eyes found one another’s—hers an intense shade of brown that matched the streaks in her dark hair. I don’t know what possessed me to actually speak to her this afternoon, but I rode the wave of courage that pushed me to her side with that umbrella. I was already trying to think of an excuse to talk to her and the heavy rain gave me that.
Gazing across the yard at Evie’s house, I passed in front of my window again, clutching the game ball from our team’s win at the district finals last year. The guys and I were going out to grab a bite tonight and it would‘ve been the perfect opportunity to introduce her to everybody. There were likely to be a bunch of girls tagging along—there always were—and she might have made a few acquaintances.
I grew up here and had played sports all my life, so I didn’t know what it was like to be on the outside, but I imagined it was lonely.
Lonely and incredibly boring.
From what I could tell, Evie seemed cool; she probably just needed a chance to open up and get to know people. I was sure the others would take to her just like I had.
The surge of commotion coming from downstairs meant my brothers had just shown up and the racket they made coming through the front door distracted me from thinking about Evie.
I was only frustrating myself anyway, going over the missed opportunity in my head.
Booming voices and heavy footsteps was all I could hear now and I swear I saw more of these guys now than I did when we actually lived under the same roof. They always found an excuse to come around—from wanting to get in on the home-cooked meals, to two of the three not having cable and showing up to watch sports on the big screen. They also showed up to just about all my games, so there was never time to miss them.
We’d always been close, raising hell, driving our parents crazy. Especially Mom with the loud stampedes through the house, roughhousing, all that good stuff. None of us had ever been small, not even when we were small, so it came as no surprise that, by the start of high school, each of us had gotten accustomed to ducking to enter a room. And when the four of us got together, we just naturally took up a lot of space. Mom tolerated us, keeping a ‘boys will be boys’ attitude when we got wild, but only until we broke something or put a new hole in a wall. Dad was an expert at patching those by now and we kept tons of extra paint in the basement just in case. It was just this past year my mother finally started moving some of her antiques out of storage, placing them around the house. Apparently, we were finally old enough to be trusted.
Hopefully, she wouldn’t regret it.
This time, they stopped by to pick Dad up for their ‘camping trip’. I had no clue what went on at these things other than a ton of drinking, but they’d gone once every few months for the past five or six years.
And never once had I been invited.
As the youngest, I was left out of a lot, but I’d gotten used to it. Yeah, we were all close, but they treated these getaways like some kind of rite of passage. The threshold was age twenty, which meant it started out being just Dad and Richie—the oldest—six years ago. Then, a few years later, when Ben hit twenty, he started tagging along, too. Now that Kyle had turned twenty about eighteen months ago, he got regular invites, too, which just left me. And seeing as how my eighteenth birthday was still a week away, I had a couple years ahead of me before I’d be included.
Okay, so maybe I could relate to Evie feeling like an outsider.
I got smart junior year. Whenever I knew my dad and brothers were going camping, I made sure to keep busy, too. Hence the reason my teammates would be dropping by any minute to pick me up. I was a little too old to sit around the house sulking all weekend.
I grabbed my phone and wallet from the dresser before heading downstairs. At the bottom of the steps, I caught the tail-end of a conversation between Ben and Dad. Something about their usual spot being no good tonight. Ben always went alone to set up, but this time, someone was already in the area.
Dad thought for a moment, keeping his eyes trained on the floor after Ben gave him the rundown. “Probably best to move a little further out, then. Closer to your grandfather’s place,” he added. “We keep up quite a bit of noise, so let’s not risk spooking him.”
There was a look on Ben’s face, one that was hard to read. “Spook him? I don’t think we’d have to worry about that,” he scoffed. “Whoever it was… chased me. As in, they were fast—fast enough to actually catch me if I hadn’t lost them.”
My father’s brow tensed as he gave Ben’s statement some thought. But then, just as quickly as the expression came, it left again when they realized I was in earshot. They dropped the conversation like it never happened and two tight grins came my way. Like the kind people force when they think you’ve overheard something you’re not supposed to.
I didn’t see what the big deal was, though.
My father’s wide shoulders shifted toward me until we were face to face, my height matching his since the start of this past summer. “Whatcha got planned this evening?” he asked.
I shrugged with both hands in the pockets of my jeans. “Me, Chris, and Lucas are meeting up with the team for burgers. After that, I’ll probably just come back home, maybe keep Mom company for a little while.”
He nodded, still sporting the ‘I wonder if Nick heard’ face. So, since he was already suspicious…
“What’s that you were saying about someone in the woods?” I blurted.
Ben crossed his arms over his chest as he rocked back on his heels, glancing toward our father instead of answering the question himself.
“It’s probab
ly nothing. Sounds like your brother just had a little run-in with a new local.” Dad’s answer was vague, but this time, I was pretty sure it had nothing to do with his and my brothers’ tendency to handle me with kid gloves. Seemed like he really didn’t know much more than that.
“But just to be on the safe side, make sure you and your friends stay out of the woods tonight. That means no off-roading, no sneaking girls out there… no drinking by the reservoir,” he added.
My hand shot to the back of my neck and I looked away, positive my face was bright red.
“Yeah… didn’t think I knew about that, did you?” he asked, staring me down.
I figured the safest thing to do was not answer.
“We’ll talk about the fact that swimming at the reservoir and underage drinking are illegal later. For now, just… steer clear of the area for a while. At least until we find out who this guy is and what his M.O. might be.”
“Understood.” I took off after that, wanting to avoid further conversation about the drinking. My new destination was the living room. I’d wait for my friends there.
Ben was behind me, but breezed past when he saw Kyle on his way in from the opposite direction. They both raced to the couch, lunging for the remote like two big, overgrown kids.
“Settle down and turn it up,” Richie warned, aiming his ear toward the TV to hear over the commotion. He was already seated on the large sectional—the one our parents had custom-built to accommodate our stature. It was deeper than most to keep us from having to sit with our knees pressed to our chests.
On the television screen, a red, ‘Breaking News’ banner scrolled across the bottom while the volume slowly increased. A wide-eyed reporter spoke of a sinkhole, a massive one down in Florida. This week alone, I’d heard of three others popping up all over the map, but apparently, the latest had drained part of the everglades.
She spoke of the serious impact it would have on the region’s ecosystem and I listened harder. What started as small, isolated anomalies in towns no one’s ever heard of, had now spread to national and international news. The events, prior to the Florida sinkhole, were barely even mentioned. Most were somewhat insignificant—increased rainfall and severe storms, warm weather where it was usually cool, cool temps where it was usually warm. Things people noticed, but nothing serious enough to warrant mass panic.