“Don't be frightened of me, child.” The darkness murmurs. “For you are the key.”
“The key to what?” I demand, sounding more resolute than I feel. I bite back the terror gripping around my throat and remain looking into the depthless pits of her eyes. I will not show fear.
“Come, Evie, it’s time to wake up the boy.” She answers instead.
Both release their hold on me, causing me to jerk back and stumble. I watch in horror as Evie kneels down next to Liam. As she lifts a white hand to caress his cheek, I mimic her posture and kneel down on his other side to attempt to stop whatever it is she is about to do.
“Wait.” I plead. “Don't do this, Evie. You love him, can’t you remember that? Look past all your anger and remember how you once felt for him. He was your first love and you were his. You can’t want this for him.”
“None of that matters now. He must pay for what he’s done.” She’s speaking in an eerily calm tone.
“Evie, he didn't do anything. What happened that night was an accident. I’m sorry it happened, I truly am, but what’s done is done. Liam doesn’t deserve to die now. That won’t make it right.”
“Maybe not for him, but it will for me.”
“Don’t you see what she’s doing to you? This isn’t you! The Evie Liam described to me was someone that loved life, someone who cared about others. Not this. Not this person full of angered vengeance and pain. The real Evie would never want this.”
“Stop talking!” Evie shouts. She reaches down and cups Liam’s face in both of her hands as I hold my breath. “Liam, wake up,” she murmurs now. “Open your eyes for me. I’m here now.”
My stomach rolls with the wrongness of the situation.
Liam’s eyes snap open and he looks up to me with mass confusion. He sits up slowly and instantly begins to shiver. I let out a slight sigh as I realize I’m the only one he can see.
“Breckin, what's going on?” he asks groggily. He rubs the tops of his arms with his hands trying to warm himself.
“Touch your hands to his temple,” Evie orders.
“What?” I snap.
“Is she here?” Liam wonders aloud.
I nod reluctantly.
He gets a better look at my face now and his mouth pops open in shock. “Breckin, your face!” He reaches up to my swollen cheek allowing his hands to hover just over my skin.
“It’s okay,” I reassure, trying to calm him. I clasp his out held hand in mine. “It’s nothing.”
“Like hell it’s nothing! We have to go, we have to get you out of here. Now.”
“To make him see me again.” Evie says with agitation. “I can only make him hear me, but you, you can give him the Sight.”
“But I don’t... I can’t... I don’t know how.” I admit.
“You’ve done it before. Do it again.”
“I honestly don't know how I did that, Evie. It was just that once. And I didn’t make him see anything. He could only hear you.”
“You're lying!”
“No, I'm not!” I counter, matching her agitation. “If you’re the one who helped him with that, then you can do it this time. I won’t help you.”
Realization seems to dawn on her and for the slightest moment I see her flounder. It wasn’t her after all. I was the one who truly allowed Liam to hear her before.
“Ah, she is blocked,” the dark fog hisses. Her words sound like cold water splashing onto fire, hissing and sizzling in the frigid night air. “Perhaps she is useless after all. And if she is useless, then there is no need for her.”
“Wait,” I plead.
Liam’s Nan instantly pops into my head and I recall the purple stone in my pocket. I pat at my jeans to find it and luckily come to discover it quickly. According to Nan, this seemingly useless looking rock is supposed to help with unblocking myself. Something churns deep down in my stomach, screaming at me that I shouldn’t do this. But if I don’t try, Liam and I will both be dead.
“If you don't fix this, Breckin, I'll make you suffer for the rest of your useless and meaningless life.” Evie growls. “Fix it, and fix it now.”
“Evie, please.” I beg. “Don’t do this. I know somewhere deep down inside the real you is there. Try to remember, Evie.”
“Stop!” she shouts.
Evie’s face is instantly in front of mine once more and the expression she holds surprises me. She is trying to appear terrifying, but behind her now dark eyes, I see it. I’m getting to her. Perhaps just a little, but still, that can be enough.
“Please remember,” I repeat. “I know you can. You’d never want to hurt Liam. You love him. Otherwise you wouldn’t be trying so hard to have him there with you.”
Evie then reaches a hand into the air and cracks it against my face so hard my head rocks back. “Now that I have your attention,” she spits. “I suggest you do what it is that you can do.”
“But I’m not sure how,” I murmur, rubbing my twice injured cheek.
“Find a way, you slag!”
“Perhaps she needs some persuasion,” the hissing figure at our side threatens. “It’s time to use your leverage.”
Just then, Liam’s face distorts in pain and he lets out a loud wail of agony as the darkness holds out a bony hand and twists as if she were squeezing and turning something inside of him. His head flies backward as his hands ball into tight fists clutching his stomach. He then starts to claw at his face as if he’s trying to peel off his own skin. His nails gouge the flesh at the sides of his cheeks as he continues to scream while the evil hand clutching the air above him then squeezes harder.
“STOP!” I scream.
Liam’s wailing ceases as he drops his hands and then wraps his arms around himself again. The look on his face is one of raw fear, his eyes wide and terrified. The color has drained from his face and he’s clenching and unclenching his fists. I can tell that he wants nothing more than to take both of us far away from here. His vulnerability fighting with his will to stay strong for me sends an instant jolt of determination and rage throughout my entire body replacing the remaining ice of fear.
I clutch the rock in my hand tightly to my body and close my eyes. At first all I can see is the normal blackness that comes with closing one’s eyes, however as I allow my mind to empty and will with all my might for this silly little stone to help me, a sparkling white light begins to form. It first starts from the outer limits of my vision and then fills my sight from beneath my eyelids. Yellows, golds, and iridescent white bounces around in sporadic lines and swirls, so bright that it causes me to squint even though my eyes are already closed. I feel warmer for a moment, as if a welcoming blanket of heat were being wrapped around me just like the day in my living room with Liam. And I become empowered somehow. I feel it. Power.
The purple rock in my hand feels warmer too, making my palms hot around it. I snap my eyes open then and realize that the same white light I saw beneath my eyelids now radiates from my hands and fingertips. It’s the same light that I’d had illuminating my skin the day I gave Liam the ability to hear.
I reach over to Liam's temple and entwine my fingers into his hair. His petrified eyes meet mine with such terror and uncertainty that it shatters my heart.
“It’ll be okay,” I mouth. Liam looks extremely unsure, but I nod, encouraging him to trust in me. I close my eyes again in concentration. When I hear Liam gasp, I know that I’ve succeeded. I open my eyes to look at him and see that he’s looking directly at Evie.
“Hello, my sweet,” she coos.
“Evie? What’s going on?” Liam wonders aloud. “Where’s Breckin? What’d you do to her?” His tone is more questioning than accusing and it stirs something deep inside me.
“Liam, I’m right here.” I murmur, trying to comfort him. He’s clearly very confused, and with good reason. He looks around through the falling snow beyond that still falls normally and gently against the night sky beyond the circle of the Hollow Site. His eyes then roam to where I still kneel next to
him and then my shattered heart stops beating.
Liam is looking through me.
“No,” I gasp.
“She had to go away,” Evie answers innocently. She sounds like she’s comforting a small child that’s just lost his mother.
“No! I’m right here!” I shout. “Liam! I'm here next to you!”
This can’t be happening. How can this be happening? Why can’t he see me? This isn’t how my gift is supposed to work. Allowing Liam to hear Evie was supposed to allow him to understand what’s happening. So he could at least hear what she has planned and then be able to have some kind of fighting chance to protect himself. But now he can see her and not me. It has to be the power of the Hollow Site working against me. Taking my own gift and making it more.
“Evie, what did you do?!” Liam yells.
“Take my hand,” she coaxes. Liam looks to her proffered hand uncertainly and shies back. “Don’t be scared,” she encourages. “Come, we’ll find her together. You can trust me. I promise all I wanted was to say goodbye. But I won’t leave until we’ve found Breckin.”
“Liam, no!” I gasp. But it’s no use. He can’t hear me.
“How can I take your hand if you're dead?” Liam asks hesitantly. “How am I talking to you, or seeing you?”
“That’s why I wanted to bring you here, my sweet. It’s the anniversary of our last night together. The Hollow Site has made it possible for us to interact one last time. Breckin helped. Thank goodness for her.”
Liam takes Evie’s outstretched hand at the mention of my name and stands up. I watch in horror as they walk slowly toward the wet road, hands entwined and eyes locked together. My throat begins to close in terror and I realize then that it must be time. Evie’s plan is set into motion and with the help of the darkness by her side, I’m sure that she’s going to get her way in having Liam now.
“He won’t go with you!” I shout. “Liam will have a choice, too. Did you ever think of that?”
Evie’s eyes only slightly move away from Liam’s gaze to where I am and I know that she’s heard me. I get up to run to him although knowing it’s useless, but I will not give up. My quest to cross Evie over has now turned into a quest to save Liam’s life.
“He’ll choose to go with the angel, Evie. He’ll choose the path of light when you kill him. He’d never go with something so vile and repulsive as you.”
Evie slowly turns to look at me with eyes that could disintegrate boulders. I continue on anyway. If I don’t succeed, I'll be dead as well and right now I don’t care. If Liam dies, I’ll want to die right along with him. I no longer feel scared as the power I’ve summoned comes back to me. The darkness hisses at my side but I no longer give a damn. The warmth of the stone in my hand again begins to illuminate and the empowerment I’d felt from it returns as well.
“I think you know that, Evie. He’s not like you, not anymore. You can’t make him feel guilty or sad any longer. He’s moved on from that.”
“It’s his guilt that will bring him to me!” she screams back.
“It’s only the guilt you made him feel! None of it is real! It’s the guilt you push onto him!”
Awareness hits me like a whip. How I didn’t see it before, I don’t know. I’ve been so blind. This changes everything.
“The sadness and the pain he’s felt with my death will be enough. He’s never forgiven himself and he’ll have no other choice than to come with me.”
Keep her talking. I have to keep her distracted. “Everyone has a choice. Even you, Evie. You can choose to stop this now and let Liam go, just as he’s learned to let you go.”
“No! He hasn’t let me go, not yet.”
“Yes, he has. You no longer affect him the way you once did and that makes you angry. You may have once been able to bring Liam to his knees in guilt, but you can’t do that. Not anymore. Your spirit attachment is weaning.”
“That was child’s play for what I'm going to do to him next.”
“I understand now. The only reason you were able to attach to him so easily was because he was so weak. He did feel guilty. He was lonely and depressed. Ghosts like you feed off of that; the lonely isolation and fear of a living person. It makes you stronger. That’s why you said I was ruining everything, wasn’t it? Because of me, his love for me, he was letting all of that go, and with that your attachment faded. He became stronger, and you weaker.”
“Shut up! Stop talking!” Evie screams back at me.
This is bad. If Evie and Joseph have both attached themselves to Liam, he’s in more danger than I thought. But Evie knows what she’s doing, and Joseph doesn’t.
I continue to scream out to Liam, clutching the stone in my hand so tightly that it cuts into my palm. The warmth I felt before from the light encasing me is now gone, replaced with a coldness I’ve never experienced. A cold so bitter that it brings pain with its chill. Please don’t leave me, light. Encase me in your goodness and purity. Give me strength. The trees viciously morph back to life and the rain liquefies into pellets that once more sting against my skin. I hear the sinister darkness laugh by my side and I look over toward her, however she isn’t looking at me. She’s looking beyond to the bend in the road. What I see next convulses painful shudders all over my body and I instantly heave and vomit.
“You may have successfully unblocked yourself, girl. But you cannot yet control it so therefore you are still nothing against me,” the darkness growls. “Evie is under my influence now and soon the boy will be, too. The time has now come.”
I continue to look around the bend in the road to where the evil darkness gazes, and there against the whipping trees and falling snow beyond are reflections of oncoming headlights. There is a car coming and Liam stands directly in its path. I turn my head back the other way and see another set of headlights headed straight for them. Two cars are barreling their way toward Liam leaving him no escape.
I scream as loud as I can – so loud that I feel the blood vessels in my eyes burst and cold air burns its way out of my throat and mouth. I wail for Liam to fight, to think of me, that I love him. My lungs hurt to the point of collapse as I yell so hard and so long that I fall to the ground. Rain continues to pound against my face causing new blood to trickle down my cheeks from the cuts already slashed into my skin. I let out one last scream of desperation to Liam.
But it’s useless.
My eyes widen as both cars come around each end of the road and head toward Liam. I start when I see that they’re both shimmering and shifting against the images of the snow and wind. I focus on the first car more closely as its headlights flicker and falter, then shine like the moon against the stars as it nears. I glance at the second and see that its swerving as it hits the rainy conditions of the Hollow Site, veering into the other lane. I swear under my breath when I realize that it’s Liam’s car coming around the bend and I recognize Joseph’s car from Evie’s memory now driving into his path.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Both sets of headlights draw closer, shining against the unsteady tree trunks beyond as I watch with a horrified and disbelieving gaze. I lift a foot to run toward Liam but am stopped against my will. Invisible constraints wrap around my wrists, ankles, and waist. I can do nothing now but wait and watch as the cars draw closer and closer toward him. I am helpless. Evie seems to have Liam in some sort of trance so that he won’t notice either of them and I don’t understand how she’s doing it. I feel whatever fear and anxiety that had been holding me back explode into thousands of tiny pieces, shattering from within my body giving me the same feeling of empowerment I’d felt before. It had never left me, I had only doubted it.
The invisible restraints close around me to the point of unseen pain, but it only infuriates me further. The pain it brings with it makes my insides twist and my skin burns beneath the invisible cuffs as they tighten and pull against me. It only fuels me.
“No.” I spit. I feel the anger inside me pulsing with every heartbeat. My body is shaking and things
around me are now tinged with red as I fight to stand. My legs want to give way as I plant an unsteady foot against the ground. I fall back to my hands and knees when trying to stand, but I won’t give up.
“What did you say?” The darkness beside me sneers.
“No. No, this won’t happen. I won’t let it.” My voice is low and harsh. It isn’t a voice I’ve ever used before, nor did I know that my little voice was capable of sounding this way.
“You won’t let it? But you are helpless. You have no choice,” she antagonizes. “You are weak and frail. You are nothing.”
I get up from my knees even though the restraints continue to battle against me and turn to the dark being at my side. It takes every ounce of strength I have not to shy away from her as her skin bubbles and melts, her jagged teeth smiling at me like a horrific jack-o-lantern. But I step closer. She lets out a small hiss as I approach as if in warning to get back. I look deep into her bottomless, black eyes with pools of smog and oil swimming in their sockets with sheer adrenaline and fury coursing through my veins. I know in this moment as the world I believed to be true seems to be crumbling and swaying around me, that I am not as weak as I once believed myself to be.
“There is always a choice,” I growl.
“Not now. He’s long gone. I don’t think you quite understand the lure of the Hollow Site for those like Evie. At the marking of her death, an energy was left behind. In this case, Evie’s energy was angry and confused. That is why I was able to appear to her in the moments after her death. If she had been willing to pass on feeling only the purity and acceptance of her death, then I would not have been able to show myself to her. But her resentment tainted her soul, thus leaving a window of opportunity for me.”
Hollow Sight Page 64