by Kit Colter
NINE LIVES
A Lifeline Novel
Book I
Kit Colter
To My Brother
For being my rock, my co-conspirator, and sometimes my conscience.
Chapter 1
Sitting at her mother’s kitchen counter, Erin saw the change immediately. She knew what was about to happen.
Ruth hung up the phone, fingers flexing around the plastic cover. “Espy says you’ve been seeing things again.”
Erin refused to look at her mother, who stood there with her fringe bangs and her jaw length bob, artificially curling around her ears in little hair-sprayed curves. Her mother—who kept bundles of blue corn nailed to the wall, tucked into corners, and stacked on windowsills, even after she cut away her long black hair. Who demanded Erin keep every inch of her own brown locks. Who closed the door on Grandma, on the two-hour drives to the Rez, on the stories she had sometimes told, even half-heartedly, about their people. Erin's mother, the Apache deserter, stood there with the phone in her hand, and for a moment, Erin was on the verge of finally demanding the truth about what happened two and half years ago. About what Grandma had said and why it meant they would never return to the Rez.
But she didn't. She never did. Instead, Erin just waited ... while her mother tried to think of something un-Indian to say.
“Espy’s still furious we ever put you on medication,” Ruth added, her tone edgy.
Erin pictured her cousin, Espy, and felt a flush of anger.
“You’re still taking your pills, aren’t you?”
Erin parted her lips to speak, then stood up. “I’ll be back at dinner.”
“Erin—”
Ignoring her mother’s protest, Erin grabbed her softball bat from the space behind the front door and strode out of the house. “I’ll be back!” she shouted over her shoulder. She finally had a break from the whole college catastrophe, and now her mother wanted to talk about seeing things. Things that had just cost Erin her job as a waitress at one of the best restaurants in Phoenix. Things that could only be kept at bay by medication that made her feel like the walking dead. Things that had ruined her life here at home in Las Cruces and were now threatening to do the same in Phoenix.
There was just no way.
Erin hurried across the porch to the garage and retrieved her bicycle. Checked the tires. The back was a little flat, but still ride-able, so she swung her left leg over the seat and jammed her foot onto the pedal. She grabbed her tattered green backpack off a nail in the wall and slung it over her shoulder.
Then she was practically flying.
Erin didn’t slow down until the softball diamond came into view. Standing on her bicycle pedals with her bat in one hand, Erin coasted across the pavement and swerved through the gap in the fence. Squeezing the brakes, she eased her bike to the ground and strolled out to the pitcher’s mound, digging her glove and ball out of her pack.
Returning to this place felt like returning to the scene of the crime. Even though that horrible night had happened miles away, this was where it all started. They said all murderers did this, slinking back to the scene to relive the event. Erin told herself it was her love of the game that brought her here, but she wasn’t sure. Dropping her pack on the dirt beside the pitcher’s mound, she slipped her right hand into the familiar embrace of the glove. The cool leather felt good against her fingertips, melding perfectly to every curve of her hand. Like it was meant for her. She breathed in the mingling scents of dirt, old leather, and cut grass, then picked up the softball with her left hand and let her fingers trace the seams.
Erin stepped onto the pitcher’s mound and closed her eyes. Remembering. She could hear the crowd whispering. The other team chattering. The chain link clinking against its posts. She could feel the runner on first and third, just waiting. The batter taking two practice swings, then stepping into the box. The catcher’s mitt hovering like a leather bull’s-eye behind home plate.
Erin imagined the feeling of her cleats beneath her, how they would roll as she stepped into the pitch. Looking forward, she imagined the catcher’s mitt a foot above the plate. Every ounce of her body seemed to align itself with the mark. Waiting.
She leaned into the pitch. Her arm vaulted into motion.
Release.
The ball rocketed forward, burning through the imaginary mitt and careening into the dirt behind the plate. Erin smiled, glad to see she hadn’t lost her touch.
Clapping sounded behind her. For a moment, Erin thought she was imagining the crowd’s applause. She turned around, and her face darkened. She took off her glove and dropped it, hands fisting at her sides. Her mind went to the bat lying at her feet.
The man continued clapping for a moment, slowly making his way to first base. Erin had not expected this. He’d been stalking her for two years—ever since her failed attempt at killing him—but he had never confronted her. He had stayed out of reach, almost out of sight, always lingering at the corner of her eye.
“Still throwing the meanest pitch in the state, I see,” he said, crossing his muscular arms over his chest. “You’ve gotten a little sloppy, but you’re still the best there is. I was worried your tendons might not heal very well after what you did.”
Erin glared at him, anger flaring inside her chest.
“Don’t tell me you’re still angry about what happened,” he said.
“No, I worked through it all with your damn lawyers,” Erin said. “Nice of you to send them to check on me, Coach.”
He laughed. “You know I’ve got to watch out for the team. Make sure some people don’t do things they’d regret. Not just that, but, honestly, I’d rather not have my jaw broken with a softball bat—or anything else for that matter.” He shrugged. “It’s not good for team morale.”
“How considerate of you,” Erin said.
“You know me,” he said. “I’m always thinking of you girls.”
“Lucky us.”
“Don’t try to turn it around like that, Erin. I was a good coach. Because of me, we were the best.” He took a few steps toward her. “I don’t suppose you’d come back. I could use you on the city league. There’s not another arm like yours in the state.” He scanned her body again, lingering on each curve before moving on to the next.
Erin inhaled edgily, remembering how he used to do that. How she told herself it didn’t mean anything. “What is this?” she asked forcefully. “You think you can get in my face and convince yourself you didn’t screw us out of a championship? You did.” She felt her nails digging into the flesh of her palms. “That’s what you cared about, wasn’t it? Winning?”
“Always did have a temper. It’s that extra red in your blood,” he said. “You never knew it, but that’s what made you so damn good. You were special, Erin.”
Erin slipped the toe of her shoe beneath the handle of her bat and flipped it into the air. Caught it. “That’s your excuse? I was just so damn special I drove you to it?”
“Well, what if it is? If I’d ever had half what you had, do you know where I’d be today? Do you know where I would have gone with it? And what were you doing? Nothing. Doing what you had to just to win the next game.”
His bitter eyes locked upon hers, and there was something inside she had seen before. Something cold and dark and alive. Something looking back at her. For a single instant, the shadows of his face changed—as if they’d been cast by someone else’s features.
Erin felt her breath catch in her throat, then tightened her grip on the bat.
“If you ever come near me again,” she warned, “I’ll finish what I started.”
* * *
Erin slipped into the house and closed the door. Then she didn’t move. She ju
st stood there with her face turned to the floor, unconsciously pressing the insides of her wrists hard against her sides. Hiding the scars.
“Erin?”
“Uh, yeah. I’m back.” She inhaled slowly, composing herself, then walked into the kitchen and leaned against the doorframe. Her mother was slicing potatoes for dinner.
“Your father will be back in thirty minutes,” Ruth said, glancing over her shoulder at Erin.
“About Espy—”
“We’ll talk after dinner,” Ruth said. “Why don’t you go upstairs and get cleaned up.”
Erin nodded and dragged herself up the stairs. Her bedroom walls were covered with posters hung at crooked angles. Resting on her dresser were half a dozen framed pictures of her friends, her family, her older sister and brother. Two rows of science fiction and mystery novels sat on the shelf, along with a few candles and a large glass cup full of brightly colored beads. A red lava lamp stood on the nightstand. The only poster that wasn’t tilted to one side or the other hung directly over her bed, displaying Olympian Jennie Finch with a grin and a softball in hand. Erin remembered the collection of baseball cards inside her nightstand. She thought about taking them out, then turned her eyes to the empty shelf just above her books where she used to keep her trophies. All six of them. After quitting the team, Erin put the trophies in storage where she wouldn’t have to look at them anymore. The only visible remnant from what felt like a lifetime of softball was a single picture of her fifth grade team. Her father had coached back then, before his promotion and insane work schedule. That was when she had fallen in love with the game.
Erin frowned at the reflection staring from the mirror, with her skin that was too light to be Apache, too dark to be white. She looked like the same girl who had lived in this room—who’d wanted nothing in the world more than some stupid softball championship. Her deep brown eyes were framed by yesterday’s thinning mascara. The haphazard ponytail that tumbled down her back was two shades away from true black. Her jeans and grey tank top contoured a slender silhouette that was slightly too tall and slightly too muscular to meet the feminine ideal. She still looked like the girl who lived on the softball diamond.
Erin let out a slight sigh of irritation and sank onto the bed.
She told herself not to think about any of it. Not the scars on her wrists. Not Coach and his bizarre campaign to stalk her until she killed herself just to get away from him. Not the five thousand times she’d picked up the phone to report him only to hang up again, paralyzed by the possibility that if she called the police, he would too. He’d finally tell the truth about what happened to him two years ago, about what she’d done, what she’d tried to do. And last but not least, she told herself not to think about the job she’d just lost. About the alleyway behind the restaurant. About the towering stranger she’d bumped into—the terror that had flooded her body at the sight of him. He’d looked normal, even attractive—with pale olive skin, dark eyes, and black hair. But there was something wrong about him. Something so, so wrong.
At least, that’s what her craziness had told her.
And she’d listened to it.
She had simply dropped the trash bags halfway to the dumpster, driven home, and locked the door. And lost her job.
That was three days ago.
Now, with the inevitability of bills she couldn’t pay stacking up in the back of her mind, with her mother talking about that horrible medication, with her insanity waiting—oh-so-patiently—just around the corner, Erin told herself not to think of anything at all.
Chapter 2
Darkness and red haze.
Erin realized she was awake and squinted, waiting for her vision to adjust to the glow of her lava lamp, then pushed her bangs aside. She tried to remember what she had been dreaming about, but her thoughts were distracted by movement. She felt a jolt in her chest.
Someone was in her bedroom.
The man from the alley was leaning against the wall with his eyes trained on her face. He watched her for an instant—his expression relaxed, almost entertained. Then he nodded at the ceiling above her bed.
Following his gaze, Erin spotted a pale shadow against the ceiling. At first she thought it was a spider or a small crack in the paint. Quite suddenly, the tiny shadow lengthened and curved, snaking across the paint to form a distinctive shape. It wasn’t a crack. Or a shadow. It was a silhouette. And it wasn’t in the ceiling; it was sinking through the ceiling.
Moving like silk on water, tendrils of spectral light gracefully draped themselves around a skeletal human figure. Lying face down in the air, the figure descended toward her, scarves of white radiance flowing closer. Closer. Slipping over her shoulders as the figure sank lower, its skeletal shape illuminated from within, its eyes so dark and depthless there could be no end behind them. Erin could feel the darkness inhaling her. Ever so slowly.
Erin screamed.
She leapt out of bed, tripping on her blanket and falling to the floor. Scrambled across the room, ripped open the door, and crashed into the lamp stand in the hall. She stumbled, pushed to her feet, and vaulted down the staircase. Dashed into the kitchen, ripped open the drawer, and grabbed a knife.
Something was behind her.
She whipped around, gasping as the knife came within inches of her mother’s face.
“M-Mom ...”
Ruth took a very slow breath, reluctantly shifting her gaze away from the knife to Erin’s face.
Erin’s hand relaxed, and the knife fell to the floor. “Oh, my god— Are you alright?” she asked.
“I heard you scream.” Ruth looked down at the knife, then at her daughter. “What were you doing with the knife, Erin?”
“What’s going on?” Phillip asked, rushing into the kitchen. “Who’s screaming?” He blinked against the glare of the kitchen light.
“I— I saw something. I mean—I mean I thought I saw a burglar. In my room,” Erin stammered.
“There’s a burglar in the house?” Phillip asked, alarmed.
“No, Dad, I just— There was a shadow. I got confused.”
“Phillip, go on to bed,” Ruth said. “She just had a nightmare.”
“You’re sure you’re alright?” Phillip asked.
Erin nodded, though everything in her mind said she wasn’t alright. Not even close. She was never going to be alright.
Phillip pursed his lips. “I’ll go check your room on my way back to bed. Got work early in the morning. But you be sure to call me if you need anything.”
Erin nodded again, more slowly this time.
With that, her father headed back upstairs. She listened to his footsteps and tried not to look at her mother.
“What happened, Erin?” Ruth asked.
“I don’t know.” She blinked back the moisture in her eyes.
Ruth bent down and picked up the knife, placing it quietly in the sink, then put a hand on Erin’s shoulder and ushered her to a chair at the table. Sitting beside her, Ruth studied Erin’s face for several quiet moments. “Can you tell me what happened?” she asked gently, but Erin could clearly distinguish tension below the surface. More than that. Frustration.
Erin shook her head, then clenched her fists against the shudders working their way through her body.
“You should have told me you stopped taking your medication,” Ruth said.
Erin remained silent.
“You’re unstable, Erin. I think you need to go back to the doctor.”
Erin shook her head. “No, mom. I can’t. They’ll just put me back on the medication, but it just—it makes me feel like I’m dying. I can’t do it anymore.”
“I can’t force you, Erin,” Ruth said. “You’re twenty years old. You’re an adult. But you have to start taking responsibility for this. If you won’t see the doctor and you won’t take medication, what are you going to do? You can’t live like this. We can’t live like this. Do you know how much I worry about you? Do you know how much time I spend wondering if you’re going
to make it? I just want to know that you’re going to be okay.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do. I thought— I thought I might go to the Rez. To grandma.”
“You have to do something real about this, Erin,” Ruth pressed. “There’s something wrong, and nothing in Mescalero can fix it. You know that.”
Erin didn’t respond.
“We can talk more in the morning,” Ruth said. “Now, do you want something to help you sleep? I think we have some sedatives left over from your father’s surgery.”
“That’s alright. I’ll be fine. I just need some time to think.”
“Are you sure?”
Erin nodded.
Ruth sighed. “Try to get some sleep.”
“I will.”
“If you need anything at all.”
Erin listened as Ruth’s footsteps trailed softly down the hall. She held her breath until the sound died away. She felt better alone. She could be crazy by herself. It didn’t hurt anyone if they weren’t around to see.
She had to leave.
Erin crept up the stairs, stepped over the shattered lamp, and walked to her bedroom doorway. Then she just stood there, staring. Her room was dark, her blanket tangled and lying sprawled across the floor. Erin scanned the ceiling, though she knew she wouldn’t find anything. She told herself nothing had ever been there.
No man. No monster. Not even a crack in the ceiling.
Holding her breath, body rigid, Erin reached through the doorway and flicked on the light. She stood completely still, waiting for something to happen. A full minute passed. Then, breathing once again, she eased through the door and pulled it closed without turning her back on the room.
Nothing.
She swallowed tensely, pushing her bangs out of her eyes. Then she faced the wall where the man had been standing. No, where there had not been a man. Where there had not been a stranger she’d bumped into one night, a stranger who may have never existed to begin with.
Erin shook her head. Had the alleyway behind the restaurant been empty that night? Had she imagined him then, too, or was her mind so rattled by Coach—by his endless pursuit—that she was imagining additional stalkers?