by Sara Clancy
“What?” Benton’s face scrunched up. “How is that possible?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “And I am far too big of a person to mention that if you had agreed to let me do a few non-invasive tests, we might actually have some answers right now.”
He slid his eyes to the side to look at her. “And you would never rub it in like that.”
“Of course not,” she smiled. “No matter how right I was, and consequently, how wrong you were, I would never tell you I told you so.”
The swift laugh that bubbled from him transformed into a coughing fit. Tears lined the corners of his eyes when he was finally able to draw in another breath. Nicole rubbed his shoulders and he relaxed into the touch.
“Okay. Fine. You can do your tests.”
“Oh,” she said swiftly. “If you think that’s for the best.”
“Shut up,” he smiled.
“Why do you think your scream was different?” she asked idly. “I mean, this time sounded really different from last month.”
“The first time I was scared,” he mumbled sleepily. “This time, I was a lot angrier than I was afraid.”
“Well, next time I’ll remember to get you angry,” she said.
“Next time?”
“I didn’t have time to put the symbol up straight away. I mean, I went back and sketched one under the table with permanent marker, but it’s a morgue. It has to get cleaned a lot, right? At some point, someone’s going to find it and scrub it off. And that’s assuming the symbol does anything, anyway. I’m guessing, sooner or later, something else is going to come our way.”
His eyelids began to shut. “Great.”
“Hey, we’re doing pretty well,” she protested. “This time it didn’t even take us a week. I’m sure we can take care of whatever comes next in less than a day.”
“It’s good to have a goal.” He tried to smirk, but was too tired and sore to make it work.
Slowly, he sunk down to the side, falling steadily until he was using her thighs as a pillow.
“I thought I stank,” she chuckled.
“You do. What is your mom doing?”
“Still struggling to reconcile with the knowledge that the paranormal exists with what she knows about the world,” Nicole said, as she began to trail her nails gently along the curve of his ear.
With a contented sigh, he stared at the back of the front seats, watching the shadows disappear as the sun continued to rise. The drugs pumped in his system, masked his pain and worked with his fatigue to draw him closer to sleep.
“That’s probably going to take a while,” he mumbled.
“Most likely.”
He was silent for a long moment. “My hand hurts.”
“I know. Try and sleep. I’ll wake you if anything good happens.”
Benton hummed, enjoying the soft curve of her fingers, the loose airy feeling the drugs gave his limbs. In the silence, he listened to her breathing and relaxed against her warmth.
“You’re going to help me, right?” he asked. “With whatever comes next?”
“Of course. That’s what best friends are for. And don’t argue with me on that. I have earned ‘best’ friend status.”
“Yeah, you have,” he smiled.
Unable to fight it anymore, his eyelids shut, and his dreams emerged and swept him away.
* * *
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
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