by May Dawson
“Are you ready to get to work?”
“I haven’t even had breakfast yet,” I said.
She sighed, almost under her breath. “You all slept in. It’s late.”
“Because we spent the night with angry ghosts. Quite the location you have here for a reform school.”
Parrish crossed her arms over her chest. But her voice was still calm and cool when she said, “Shall we go to the lounge?”
I didn’t have anywhere else to be. So I followed her as she turned and led me down the hall to the lounge.
Tom was pushing the gray cart back down the hallway. Parrish called, “Nurse Tom. Please bring that back—no one has had time for breakfast yet.”
Tom pushed the cart another few feet, as if he hadn’t heard, and then executed the world’s slowest k-turn across the hallway. He pushed it back, his face thunderous, and left it alongside the door to the lounge.
“Thank you,” Dr. Parrish said, as if she hadn’t noticed.
I looked over the contents of the cart: little single-serve cardboard cereal boxes, a bowl of bananas and apples, shelf-stable boxes of milk and juice. Industrial food. I didn’t look his way, but I could feel Tom right there, his hands on the handle of the cart. His glower might have been meant to be intimidating, like when he looked at Levi and Ryker with that spark of dominance, but his gaze on my body felt dirty.
I ignored him, forcing myself to slow down and take my time picking out my breakfast, even though my hands were beginning to shake. I took a box of Wheaties—god, I needed Wheaties these days—and a banana, and turned on my heel to go into the lounge.
“Thank you, Tom,” Dr. Parrish said loudly. She stood in the doorway to the lounge. “Make sure the boys get something if they’re… not coming.”
“Oh, we’re coming,” Ryker said from the doorway. “We wouldn’t leave her alone with you.”
Dr. Parrish rolled her eyes. “You’re more melodramatic than the afternoon soaps, Ryker.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Ryker said. “We don’t have cable.”
“Oh, is that why you hate me?” Dr. Parrish asked, grinning. She glanced at me, inviting me to share the joke. I stared back at her. I didn’t want to be rude, but I felt like my loyalty was to the boys who had talked me through my nightmares and protected me from the ghosts. Not the woman who had left me locked in here.
“Do you want the list?” Levi joined us in the lounge. His blond hair hung loosely around his face, brushing over his broad shoulders, and for the first time, I felt my heart skip a beat when I looked at him.
“Let’s move along,” Dr. Parrish said hastily. “Ellis, I want to work today on training you to follow after Ashley.”
“Fascinating,” I said. “How do we do that?”
“Take a seat,” Dr. Parrish said, indicating the couch.
I sat down gingerly on the center cushion, not sure how clean the couch was, given the dusty state of the hall. Levi sat beside me. His tall, powerful body took up a lot of space, even with his arms folded over his chest, and I felt my hip slide slightly towards him. Then Ryker sat on the other side, and he didn’t make an attempt to leave me my space like Levi did; Ryker leaned back, his long legs sprawled out in front of him, his arm on the back of the couch. I breathed in that scent of his soap and his body with his movement.
“Could I have a sliver of your attention?” Dr. Parrish asked, slightly caustically.
There was a smugness on Ryker’s face as he looked back at her. As if there was a battle for my favor, and it was glaringly obvious that these boys were winning. That I was distracted by them.
But how could I not be?
She cued up a DVD. “This is footage we have from the last Lilith that we know of. I thought it might help you to see what it looks like from our plane when you go into the next.”
“Parrish—” Ryker warned.
“I’m not going to hold back any secrets from Ellis,” Parrish said. The insinuation that Ryker and Levi were keeping secrets from me was strong. I could see Ryker set his jaw, irritated. He crossed one leg over the other at the knee.
I had felt safe between them, but now I could feel the tension in both their bodies.
The screen came to life. It was a white industrial-looking room; it could have been one of the rooms in this hall. A woman with short, dark hair in a pixie cut lay with two men, their heads close together and their bodies forming a triangle; they all held hands.
“They don’t have their five,” Ryker said. “They aren’t strong enough separate to go into the Far.”
“They didn’t have a choice,” Parrish said.
The camera closed in on their faces. The woman was older than me, beautiful, with long, noble features and a strong, full-lipped mouth. The camera continued to close in on her face and upper body. Her eyes were closed, but her eyelids fluttered rapidly with the movement of her eyes beneath. As if she were having vivid dreams. Her lips moved the same way, soundlessly.
Her mouth twisted in a scream.
A slash opened up her chest, laying open red flesh.
“No,” Levi said, sitting forward; he twisted towards me. “This isn’t right, Parrish. It’s not decent to use their deaths like this—”
But even though I could feel his pull, that he wanted me to look away, I couldn’t stop watching the screen. I had to know what happened next.
The camera pulled out, showing all three of them. The man on the left’s throat was cut now. A steady gurgle of blood, rendered almost black by the dulled colors on-screen, pooled onto the floor steadily, until it ran into the woman’s hair.
The man on the right sat up, drawing a desperate, panicked breath. He scrambled to check the other man and the woman. He pulled off his t-shirt and tried to stem the bleeding in her chest. After several desperate, bloody minutes of work, he sat back and buried his face in his hands. His shoulders shook.
The man looked up towards the camera. His face was tear-streaked. He looked into the camera like he hated us all, and then he walked off camera. The camera began to pan out, and then moved towards him, trying to re-focus. It caught just his shoes for a second, and the trail of bloody prints he had left behind him on the white tile.
“Don’t,” Ryker said, putting up a hand to shield my eyes, but he was twisting his own body too to avoid looking at the screen. “It dishonors their memory.”
I would have pushed his arm away, furious that he was trying to boss me, but I saw Levi from the corner of my eye. Levi ducked his head, averting his eyes.
I glanced up over Ryker’s calloused palm that hovered in front of my eyes.
So I saw as the camera found the man’s face. He looked right into the camera.
Before he fell forward, the bright blade of a sword held against his chest. I gasped out loud at the silent fall, the sudden death.
Then I pressed my hand to my lips. Now that there was nothing left to see, just the still screen, the bodies frozen in their intermingled blood, I knew Levi was right. She shouldn’t have shown us this. There was no educational value to watching lives snuffed out in front of us.
“The near-immortal,” Ryker filled in for me, taking his hand away. “He has to will himself not to live. But none of them want to live without their Lilith. You shouldn’t have looked, Ellis.”
“I know.” I felt small, awful, for having watched him die. I knew his face would be in my dreams now too.
“Because you want to protect her from the reality of what you face,” Dr. Parrish said. “But it’s better if she knows. If she prepares herself.”
“Because it dishonors them,” Levi said. “They died bravely. But they died in your trap. Because of you. And for you to sit here—”
“I was not in charge of Project Lightwalker then, Levi. Despite what you think about how old I am—” Her voice was amused.
“Don’t call it that,” Levi’s voice was harsh. “That’s our word. You don’t get to murder the Lightwalker and then decide it’ll make a nifty nickname for your sec
ret project.”
Dr. Parrish held her hands up as if to calm the situation. “Listen, I just want you to know what you’re facing. To be willing to train so that we will never lose another Lightwalker. That’s all.”
I stumbled to my feet. Ryker was on his feet in a second, but I shrugged off his hands that reached to steady me. I ran from the room, feeling the bile rise in my throat.
In the bright, fluorescent light of the hall, surrounded by white industrial space like the one where the other Lilith and her men had died, I bent over and vomited. As my stomach heaved, losing the little bit of banana I’d eaten for breakfast before the video began, I could feel that I was not alone.
I straightened, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
Nurse Tom was watching me from down the hall. “Ain’t a chance in hell you’re going to live long in the Far.”
His words instantly conjured an image: Ryker, Levi and I, hands joined, eyes staring up blankly at the ceiling. But I held my head high and breezed towards my room, not looking at him.
“Do me a favor, Tom,” I said. “And clean that up.”
Chapter 9
I opened the window in my room and leaned out, breathing in the fresh, green air of the world outside. Little by little, my stomach settled, although my mind was still a blur. I could hear shouting in the hall outside as Dr. Parrish and the guys argued. Then it went silent in the hall.
I expected Ryker or Levi to come in after me, but when I heard the door creak open behind me, it was Dr. Parrish. She closed the door behind her, seeming to hesitate as if she didn’t know how to say what she needed to say next.
“You’re triggering my fear of heights again,” she said.
I glanced straight down, at the dizzying distance between me and the grass. The red brick of the building beneath was crumbling away, pockmarked and chiseled. “I’ve never liked heights much either. But these days, I’m just afraid of a grisly death in my dreams.”
“I’m sorry I scared you,” she said. “But you deserve to know what can happen. You should have the chance to work and learn and be strong when you do go into the Far.”
“Not really easing into day one,” I said tartly.
“The boys want to protect you,” she said. “But you’re stronger than they know, aren’t you? You don’t need them to protect you from the truth.”
“No,” I said. “But I don’t need to be scared and manipulated, either.”
“Is that really what you think I’m trying to do?” Dr. Parrish crossed to me. I took a step to the side, bumping my back up against the hard windowsill behind me. Her face was genuinely hurt. She reached into her pocket, and I looked at the photo she held out to me.
The Lilith I’d just seen grinned back at me. She hugged a young version of Dr. Parrish, their heads leaning towards each other so that their dark curls brushed together.
“My sister,” she said. “I’ve watched her die so many times. Hundreds. Thousands. That’s why I took control of this program. To make sure that never happens to the Lilith again.”
“You weren’t involved when she died?”
She shook her head. “I wish to hell I had been. I wouldn’t have let that happen.”
There was a guttedness, a rawness, in her voice that made me believe her.
“She might as well have died for something,” Parrish said. “I want to make sure that you’re safe.”
“What happened to her?”
Parrish visible relaxed. She preferred talking facts than feelings, that much was clear. She sat on the edge of my bed.
“What happens in the Far happens to you,” she said. “Your mind travels there. Your body stays behind.”
“And we’re stronger together? The Lilith and the… Four.”
She nodded.
“So why weren’t they together?”
“They’d already lost two,” she said. “They went after them.”
“To bring them back to life?”
Parrish nodded. “Are you ready to start training?”
“How do you even train for that?”
“I’ll show you,” she said, standing from the bed. She held her hand out to me.
When I hesitated, she said, “My sister’s name is Roxy. I think someday you could find her again. Her, and Ashley.”
She was trying to find common ground between us, but it was impossible. There was no way that this woman in front of me, who had locked me away with Ryker and Levi to serve her own purposes, still loved her sister the way I loved Ash. I wondered if Parrish would walk into the Far herself.
But whether she would or not, I wanted to go. I wanted to find Ash.
I slapped my hand into hers. She pulled me over to the bed. “Lay down.”
“Last I watched,” I said, “That’s not a good way to start things out.”
“I’m just trying to get you into a waking dream state,” she said. “You won’t go into the Far. You don’t have the power yet, especially not without the Four.”
Reluctantly, I sat on the bed and swung my legs up. My heart was pounding as I stared up at the white ceiling above.
“Relax,” she chided, pushing gently on my knees. “Literally nothing can happen to you. This is simply a hypnotic state. You aren’t traveling to another plane. Your mind won’t even leave this room.”
“Well, that’s a shame,” I said. As curious as I was to learn whatever she could teach me, I wasn’t exactly a fan of being trapped in here with her.
“You Liliths are all so quippy,” she said, sadness in her voice. “Close your eyes.”
I let my eyes drift shut—mostly—leaving the thinnest crack of bright light viewed through the haze of my eyelashes.
“Relax. Begin by feeling the beat of your heart. It’s slowing now. Each beat pulses blood through your body. Each beat is life. Slow and controlled. Feel your heart as a core of warmth. Feel that warmth pulse through your body, spreading now through your shoulders, and down your arms, all the way down, into your fingertips…” She went on and on. Her voice was low, toneless.
And despite myself, my heart rate did begin to slow. My breathing grew calm and steady. Slowly, a sense of warmth and life curled through my languid arms and legs.
“Now, I want you to leave your eyes closed. But open up your understanding. Take in the room around you with your other senses. Imagine your internal eyes, your spirit eyes, opening.”
The phrase spirit eyes made me want to giggle. Which was not helpful when you’re trying to sink into hypnosis. But I tried to listen hard, hearing the faint rustle of the curtain at the window. Everything around here was so silent. I couldn’t hear crickets outside, far below, or a faint sound of traffic. We could have been alone in the world. Just Dr. Parrish and me.
My eyes snapped open. “Where’s Ryker and Levi?”
She pushed her hair back behind her ears, the movement quick with frustration. “Those boys are such a distraction.”
“I thought those boys were the ones who would keep me alive in the Far,” I snapped back. It wasn’t as if I had asked to be locked away with them.
“They need you to keep them alive,” she said. “As you saw in the video. So if you don’t want to let them down, if you don’t want to watch them die, I suggest you listen to me.”
“If it’s so dangerous, what if I just don’t go?” I asked. “What if I just stay in this plane?”
“Sure,” she said. “Go to community college and leave your sister in her hell. That’s your option.”
Her voice was caustic.
“Why would my sister be in hell? She lived a good life.”
“You don’t want to know,” she said.
“Yeah, I do.”
Dr. Parrish met my eyes steadily. “Because of you. Because you’re supposed to be there, but you came back to life, and she’s your twin. Did you ever switch clothes to confuse people when you were kids? Well, you played a trick on Heaven and Hell.”
“I’m supposed to be in Hell? What did I ever
do?” There were plenty of other questions, but that was the simplest.
“Surely you know,” Dr. Parrish said, “That you don’t deserve Heaven. You’re more complicated than that, Lightwalker.”
Chapter 10
I felt my jaw work. I was confused, and I longed to have Ryker and Levi close ranks around me. “Where are the boys?”
“Later,” she promised me. “They have their own work. And I have a way to help you reach your dream state. That busy brain of yours is hard to turn off, huh?”
“It’s been a weird week,” I said.
“Come on.” She jerked her head towards the door. She reached out to help me up off the bed, but I slipped past her outstretched hand. My head swam for a second, sitting up. My heart was racing again.
But I followed her down the hall. The boys’ door was closed, and the hall felt eerily quiet. I ran to open their door and see how they were, but Parrish threw a warning glance at me over her shoulder. “You don’t want to walk in there without knocking.”
I rolled my eyes, but she was right, I didn’t want to violate their privacy. Not after what we’d all just seen on the video, and not with Parrish there. I didn’t think they’d ever shy away from letting me in, but I didn’t want to embarrass them in front of Parrish.
Parrish’s sneakers squeaked resolutely down the hall. So I followed her.
She keyed open the lock pad at the end of the hall. The heavy door clicked open with a buzz. She left the door open behind her as she stepped out.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “We’re going out into the hall of nightmares?”
“Day time,” she said.
“The ghosts don’t seem as wary of sunlight as horror movies may have suggested.”
“And we’re going to a warded room,” Parrish promised. “Did they explain the wards to you?”
“A little.” I followed her anyway. The hallway was long, the linoleum on the floor chipped and ripped, the wall dingy and stained. Even with the steady hum of fluorescent lights overhead, it was creepy. I eyed the elevator bank to the left, wondering where the stairs were. “I feel like the fire department would not feel good about the evacuation plan in this place.”