The Dark Between Dreams | ✔️

Chapter 7 🔻 Wretched Souls

After's wretched were faster. Their smoldering limbs restrained me. All I could see were gnarled hands everywhere, smothering the red luxlight of After.

Everything went dark.

There was a flash of lightning.

I drew back in shock from the spinning galaxy of pure, white Light that had appeared, suspended in mid-air in front of me.

The old ghost laughed and gestured toward the portal I had summoned. "Go on, sister. Return to Earth," she whispered into my ear. "Heed that pull in your heart. It's what Crow wants of you."

All hands slowly released me. My pulse never ceased.

I didn't run toward the trapdoor.

I took a single step toward the Light. The stone crow's red eyes almost seemed to sparkle when I did.

Within the depths of the portal, I saw a bedroom materialize. My bedroom. "Skye?" a familiar voice called from the Light.

Oh god.

I reached for the Light. I reached for him.

Dominic reached back for me.

The sound of a blade unsheathing filled the chamber. The other anchored ghosts all hissed and shied off into shadowy corners like vampires from the blood-red light of a drawn blade. A tall cloaked figure marched through them, machete gripped tight in her fist. "The woman said she's leaving," Vale growled, silhouetted by the outside glow of the aboveground.

"Vale!" I never thought I'd be so happy to see a leather-clad, machete-wielding person in all my life. Clarity splashed over me like cold water. In a flash, I kicked sand over my portal and then scrambled to hide behind Vale.

The taller ghost peered over her shoulder to look at me. "Let's get out of here, Skye."

"Yup," I agreed. With an arm around me, the other hollow led me back out of the cave of crazy ghosts.

But there was one last yank on my scarf.

"Don't go with her," the leader of After's wretched souls pleaded with me. She pointed a quivering finger at Vale. "She's one of Blackburne's."

Vale kept pushing me forward, jaw taut. Ignoring the pulling sensation in my heart, I averted my eyes from the anchored hollow and pulled myself free from her. Vale helped me up through the trapdoor and guided me outside the hovel.

The congested streets of After seemed way less claustrophobic to me now. Although that might have been because of the other ghosts keeping a cautious distance from Vale. The tall hollow turned to me. "Gotta watch out for the acolights. They're a mad bunch. So, you finally got the nerve to see After on your own," she said as she sheathed her blade at her hip. "What do you think?"

"I-I think..." I hated the way my voice shook. I smoothed my scarf. "I think it's a little of a fixer-upper."

A chuckle. "That's putting it mildly, innit?"

I watched as if an idea popped into Vale's brain. Her flat expression became a devious look. Pinpricks of red luxlight reflected in her pupils. "Well, would you like to go back to the flat now, or..." She extended a hand to me. "Would you like to come with me?"

It was just like the first time she held a hand out to me, back in the Dark as shadows tried to devour me. But that anchored soul's parting warning to me played on repeat in my head.

She's one of Blackburne's.

What did that mean? Was she one of his bullies? One of his zealots?

Or something else entirely?

I just stood there, considering Vale's offered hand to me. "Where are we going?"

"I'm going to show you the real After, Skye. No bar fights. No mobs. No crazies."

She waited for my answer. I waited too.

My body was being torn into pieces. My heart pulled toward Dominic and my old life. To the Light. Inside my head was a blur of instincts telling me to run and go back to the apartment.

But I heeded that one strange spark in my chest and took Vale's hand.

I do my best, but everything seems ominous
Not feeling blessed, quite the opposite
This shouldn't feel so monotonousIt never rains, but it pours
We're just a bunch of fucking animals
But we're afraid of the outcome (the outcome)
Don't cry to me because the fiction that we're living in
Says I should pull the pin