⚠️ Warning: violence and strong language⚠️
My chest hurt. I was soaked to the skin and out of breath. Ryo had fallen behind somewhere and was nowhere to be seen. But worst of all, I was lost.
All that time spent thinking that I was wasting time talking to Ryo and now I was standing around like an idiot because I didn't know where to go. Why didn't it occur to me to find out where she lived before? It was pitch-black at this hour. There were street lights but they were few and far between, and the rain wasn't helping visibility at all.
What was I doing? Maybe Ryo was right; maybe I was insane. A breathless laugh escaped from my lips. It was quickly silenced by a whisper from the Voice:
'You can save them.'
An icy breath hit the back of my neck. I spun. No one there.
Somewhere to my right, a streetlamp buzzed and flickered. A moment later the one beside it did the same. As did the next. And the one after that. The flickering spread down the street like an electrical contagion, turning the corner several streets down.
I stood there, frozen. I really was going crazy.
'Follow. Save them.'
The streetlight closest to me flickered again.
The inexplicable urge to burst into laughter hit me once again.It was like I'd just become the heroine in some bad supernatural slasher film. Dark, stormy weather? Check. Alone without a soul in sight? Check. About to do something incredibly stupid like follow ominous flashing lights without any idea where they'd lead me because a voice in my ear told me to? Check.
Crazy or not, it wasn't like I had any better ideas. Every minute I spent running around wasting energy was a minute less to save Ai.
Ignoring the instincts screaming at me not to do it, I chased the lights. They led me through the streets, left and right and left again. As I rounded a corner into Windchester Lane, every single light in the street in front of me turned off at once. It was like an electromagnetic pulse had just gone off – like the world had come to an end. There was no sign of movement. No sign of life. All I could hear was the pitter-patter of the rain and my own ragged breathing.
This would be the part where the heroine in that bad horror movie gets grabbed by the ankles by some demonic force and then dragged kicking and screaming into the darkness.
Fighting the urge to look behind me, I addressed the Voice instead. 'Now what, genius?' I did my best to sound annoyed, but the words came out so high-pitched that even I wasn't convinced.
The Voice said nothing. Five houses down on my left, a security light began to pulse. Eyes and ears alert for any sign of... well, anything, I made my way towards it.
It was a nice little place: brick walls, wooden gate and fence and a well-manicured front lawn – a typical suburban house. No one would ever suspect that something terrible was happening inside. Heavy tartan curtains hung in the windows, thick enough to block even shadows. Whoever lived there really didn't want to be seen. Which meant I'd have to get closer.
God, please don't let some unknown force drag me into that house by my feet.
The security light switched off with a click. The gate creaked open of its own accord.
Swallowing my trepidation, I tiptoed up the path. Muffled voices met my ear as I knelt to listen at the door.
The first was female – panicked. 'Oh god. Oh god. Oh god – '
'Shut up, Ai. I can't think with all that screaming!'
'But Andrew, he – we – what do we do? What do we do? We should call the police – an ambulance! Or – '
'I said shut up, Ai!' There was a thud and a shriek. 'I have to think! Sit down and shut it!'
'Okay. Okay. Oh god...'
My fingers were on the door handle, knuckles white and shaking. Anger welled up, threatening to overcome my fear. He'd hit her. That fu— no, I had to calm down. I took a deep breath. Finger by finger, I forced myself to let go. At times like these, emotions were secondary enemies. One wrong move – one second of clouded judgement, and I – no, we would both be in danger. He was bigger, taller, and clearly as violent as all the rumours had said. If he caught me – us, it would not end well.
My fingers started to tremble.
Why was I here alone?
Ryo's low-lidded look of pity flickered in front of my eyes. Is it because of a "vision"?
Shut up. Shut up. Shut up!
I dug my fingernails into my palms until they felt like they were going to bleed, but the fear was already creeping in. God, I was an idiot. What was I thinking coming here by myself? Even if I confronted Andrew, what could I do? I was weak. I had no self-defence training. My arm was broken for Christ's sakes!
I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. Any second now and I was going to lose control of my breath. It wasn't like changing the future hadn't given me the shakes before. How many times had I nearly gotten run-over, set on fire or impaled by something sharp when trying to prevent an accidental death? This wasn't that different.
Except it's an actual human being trying to kill you this time, said the sceptical part of my mind.
On the other side of the door, I could hear Andrew still ranting to himself – his voice growing louder and louder as Ai whimpered in the background, adding more fuel to my treacherous, cowardly thoughts. I bit my lower lip. Surely someone else could hear that. Someone nearby had to have heard that scream earlier... Any sensible person would have called emergency services by now. Yeah, maybe one of the neighbours –
I stiffened as a now-familiar chill washed over me. It blanketed my skin like a friend wrapping an arm around my shoulders. 'You can save her,' whispered the Voice. 'You can do this.'
My chest quivered as the hysterics threatened to come out as laughter. What was this, a battle between my instincts and my conscience?
The cold wrapped itself around me even tighter as I wavered, caressing my eyelids – chilling my ears. The drumming of the rain became muffled. My peripheral vision seemed to darken.
Inside the house, Andrew yelled something at Ai. Something in there hit the ground with a crash. I stared blankly at the door. Close, yet light years away. Everything around it was fading from view - as if all the other stimuli were being sucked into a black hole. No more shouting. No more muffled crying. It should have been a relief - a reprieve, but my chest felt hollow, as if the chill that came with the voice had frozen everything inside.
This was madness. I'd saved plenty of lives - most of them accidents for a reason. On the rare occasion that I had intervened with a murder, I'd made a point of staying as far away from a direct confrontation with killers as possible. Everything about this situation was just... wrong. If I had done things right, it should never have even happened. If I'd just intervened sooner, or found some other way to deal with things, then...
Then...
My hands were shaking.
What was I doing here?
'You're saving her.'
Why did I come here alone?
'Because you have no one.'
My stomach wrenched.
Alone...
'You can't rely on anyone else.'
There were a million things I could have tried. I... I could have called the police – I could have talked to her friends—
The numbness that had invaded my chest was spreading to my extremities.
'No one is going to come for you. You're all alone.'
I was trembling. Hyperventilating.
That's not... I—
No, there was no use denying it. It was right. No one had ever believed me. No one had ever listened to me. My parents. My friends. Ryo. No matter who it was, things never changed. Even when the things I said came true - when I saved people's lives, they weren't thankful. They still called me names. Treated me like some kind of freak. Used pathetic excuses like 'treasure hunting' to avoid being alone with me. Worst of all they were right and I knew it. I was a freak. If I was in their shoes, then I—
My jaw clenched.
I...
'You're not a freak. You're a saviour,' whispered the Voice soothingly.
Ha. A saviour. Was that how I thought of myself? It wasn't as if I saved people because I wanted to.
I had known from the start that this was insane. Suicidal even. I had told myself that it was fear of her reaction holding me back from telling her, but that wasn't true. If she hadn't turned up at the pavilion the afternoon after I'd seen her fate, then I...
I would have just let her...
My vision swam. My stomach clamped down as memories I'd kept long suppressed flooded forward. Visions. News reports. Corpses. Blood. Dad standing over a covered body in the morgue...
'You are a saviour,' insisted the Voice. 'Prove it to yourself. Prove it to them. Save her.'
The cold drifted down my arm, wrapping itself around my wrist. My hand jerked forward, coming to a rest on the doorknob.
The Voice was wrong. Saving one life didn't prove anything – it didn't redeem me for failing to save all those others. It didn't exempt me from seeing all those futures and acting like those visions didn't exist. But if I did it... if I saved a life - no, if I saved Ai's life, then I could lie to myself; I could pretend. And if I got hurt or died then who would care anyway?
Rin-chan...
Shut up, Ryo. Get your voice out of my head.
Let's just go home.
Great, now his face was in my mind's eye too. Shut up. Go away. You don't even care—
We can grab some ice cream, watch a movie and forget about all this. Okay?
He smiled awkwardly.
I froze.
Wait, was that how the conversation had gone? All I remembered was being blinded by hurt and anger. Had he smiled at the end there? At that moment, was that moron actually trying to comfort me?
'He doesn't believe you. You have to do this alone.'
Well, he sure as hell didn't believe me but he'd still tagged along when I'd left the cafe. He'd known full well what I was doing, that it was insane, and he'd come with me nonetheless. If I hadn't forced him to talk – if this goddamn voice in my head hadn't pushed me to push him, he probably wouldn't have voiced any doubts in the first place.
Speaking of which, how did I lose him? Unlike me, that boy was fit. Before he'd entered his rebellious phase and taken up the habit that was going to kill him, his parents had forced him to take part in an after-school basketball team before his piano lessons almost everyday after school. He should've been able to catch up to me easily, even in this weather.
I stared at my hand. It hovered, seemingly detached from the rest of my body.
Jesus Christ, what the hell was I doing?
My entire arm shook as I tried to move it, but the cold that encased it gripped my hand even tighter.
'Save her,' whispered the Voice in my ear.
Shut up. Get out of my head.
Frost was forming on my skin.
'Save her.'
Let me go.
Fuck, it was so cold, it was starting to burn.
'Save her.'
'NO.'
The thin layer of ice shattered like glass as I ripped my hand away. In an instant, the world came back into focus; I had control over myself again.
Freedom.
I waited for a moment, but the Voice remained silent. The only thoughts drifting about in my head were my own. The chill that I'd felt since it had first whispered to me in the rain was gone too.
Good. Whatever the hell that was, I had no desire to repeat it.
Three hours and eight minutes, said the countdown.
Breathing hard, I stepped away from the door. The moment I did, the security light turned back on with a click. I practically catapulted myself back off the porch.
Fuck, did they—
Wait. No, Evelyn, it's fine. You just tripped the motion sensor. Get a hold of yourself.
I sighed.
To think I'd almost let that... thing persuade me to jump headfirst into danger right there and then. If I just focused on keeping her alive, there was plenty of time.
My recollection of the vision was a bit hazy since it had been a few days since first contact, but from what I could recall, Ai hadn't suffered any injuries until the moment she'd been killed, so she probably wasn't hurt. Yet, from the bits and pieces I'd managed to overhear, it was clear that something had happened inside that house. The smart thing to do right now would be to discreetly call the police and let them handle it – preferably not while I was standing on the front lawn. Fortunately, neither Andrew nor Ai seemed to have noticed that the porch light had turned on.
Keeping one eye on the door, I turned to creep away. The moment I did, vibration ran up my leg like an electric shock. It was followed by an obnoxiously loud electronic rendition of one of Ryo's favourite songs. The tune carried loud and clear through the rain. What little garbled sound I could hear coming from inside the house stopped.
Shit.
I fumbled with the zip of my skirt pocket. The sound of footsteps approaching echoed in my ears.
Shit.
The front door opened just as I managed to get my phone out. Andrew stood on the porch, staring at me – or more accurately, at the phone in my hand – his blue eyes wide in an expression torn between rage and horror. The ringtone continued to blare at maximum volume. His eyes met mine. In them I saw panic, fear and –
He sprang at me.
Fast as I could, I hit the call button, turning away in a futile attempt to evade the incoming blow. Andrew's fist met my face and my mind was ripped out of my body. His death flashed before my eyes like a movie on fast forward –
I was back in reality before my brain could process it.
The force of the punch slammed into my jaw and I hit the ground in a heap. Pain shot up from my cast as it bore the brunt of my weight. Too late, I remembered that my phone was in my hand. It slipped out of my grasp and skidded across the muddy grass.
Ryo's voice crackled out from the speaker. 'Rin! Rin-chan, are you there?'
A sob of relief squeezed its way out from between my lips.
'Evelyn, answer me!'
Acting on autopilot, my mouth blurted out the first thing I thought of. '14 WINDCHESTER LANE—'
A shout of fury sounded behind me. I looked over my shoulder and choked, bile flooding up from the back of my esophagus as Andrew's boot slammed into my stomach. The kick winded me – made me retch. Every single one of my limbs was shaking in fear. Not like they had when I'd been standing in front of the door; the terror I was feeling now was on an entirely different level.
When was the last time someone had hurt me like this? When was the last time I'd been in an actual fight? He was going to kill me. Andrew was going to kill me.
I was going to die.
I was going to die and there was nothing I could do about it.
A blanket of cold air wrapped around me. 'Scream.'
An ice-cold burning sensation pierced my spine and an ear-splitting screech of pain filled my ears. There was a raw, tearing sensation in my throat. The sound was coming from me.
Like a passenger in my own body, I watched blankly as the ground receded. In the blink of an eye I was on my feet. My vision spun wildly. My legs broke into a sprint. Half-way towards the street –
A choked gasp escaped my throat as Andrew seized the back of my sling.
No. No. NO.
'EVELYN!'
A shadow flickered in my vision. A hand pressed flat against my back and shoved me forward. The crunch of shattered cartilage sounded at my back. With a roar of pain, the tension on my sling vanished.
I dropped to my knees.
Saved.
The tears I'd been trying to hold back began to spill.
A few seconds later and I... I—
My injured stomach throbbed, threatening me with a wave of nausea. Holding it back, I looked up to face Ryo. He was soaked to the skin. His face was red and sweaty and his chest was heaving like he'd just run a marathon. But the look on his face as he stared Andrew down was new to me. I'd never seen him looking so pissed off –
No, pissed off didn't even begin to describe it. His hands were clenched so hard that they were trembling and I could see the veins on his neck standing out.
Ryo looked ready to kill someone.
'The hell do you think you're doing, Riker?' he demanded, voice low, trembling with barely-held back rage.
Andrew didn't answer. He was frozen in place, one hand over his nose, the other half-raised as if he didn't know what he was supposed to do with it. His eyes were darting everywhere, pupils dilated. He looked... scared. Not in the same way desperate, horrified way he had when he'd opened the door. This was more like a deer-in-the-headlights sort of thing.
Dashing my tears away, I stood up and followed his gaze. The sight of neighbours standing on lawns, driveways and in open doorways greeted me, their expressions ranging from horror to fear to furious resolve. At least four of them were on their phones, speaking furiously into the receivers. A couple of the more capable-looking men and one very hardy-looking woman started to approach.
Ryo didn't bother to look at them. Either he already knew they were watching or he just didn't care. 'Answer me, Riker,' he snapped. 'What the fuck is this?'
Andrew's eyes flicked back to him, to his front door and then met with mine. He opened his mouth to speak, but a scream from inside the house drowned him out.
'Andrew!' shrieked Ai. 'Help! He's – I think he's – ' she froze as she stumbled out through the doorway and found herself facing an audience. ' – stopped... breathing...' She backed up several steps, face pale and eyes as wide and terrified as Andrew's as she surveyed the crowd. There were red stains on the palms of her hands and splashed across her legs and skirt.
I opened my mouth to call out to her, but Ryo got there before me.
'Ai! Are you hurt?'
She blinked at the question. 'Hurt?' She looked down at the blood on her hands. 'No, I— this isn't...' A whimper escaped her lips.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Andrew flinch at the sound. Dazed, he stared at his own hands. Like Ai, there were bloodstains on his hands and jeans. I'd been too busy trying to not get my head smashed in earlier to notice. Another dizzying wave of nausea rolled up from my gut as realisation hit me. How had I not noticed earlier? That goddamn creepy Voice had even said it in my ear: 'You can save them'. Them. Plural. It had only changed to 'save her' after I'd heard both Ai and Andrew freaking out through the door.
My voice cracked as I looked at her. 'Ai, what did you do?'
She couldn't answer me. She just stood there, swaying slightly as she stared at her palms, whimpering.
No. I felt Ryo grab my elbow as I wobbled on my feet. This was a joke right? This was some kind of sick, deranged joke. If I had arrived just two minutes earlier – if I hadn't been such a goddamned coward this whole week and just told Ai that she was going to die tonight, would someone else still be alive?
A large hand clapped on my shoulder from behind, interrupting my thoughts and scaring the bejeebers out of me. A square-jawed man around his thirties – one of the neighbours, looked down at us. 'Let the adults take care of it from here, kids,' he said. Voice calm but firm, he looked from Andrew to Ai and raised his hands in a peaceful gesture. 'Look, I don't know what happened in that house, but it's clear that someone needs medical attention. The police and an ambulance are on their way. How about we all just sit down on the lawn, nice and easy? Nice and easy, yeah? That's it, nice and – '
Whatever trance had been holding Andrew in place shattered. He'd been standing listless, staring at his hands like they didn't belong to him, but as soon as the old guy stepped past me and Ryo, he bolted. Before anyone could react, he'd run up to the porch, grabbed Ai by the arm and gone back into the house.
'Save her,' whispered the Voice, almost tauntingly, in my ear.
All of a sudden, I felt cold again.
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