Chapter Thirteen
Elle's POV
I couldn't breathe.
The air around me was heavy, sticking in my airway like a thick fog.
Nanna gave me a disapproving glare as I climbed silently into the car, and Mckenzie made a crass joke about my hair, but the silence that followed managed to scare them. Their lighthearted teasing morphed into concern, and they watched me through the rearview mirror.
I couldn't find the words to tell them. I didn't know how to say what was on my mind. I wasn't sure I understood myself, all that kept looping through my thoughts was that someone was hurt. Someone I knew.
Staring out the window was easier than addressing the pain, and I tucked my legs up against the door, ignoring the willful gaze of my family.
The sun caught the window, and suddenly, I was staring back at myself with tears in my eyes. I tried to look past my reflection, but it was hard, and I was pulled down into the rabbit hole, my thoughts spiralling quickly.
It could have been Jacobi.
Or my sweet wolf.
It could have even been Mckenzie or Brent.
Anyone I loved could have been walking through the forest and faced the same attack Arlo had.
I couldn't shake the haunting thought from my mind, and soon, Pop was pulling up in front of the airport just as the shadows started to latch onto my memories.
Brent and Mckenzie half-skipped, half-ran towards the doors, but I stayed on the curb, watching the back of their Toyota shrink on the horizon as Pop and Nanna drove away. They were searching for a car park, but it felt like they were leaving for good, and my heart tore from my chest.
I turned when they were no longer a dot in the distance and watched as the airport doors slid shut behind my siblings, bouncing back open even before they had met in the middle, providing a window into the airport.
They were across the room, queued at the metal detectors. Brent fumbled with his shoes while Mckenzie peered over the small crowd on tiptoes. She gave a choked squeal and caught the attention of a security guard, who waved her through, disregarding her as a gleeful teen.
He watched her, though, as she gathered her things from the tray and careened across the tiled floor into our mother's arms. Brent was hardly a heartbeat behind her, locking his arms around Mum like he could hold her there forever.
I hung back, slipping my shoes on and watching them from afar. Mum had gotten older, and she held the trauma of her job in the lines of her face. The stress from being a missionary aged her ten years more than she was meant to be. Her hair was no longer coifed and dark brown. Instead, grey crested her head, spilling over her shoulders.
Mum tucked Mckenzie's head into the crook of her neck and wrapped her arms just as tightly around Brent as she searched the room with watery eyes.
She was dressed the same. She'd owned the same scuffed, worn, bare-thread jeans since the beginning of time. The same brown leather boots that had faded into a tannish suede, usually coated in thick mud, but she must have cleaned them recently. And the same dumb bangles that Brent, Mckenzie and I had made for her ten years ago in an after-school art class.
Dad wasn't with her, and I turned my eyes frantically, searching from one side of the airport to the other, sighing quietly when I saw a flash of his army-green jacket as he slid through the travellers, his only trajectory; my siblings.
He bundled them up into his arms, but he was distracted, and I knew he was looking for me before he found me. His eyes wrinkled with a smile, and he held a hand out as he pressed a soft kiss to the crown of Brent's head, beckoning me to join them.
My legs were heavy, and it felt like I was sweating from the inside, fear liquifying in my throat. I wrung my hands together, turning my eyes downcast, unsure why I felt the way I did.
They both watched me, but Mum broke away from their hug. She reached out, cupping my face in her hands; a shiver tingled down my spine at her cold fingers.
She painted a sweet smile upon her lips and tucked a stray hand behind my ear. 'Oh, Elliot.' Using the edge of her thumb, she caressed the curve of my face, her eyes soft and caring. 'You get prettier every time I see you.'
It felt like she had taken my heart and pinched it. I collapsed in her arms, clinging to her as tears dripped down my cheeks. I shook with sobs, wrinkling her sage button down between my fingers.
She clung onto me, too, drawing soft circles on my back. 'Oh, baby. What's wrong?'
'Someone I know got hurt last night.'
She leant towards me, her eyebrows knitting together as she pulled me closer. 'Were you there?'
I buried my nose into the soft fabric of her shirt, inhaling the sweet muskiness of her scent. 'No.' My throat burned with an acidic sting, and my stomach churned. I wanted to go back several hours when my only concern was gluing lace onto mache paper and singing with Mckenzie to songs I didn't know.
***
Sitting in the only café at the airport, Mum and Dad asked us about school. Brent and Mckenzie were happy to talk, and I was thankful that their voices covered my silence.
Arlo still terrorised my thoughts.
Each time I closed my eyes, syrupy crimson surged through open gashes on his dark, delicate skin. It collected on the forest floor, puddling beneath me, lapping at my bare feet like the ocean tide. Brown skin turned ashen, and horror shaped his lips into an 'O', his eyes screaming in fear.
He hadn't died. Not yet, anyway. But in my waking nightmare, his chest caught on his final breath, his gaze slowly slipping out of focus.
It wasn't just him I saw.
I had seen Jacobi at my feet as he'd told me. He reached for me as he gurgled on his blood, death weighing heavy on his arms.
And then I saw Kendra.
The nightmare had mercy on me because she'd been turned away from me. Her back had been viciously clawed, the jagged edge of her vertebrae splitting her skin, and her blonde hair had been matted and wine-soaked, the shade of cabernet, but I hadn't seen her face.
It hadn't stopped there. My family fell before me one by one, their deaths unique but similar—Nanna and then Mckenzie, Brent, Pop, Mum and Dad. As I turned my eyes towards them, they traded places with Arlo, so it became difficult to look at them.
And then it was Kaden.
The sight of him hit me in the chest, forcing the air out of my lungs with a silent shove. He appeared out of nowhere, replacing Arlo's lifeless body on the ground, and my hands trembled as I blinked away the nightmare.
It didn't disappear. Instead, it brought me to my knees, a shiver running down my spine as warm blood oozed between my fingers, seeping under my nails. I couldn't move, cemented to my place above him like I was caught in thickened tar.
I shoved my chair backwards, away from the table, turning so quickly that I drew attention from around the café. Dad rose with me, leaning across the table, his eyes holding mine.
I felt caged. My chest tightened, like someone had a corset around my waist, jerking the lace tighter with each breath. Sweat prickled on my skin, and pressure built until all I could hear was my heartbeat, drowning out the sound of my name.
I fled. I was flinging myself into a bathroom stall, dropping my head over the toilet bowl. A sea waged war inside my stomach, churning up a violent foam that frizzled at the base of my throat like beer in a bottle.
The door lock snapped into place, smarting against my numb fingers, and I fell onto the toilet seat, digging my palms into the hollowed curve of my eyes.
The main doors flung open and banged against the walls loudly, echoing off the tiles. With voices that squalled, Mum and Nanna came in. 'Just let me help her.'
'No. I'll do it. I'm her mother.'
They scuffled, searching the cubicles, and Nanna snorted, 'You haven't been there for her, not like I have.'
'Whose fault is that!'
Nanna was silent momentarily, and my heart thrashed in my ears. Eventually, she sighed, and I heard her shoe clip against the tiles. 'They'll realise one day, Susan. They worship the ground you walk on now, but one day the pedestal they've put you on will come crashing down, and I won't be there to catch you. Those kids are my children, just as much as yours.'
After the bathroom fell silent, I waited. When I was sure they were gone, I scampered to the sink and spent twenty minutes rubbing my hands raw under the icy faucet, trying to tear away the sensation of blood oozing under my hands.
Finally, when I emerged from the bathroom, Mum and Dad had boarded their flight. And this time, when I closed my eyes, Mum had traded places with me, and she stared tearlessly upon Nanna's ashen body.