Chapter 52
Chapter 52
Present Day
A scream ricochets through my sister’s barren room.
Me. It is my scream; my response to Rhea stabbing one of the kitchen knives into the man behind her. I’m instantly flanked by my four ghosts, their hands poised, ready to grab me.
He makes a guttural noise, staring at her in shock. “Wha—What?” he chokes out, looking down at the impaled weapon.
“You see what you did, Nova?” Rhea calls, still gripping the handle of the knife as she looks over her shoulder. “I had been rejecting my needs, keeping myself under control, because you were here. And then you had to go and piss me off. If not for this guy, you’d be the one bleeding right now. You should be grateful that I walked away when I did. I went and found him to take your place.”
I blanch, her words weighing on me, the utter violence in them.
“It is not your fault,” Theodore growls from my right.
I know that. I do. But even so, her words cut deep.
“Rhea, let him go.” My voice trembles. “If you’re mad at me, then be me at me. Let him go.”
I don’t give any attention to the protests around me.
The man drags his gaze up, meeting my eyes over Rhea’s shoulder.
Run. Runif you get the chance, I beg him silently.
Rhea she yanks the knife free. The air whooshes from him and he stumbles back, slamming into the wall on the other side of the hall, then slides to the floor.
I trip over my own feet as I scramble back, dodging Rhea as she whirls, reaching for me. Her eyes gleam with cold calculation as she stalks forward, mirroring my movements. The guys blink out of existence, appearing across the room, the lights in the room flickering, not wanting to trip me up. A grin breaks out on her face as we dance around the room, my feet moving lithely to keep distance between us.
“Come here, Nova,” Rhea sings. “I want to pl—”
“Hey, you stupid cunt!” the man yells. “Leave her alone!”
No! I want to scream. You were supposed to run!
Her head snaps around to him, her clenched teeth visible, and I lunge, driving my shoulder into her torso. The knife clatters to the ground, skating across the floor, and we somersault down together, Rhea’s elbow connecting with my gut, winding me.
I croak, trying to find air, as Rhea grabs me by my ears and slams my head against the ground. Stars explode behind my eyes. Outrage penetrates through the ringing in my ears and I watch my guys try to stop her as she lifts my head again to bash it against the floor. They try to swipe at her, or grab hold of her hair, or punch her in the face, but they can’t. They can’t touch her. Electricity crackles as the lights brighten and dim erratically.
The second slam of my head into the ground brings about an instant wave of nausea. I think I hear something crack.
Get up, Nova.You need to get up.
With a cry, I surge up, doing the first thing I can think of. I blindly rake my nails against Rhea’s face and she rears back, screeching as she falls onto her butt.
Vertigo turns my world upside down, but I kick my feet, trying to put distance between me and my sister. Those same nails I scratched her with crack and break against the floor as I claw at it to gain purchase, to get away. Two other hands hook under my arms and yank at the same time Rhea snatches my ankle and tries to pull me back.
Koda crashes down behind me, her tug throwing him off balance. The heels of his shoes dig into the floor to shove us further back, his legs on either side of me. He slides us toward the wall, which we hit with a powerful thud when Rhea suddenly releases me.
“What the fuck?” she breathes.
I hear her, but my vision is fuzzy as I try to catch a glimpse of her.
“Koda?”
He tenses at the sound of his name on her lips. The realization that she can see him has me squinting, trying to see her through my blurred vision. I can barely make her out, but her face is easily read. For the first time that I can ever recall, my sister looks unsure.
Koda doesn’t acknowledge her, cradling me in his arms, his panicked voice repeating my name over and over again.
“Nova! Little Nova! Look at me, Nova!”
But I can’t tear my eyes away from my sister.
Rhea’s eyes dart between me and Koda, red hot envy churning in them, and I’m reminded of the way she looked at Dad the day the bunny happened.
I think Koda might be the bunny this time, and I’m the one who took him away.
The sound of a chair clattering to the floor from down the hall has her spitting a curse.
“Stay,” she orders, pointing a finger at me, and sprints for the doorway.
In an instant, Koda shoves to his feet, lifting me with him. Rohan appears in front of us, his image seeming to waver and dim. He reaches for me nonetheless and I’m shoved into his arms.
“Go!” Koda barks, but his voice sounds thin.
I cling to Rohan as he breaks into a run like Rhea did, trying not to throw up on him from the jostling. We make it through the bedroom door before I see Rhea. She’s standing in the mouth of the hallway, her foot stomping against the head of the guy she brought home to kill, his arms trying to guard against her attack. Rohan pulls up short, bobbling left and right, like he’s trying to figure out how to get around her.
“Go out the back!” Theodore orders, materializing between us and Rhea. But his image is barely visible. I can see Rhea and her victim through him.
My eyes lock on the guy on the floor, where he’s begging for mercy, only to have Rhea straddle him, sitting on his back, her hands looping around his neck.
She’s still going to kill him.
I’m going to escape, assuming the guys can get me out of the house while she’s busy strangling him.
But he’s going to die.
It feels wrong, every part of it.
“I can’t leave,” I gasp, bucking in Rohan’s arm. “I’m not leaving! She’s going to kill him!”
Jimmy’s expression is hard as he steps up next to Rohan, who is trying to hang onto me. He, too, seems almost transparent. “Better him than you.” He vanishes entirely with a look of panic.
I can’t accept his words. Something in me tells me that running away isn’t the answer. Something in me screams to stay; that whatever happens here is already written.
A thousand deaths.
I can hear light bulbs shattering, popping in every direction, the intense surges finally exploding them. The TV blares static from the living room, the white noise overwhelming my senses.
Theodore hurries to us, his image flickering in and out of existence, his voice muted. “Hurry!” he shouts, but then he disappears, too.
The guy on the floor sputters, his body writhing. Rhea grunts as she rides him like a bull.
Disgust hits, then resolve.
Sureness settles deep in my chest.
We won’t make it out the door. I know it.
I can feel it in the very core of my being.
I stop fighting Rohan and meet his eyes. “Put me down,” I say softly.
Horror fills his face. “No, Nova. Please. Please don’t leave me. Not again. We can get you out.”
His words trigger something. Some long forgotten part of me. It blooms inside me.
Remembrance. Love. Life. Death.
And I know—I know that there cannot be life where there is something as stagnant as death.
I don’t remember who I was, but I was his—Rohan’s. And Jimmy’s. And Theodore’s. And Koda’s. So many times before, I was theirs.
Fear isn’t one of the things I feel as I accept the likelihood of dying.
Because I will always find them.
A thousand deaths.
“I will always find you,” I tell him. “I always have.”
My attentions snaps to the guy, his breathing stuttering, his movements slowing.
“Nova, stay,” Rohan pleads, but even as he does, he lowers me to the ground.
I press a soft kiss to his lips, my tears wetting my face and dripping into his beard. And then shove, forcing him away from me so he can’t stop what I’m about to do. He stumbles back, falling. Before he hits the floor, he vanishes.
My heart cracks a little at the sight.
“Hey, Rhea!” I scream, turning to face her.
She bolts up, releasing the man’s neck. He coughs, moaning, his body trembling. I startled Rhea, I realize, when she doesn’t immediately charge me. The man rolls, his eyes nearly bugging out of his head, and the front of his pants are soaked from where he’s urinated from his near death experience.
Don’t waste your chance this time, I beg in my head. Don’t make this be for nothing.
Rhea follows my line of sight, her tongue flicking at her lips when her gaze lands on him again.
“Rhea!” Her attention bounces back to me. “Catch me if you can,” I taunt, mirroring our childhood game. Her eyes light with the challenge and I spin, darting back to her bedroom as she leaps forward.
“Nova, what the fuck are you doing?” Koda roars as I rush past his fading image.
I don’t stop, don’t hardly breathe as I run, Rhea’s yell of rage echoing behind me.
Her body slams into mine as I reach the closet, flattening me against the open door. Without thinking too much about it, I throw my head back and collide with her face. She yelps, falling away from me, and I push off the closet door. I reach for the shelf, my fingers within reach of the hammer she has used to kill so many people.
I don’t register the fall until I hit the ground, shrieking as a loud snap fills the air and pain shoots through my leg like lightning. Shelving crashes on top of us, taken out by the impact. I roll beneath her, grunting as her weight works against me. One of her hands strike out, going for my neck just like they had the guy in the hallway. Before she can try to throttle me, I kick with the leg that isn’t on fire, hitting her thigh and knocking her own leg out from under her.
Rhea collapses on me, and the world stills, narrowing down to this very second.
I suck in a stuttered breath as she sits back up, straddling my hips, my eyes trailing down until they land on it.
The bloodied knife from before, buried to the hilt in my stomach. I reach for it, hands shaking. Somewhere, Koda is wailing, sounding so much like Gabriel used to.
Ripping it free of my body, making me gasp, Rhea’s expression is hollow. “You should have just followed the rules,” she offers casually.
My arms fall to my sides as she plunges it back in, the knife reverberating through my bones as it strikes my ribs. Pulls it out. Stabs again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
My fingers twitch and I blink as I feel something smooth against the tips. The soundtrack of my death plays as I grasp blindly, the music of flesh being sliced and turned to bloody pulp. My hands lock around it and I pull.
My life is draining quicker with every stab. I have only one shot to make this count before I’ll be too far gone.
I scream—not from fear or pain, but a roar of finality—and use the last dregs of my energy to rise, taking the knife deeper into my belly from the added motion. My arm swings as I come up, more power behind it than I thought possible in my state.
The claw end of the hammer sinks into Rhea’s head with a sickening noise of shattering bone and squelching tissues.
It stuns her. She freezes, her hand falling away from the knife embedded in me. I cling to the hammer, letting it help hold me up.
Something bolsters me, sliding between me and the floor. I cry out as the knife shifts with the movement, but then familiar hands slide down my blood flecked arms until Koda’s hand is grasping the hammer with me.
He dislodges the claw from her head and blood waterfalls from the wound. Rhea teeters, her mouth opening and closing, but Koda’s hand strikes like a viper, gripping her shirt and holding her in place.
“Again,” I rasp, my voice sounding wet.
Together, without a sound, we pull the back the hammer and then drive forward, splitting her skull a few inches to the left of the first wound I gave her. Blood splatters on us as he tears it free again.
He shoves her, a palm to the chest, and she collapses backwards, motionless except for her mouth, still opening and closing. I stare at her, at my big sister. I just killed my big sister.
And she killed me too.
Somewhere in the distance, I hear sirens.
I hope the guy Rhea was going to kill got away.
I hope Rhea is dead before they get here.
A warm fuzzy feeling fills me, starting at my toes, working its way up my legs. I feel no pain, no fear.
“Nova,” Koda whispers, his voice cracking. “Why did you do that? Why?”
I try to speak, to tell him I’m not afraid, but it comes out gurgles instead.
His cheek presses against mine as he holds me. “We’ve got you, little Nova. We love you.”
I smile, knowing he’s right.
And my last breath escapes me.