Chapter 12 #2
I frowned and took my time peeking into each of the doctor’s offices on either side of me, just in case the creature from Hell was still here and hiding somehow. After finding no sign of another demon, I returned to the corridor in time to see Kendyll rounding the corner at the other end.
“There you are,” she said, tucking her black hair behind an ear as she surveyed the empty hallway. “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. “I felt another demon show up, but their presence is gone now.”
Her brows rose. “A demon? Was it one of your friends?”
“No. I didn’t recognize their aura, though I could tell it was another Mischief demon.
They were probably just wandering by, thinking the place was still a functioning hospital.
When they saw there were no patients, staff, or even really any ghosts here to mess with, they left.
” I gave her a slow once over. “Why are you here? I told you to wait up there with your new friend.”
“She left when you did. She suddenly seemed really scared again and disappeared.”
I frowned, not liking that the ghost vanished at the same time that a demon appeared within the building.
“Let’s go back and see if she’s still around the ward,” I suggested. “I bet the demonic presence frightened her.”
Kendyll and I fell in step together and made our way back upstairs.
“Did you manage to guess her name?” I asked.
“No. She hasn’t said a word. It would be nice if I could find her patient chart around here so that I could learn her name, but the odds of finding her records are slim.
Who knows when she was a patient here. Plus, while Mountview is old-school, they did switch to electronic medical records instead of paper ones the year you got me out of here.
If she came after the switch, there might not be anything for us to find lying around here. ”
“I’ve seen quite a few charts still stocked in the nurses’ stations and in those offices back there. Not to mention, there was that locked file room in the basement. Maybe we’ll get lucky and her chart will be among one of those.”
“I plan on going through those left behind charts starting today. If no ghosts venture out to talk with us, fake ghosts are all I’ll be able to get for Bethelma.
Basing the hauntings on real patients with real stories will make that easier.
Though, I’ll tweak some of the identifying information to protect their privacy. ”
Leave it to Kendyll to still care about a ghost’s right to privacy despite being long dead to the world. There was a reason she was special.
We returned to the children’s ward, but the little girl never did.
Kendyll and I took seats behind the desk at the nurses’ station and divided up the patients’ charts left behind in that ward.
Some kids were admitted for special needs cases that went beyond what the parents could handle at home, while others were here for severe behavioral issues.
One kid with such issues even murdered a neighbor’s pet cat, which instigated his admittance here.
I glanced at Catsper, who laid contentedly on the desk between mine and Kendyll’s stacks of papers.
I patted his head affectionately. “Glad you didn’t run into this kid, buddy.
” I pursed my lips at the sight of his missing eye, torn ear, and obviously spectral body.
“Although, I guess you didn’t fare much better in your life, huh? Should I kill anyone for you?”
The cat stared at me and meowed. I took that as a, “Maybe one day.”
I glanced at Kendyll who had paused her reading of a chart.
Her wide eyes were fixed on my hand on Catsper, specifically on my pinky.
My heart lurched, but I didn’t hide my hand.
I didn’t hide the tattoo that hadn’t been there the last time she and I were together.
A single floating ghost now adorned my pinky.
Her chest rose and fell harder, and she looked up at me. We didn’t say anything, a thousand words forming and dying right there between our gazes. She swallowed hard and eventually turned away. It took me a lot longer to look away from her.
Kendyll and I became so engrossed in our respective readings—her for work and me for a distraction from everything happening in my head and heart—that we didn’t even notice the sun going down until it had been replaced by the moon and stars with only the desk lamp illuminating the documents we were studying.
I yawned and stretched, feeling the weight of the day’s work. “Fuck. Who knew looking over all these charts could be so tiring? I’m drained.”
Her fingers slipped under her glasses to rub at her emerald eyes, which were rimmed with exhaustion. “Mmm. Let’s call it here for today.”
We returned to the second floor area, and in the time it took to descend one floor, Kendyll appeared even more fatigued. She could hardly hold her eyes open, but what really hinted at her lethargy was when she changed right in front of me.
I held my breath and watched silently as she stripped, her black hair cascading down her bare back and shoulders.
I cleared my throat of the emotion gathered there from the sight of her beautiful body, which was soon covered once more by an oversized sleep shirt.
I paused. Was that … one of my shirts? She didn’t seem to notice me stalling out across the room as she climbed into her bed under the moonlit windows.
I, myself, wanted to sleep for a while, but I held out a little longer.
I hovered close by and watched my girl sink into sleep.
Like a moth to a flame, I finally drifted closer and crouched by the bed to drape my arms over the edge, watching her with my chin propped up.
My eyes wanted to close, and my body begged for a break, given the work I’d put it through lately.
But I refused to give in. Not yet.
The minute I closed my eyes, she’d disappear. I’d see her in my dreams, but it wasn’t the same as having her here in front of me. And I’d waited so goddamn long to be with her again.
“You’ll come back to me, right, Qīn’ài de??” I whispered while reaching out to lightly brush my fingers along the hair at her forehead.
Her brow pinched, and her body spasmed once. I froze as panic swelled to life within me. Another twitch rippled through her, and her head began to toss as she groaned. Alarm made a cold sweat break out on the back of my neck, and any urge to sleep left me in an instant.
I raised up on my knees and gently cupped Kendyll’s face as her trembling and whimpering grew. “Kendyll! Ghost! Wake up. Wake up for me, Kendyll. Please.”
She threw her head back on an agonized scream as tears rolled down her face and her body arched.
Her eyes suddenly flew open and stared wide at the ceiling above her as she gasped and wailed like she was still stuck in the nightmare.
Before I could calm her down, she rolled away from me and off the bed.
In a mess of flailing limbs, she stumbled into a nearby storage closet, her quiet sobs filtering out from inside.
A helpless anguish stole my ability to breathe.
I hung my head and scraped my now clawed fingers through my hair to tug on the strands.
I quickly swallowed down the pain and merged with shadows before reappearing in the dark closet beside her.
I slowly sat down next to her shaking form, her knees hugged to her chest and face buried in them.
She sniffled, and without looking up, she whispered, “Why aren’t you in your room?”
Instead of telling her I never even went to the room I’d claimed here, I answered, “Why would I be there when you’re here?”
Her head turned so that her wet cheek rested on top of her knees, and her arms slid down to hang limply on the ground like they’d given out.
Her damp eyes searched my glowing gold ones in the dark, cramped closet.
Ever so slowly, I slid my clawed hand across the ground until I found her hand, and I wrapped my pinky around her smaller one.
A lump gathered in my throat, both from the feeling of that familiar gesture and because of the fact that even now, even after everything that happened, she couldn’t escape these fucking dreams. “You still get nightmares?”
She was quiet for a while. Eventually, her pinky tightened around mine. “Yeah. Isn’t it funny? I’ve always been surrounded by ghosts and demons, yet what haunts me most are people and the memories of them.”
Yeah. I knew those memories. I’d possessed the one responsible for torturing Kendyll in her sleeping and waking hours, and I’d gone through the horrors she’d suffered from the glimpses of his memories.
I wanted so badly to take those experiences away from her.
I wanted to give her peace, safety, love, and happiness, everything she’d always been denied.
“Take me away.”
Her quiet request was nearly inaudible, but I picked up on the desperate, tearful plea.
It took me back to the very first time I’d stumbled upon Kendyll who had asked for the same thing.
I wished I’d accepted her request back then.
I wished I’d seen the signs that something wasn’t right and whisked her away.
How much suffering could I have saved her from enduring?
How would our current situation differ if I’d just kept hold of her small hand and said, “Okay?”
I blew out a breath and wrapped my arms around her to pull her in between my bent legs.
She leaned into me and clung to my shirt.
I tucked her head under my chin and squeezed her as hard as I could, reminding us both that the other was there.
This was where we both belonged. I wasn’t sure when I’d started to feel that way.
I wasn’t sure if it was a single moment that changed things for me or if it was a gradual process of falling for her over time.
But I knew it began sometime back then after I’d found her again.