Hollowed (5 page)

All this getting worked up is making me feel sick again. My head is throbbing. My eyes burn like I haven
'
t slept in weeks.
"
Then why are you bothering with me?
"

Oliver shrugs.
"
Because Cole has a soft-spot for strays.
"

"
Like you?
"

"
Like me,
"
he admits.
"
Look, just stay home, rest, like Cole said." He reaches for the door. "Keep a low profile. When you're ready to believe me, you know where to find us."

Oliver leaves. The apartment is silent again with the click of the door. This time, I lock
and
chain it shut. Creep.

‘Seen your cat lately?
'

Sherry and I originally became roommates out of necessity. I needed a place to stay
as soon as
I could get out of my parents
'
house. She needed someone to pay half the rent. We knew each other from high school and she was nice, so I thought
Why not?

Getting a cat was our first bonding experience. We went to the local animal shelter and, after looking at si
x litters of kittens, spotted a nine
-month-old tabby kept separate from the rest.
"
He doesn
'
t play well with the others,
"
one of the employees said. He was older than
we had
planned, but he was perfect. It took us three days to name him. After a night spent hyped up on energy drinks and leftover Halloween candy, we settled on Chuck Norris.

Chuck was the ice-breaker between us.

As soon as Oliver leaves,
I wander the apartment, shaking Chuck
'
s
food bowl. Until now, the sound of kibble hitting the porcelain has never failed to lure him out.

I find him in my and Sherry
'
s shared closet, a furry black and white lump in the back corner behind shoes and empty boxes. He growls at me, low and feral. He
'
s never done that before.

"
You're hurting my feelings, Chuck
.
"
I crouch, reaching for him. The growl turns into a furious howl
and h
e swats at my hand, claws grazing my knuckles and making me jerk back in surprise.

‘They will fear you.
'

I don
'
t like having a little Oliver in my head lecturing me.

Since
Chuck obviously doesn
'
t feel like playing
,
I place his food just inside the closet door and leave him alone
, t
rying
to bite back the tears burning my eyes
, trying to ignore the nagging feeling in the back of my brain. The tiny part I want to snuff out. The part whispering that Oliver
and Cole might have been right, because something is obviously wrong with me.

Fever-induced nightmares drag me in and out of sleep, never fully relinquishing their hold even when I wake.
Every time
I get out of bed, I feel displaced.
Watching everything through the end of a long tunnel.
By the time th
e next evening rolls around, I don't feel anymore lucid
. But
somehow
I'm up, I'm dressed.

I leave early and take the long way to work. It's a stupid idea. I feel like shit. Don
'
t look so hot, either.
T
he cops
could
come looking for me at
Howell
'
s
; that thought hadn’t occurred to me.
But I want to get out of the apartment.
Want to see Sherry's brother, Paul, and tell him what happened.
Want to see familiar faces.
Want to grab hold of
some
sense of normalcy.

I want
to prove Oliver wrong.

But I can't bring myself to go across that bridge, not yet. The sun has been down for nearly an hour. What bit of light I get from street-lamps and passing cars make
s
my eyes burn and my head throb. Still haven't eaten. I've almost given up on the idea that I ever will again.

If I thought being outside is bad, being in the bar is a hundred times worse. The swirling mixture of alcohol, food and sweat crashes into me, a wall of dizzying stench. It's never been like this before. Smothering, claustrophobic. I brace myself against the counter, trying to regain my bearings.

"Briar?"

Forcing my eyes open, I see
one of my coworkers, Tina,
with a pitcher of beer a few feet away. She looks worried. And something else
—
something uncertain.

"What are you doing here? The
cops were..." She trails off and
averts her eyes to behind the bar. I follow her gaze. Paul
is watching
us. I don't know whether to be relieved or
scared out of my mind
. I should have thought this through. Anxiety and anger are written all over Paul's face as he approaches
,
and m
y heart drops
into my stomach
.

"I report you and Sherry missing, and you walk in here like you're ready for a shift?
What the hell happened?
"

I can't look at him without wanting to tell him th
e truth. Sherry's not missing,
she's dead.
It
'
s
my fault.
We should
'
ve left when he did that night.
Gotten a
ride home.

"I don't know," I mumble, wishing we could retreat to the
back office
. Somewhere quiet.
This
headache is turning into a full-blown migraine. "We were walking home. It was dark,
someone
attacked us and she..."

"Is missing while you're still here. You sure don't look like you were attacked." Paul grabs my arm. His fingers dig in deep, but it doesn't hurt. He's pissed. No
—
he's
scared.
Paul cares about me as a friend, but Sherry is his baby sister, and he'd do anything for her. Now she's missing and I'm completely unscathed? Yeah, no wonder he's freaking out.

He leans in close, voice low so as not to attract attenti
on. "What happened to my sister
?"

I force my eyes to meet his. There's nothing I can say.

Slowly, Paul's expression shifts. The anger melts away. Fear remains, but it's not fear over the possible loss of his sister. He sees something in my eyes that he doesn't like. He releases my arm and shrinks back
, r
uns a hand over his face and turns away.

"Go home."

I open my mouth, reaching for words, helpless. "Paul..."

"Get out of here, Briar
." Harsher this time, but he still won't look at me.

All my coworkers are staring. Tina
i
s still standing there, pitcher in hand, eyes darting frantically between me and Paul. The guys behind the bar have stopped mixing drinks. A few
customers
are watching, too, wondering
what
'
s
going on.

They think I had something to do with Sherry's disappearance. I'm not a victim. I'm the
suspect
.

So many eyes on me, consuming me. Stripping me down and twisting me inside out. I can't breathe and the room whirls around me in a cascade of accusing faces and smells. The only thing I can do is escape back outside, knowing I won't see any of them again. I won't come back here. I can't. Maybe Oliver was right about that, too. About having to leave and start over.

I
linger
on the sidewalk, waiting for the shakiness in my legs to pass. Wanting someone
here to tell
me it'll be all right. That Sherry's death
isn't
my fault. It makes me think of Noah, the one person who took my side in everything. There's nothing I want more than to see his face. Hear his voice. Ask him what I should do.

And when I turn, my wish is granted.
There he is
, rounding the corner of the street, making his way toward the bar. Toward me. Bundled up in the same black jacket and scarf I
'
ve stolen from him time and again. Hair mussed, shoulders hunched.

Noa
h sees me and there's a moment—
the moment where his mo
uth curves into a perfect smile—
where I have a concise and clear thought for the first time in days:
Everything will be okay now.

Do I laugh at the relief
bubbling
in my chest,
or
do I throw myself at him, sobbing?

A
nd j
ust like that, the moment is over.
As
Noah's
steps slow,
I see the transformation in his face. The darkening of his eyes, the fading smile. Shock. Confusion. Horror. Noah stares at me like I'm a creature unknown to him. Like he doesn't understand what he's looking at.

'No one
will look at you the same,'
Olive
r
had said.

Noah
steps back, away from me. Farther and farther out of my reach.

Oliver was right. I'm different, I'm changing, and everyone around me can sense it. Even Noah.
Especially
Noah.

I say his name once, begging. Pleading. But he's already gone.

I remember Noah leaving
and
chasing after him in hopes of trying to explain. I remember crouching at the corner of the street while my vision blurred and the nausea overwhelmed me again. But I really don
'
t remember the walk home.

Shouldn
'
t I be getting better instead of sicker?

The worst hits that night. It w
akes me out of
a dead sleep like a bad dream. I'm s
haking too bad to get up. The pain is unbearable, tiny shards of glass coursing through my veins. Tearing holes in my lungs until I can't breathe. Can't think.

Every nerve, every tissue, every cell. Twisting in agony.  This is what it feels like to fall
to pieces. Being disassembled.
H
ollowed out.

I
'
m dying,
is all I can think. Over and over. This is how it will end.

But there
'
s no doubt in my mind now what Oliver said is true.

I
am
changing.

I chase Noah in my dreams but I never catch him. He's always a step ahead, just out of reach.
Even though I know this isn't real, I can't help myself
. There he is, standing on the street, and all I want is to grab him and hold onto him for as long as I can.

Though i
f I
'
m dreaming, I guess that means I
'
m not dead.

At some point—
how long has it been?
—
I kicked all my blankets to the floor and the sheets stick to every bit
of my exposed skin
. Gross.
As I
'
m peeling them off the backs of my thighs, I realize what woke me up: knocking
.

Someone
is
pounding on the front door. If it were Cole or Oliver, they would've let themselves in
despite the locks
. For a brief second, my heart leaps into my throat. What if it's Noah? Realizing he over-reacted, wanting to see me?

I vault out of bed and
bound
through the apartment. Halfway through the living room and another knock later, I pause. It's not him.
Not sure how
I know this, but I do. The same way I felt everyone's fear and discomfort in the bar, I feel
this
like a tangible emotion in the air I can reach out and touch. And if i
t isn't Noah, Oliver or Cole...
it has to be the police.