Intrinsical (20 page)

The offshoot recoiled to strike again when something grabbed me from behind, like a strong firm hand had reached around my waist and was pulling me away, distancing me from my enemy. The wind was sucked from my lungs and my body folded in half, as if being pulled like taffy, and I was carried across campus. The air changed from fresh and flavorful to old and stale. Buildings, trees, and people zoomed by, and as they did I felt like I was being torn limb from limb. I cried out in agony.

My vision blurred as the pain grew. When it finally receded I looked around and found myself back in the glass pool house. I glanced at the clock; it read ten-thirty, just as it had the last time I was in here with Thomas, who had been masquerading as Brent. Had it really been only twenty-four hours since I had died?

The banner announcing a pre-season meet with our rival school still hung across the room, though the meet should have already happened. Even the moonlight shadows and the placement of the chairs replicated the night I died. The empty cups of tainted grape juice sat on the table beside me, and the concrete floor had a fresh stain from where I had spilled my drink. Every detail was the same, like someone had painstakingly recreated the night I died.

It was morbid.

I thought back to the ghost stories my grandma had told me about murdered spirits stuck in a homicidal loop, reliving their deaths every night. I gulped, hoping that wasn’t about to happen to me. I didn’t have time to worry over this because a loud crack thundered through the air and everything went black.

****

Empty. I was nothing. No name, no sense of self, beyond and before this moment I was nothing. A heavy rhythm thudded around me as I was rocked, my limbs hanging uselessly from me.

In a rush my body and spirit were reunited. I was underwater in my heavy gown and impractical shoes. I was trapped and running out of air, drowning. I had heard when you’re dying, images of your life flitter past your eyes, but for me pictures of my evening trudged through my mind: Cherie’s dinner party at the old pool; sharing juice with Brent; being thrown from my body; trying to reconnect; Brent vanishing after the orange explosion underwater. My heart wilted with panic as I struggled to free myself from what held me captive, dragging me to the bottom of the pool. I peered into liquid darkness that seemed insistent on claiming me as it own, despite my frantic clawing and tugging at my dress. There was a clanging in my ears, a burning in my chest. I wasted my last few seconds of breath screaming futilely for help that I knew wouldn’t come. Terror morphed into acceptance. My eyes started to close in defeat, my limbs stilled, and I knew it was the end.

Some time later my eyes opened slowly. The warped, disorienting feeling of déjà vu still clung to me. I was lying on cement, on my back, looking through the glass roof of the pool house, staring at the stars. My shoulder burned, throbbing from the mist’s handiwork. I was back in the present, my memory intact, the instant replay of my death over.

I had been ripped from the present to experience again the final moments of my life. Reliving my death had been just as traumatic and painful as it had been when I had really died. In the reenactment, I had been powerless to remember anything beyond my final moments or do anything to change the outcome.

I turned to tell Brent but to my surprise he wasn’t there. The last place I had seen him had been at the volleyball courts when the mist . . .

Did it get him? I started to get to my feet, but had to sit down as the room began to careen. I thought of the mist attack.

My mind searched for him with an intensity that surprised me. He was near and just knowing that eased the pressure building behind my eyes. But beyond knowing he was close, I couldn’t locate him, my Brent GPS on the fritz. The scraping of the door and the flickering on of the lights drew my attention to Cherie walking into the pool house, blocking the view of the person behind her. She wore the same formal black and white dress that she had worn at her party the night before.

“
I swear I saw them come in here,” Cherie mumbled. “He left, but she didn’t.”

Her words were familiar; I had heard them from her before, the night before. Her companion stepped out from behind her and my forehead crinkled in confusion to see it wasn’t Steve with her, but Brent.

“
Nice to know you’re able to pay such good attention to details and kiss me at the same time,” Brent teased with a grin. He glanced around the room, looking right past me, even though I was looking right at him. “Maybe they left,” he suggested.

The words, his actions, even his expressions were identical to the ones Steve had used right before they found me dead. Brent was acting like Steve had, and was even wearing Steve’s navy blue pin-striped suit.

“
I guess,” Cherie said, sounding unsure. “Wait, what’s that?”

Cherie asked, pointing to the water’s edge where my purse lay haphazardly.

Cherie bent down and picked it up. “It isn’t like Yara to leave things. You don’t think . . .” She trailed off as she looked toward the water. She and Brent spread out, each peering into the pool.

“
Brent!” I called, trying to get his attention. He gave no sign that he had heard me. “Brent!” I yelled again, stepping in his path so he would have no choice but to stop or run me over. To my surprise he did neither; he walked right through me, his eyes fixed on my dead body at the bottom of the pool, stopping only when he reached the edge, where he crouched low, gasping in horror and diving in. Cherie started screaming hysterically. Brent resurfaced, pulling my body along in his strong arms, and Cherie ran to help him.

Brent began giving me CPR. I kneeled across from him and called his name again, but he still didn’t hear me.

I had heard of things like this, that other spirits could be drawn into the death loop. Like an actor given a role, Brent had apparently been assigned the part of Steve. In this moment, he, too, was given a script he couldn’t vary from. His part as Steve had to play out to the end before he was himself again.

I didn’t want to watch, so I walked toward the glass walls and stared out into the clear night, the searing pain in my shoulder helping to distract me from the scene re-unfolding behind me.

I was grateful when the CPR stopped, and the time twist ended. Cherie’s distraught image disappeared like a wisp of smoke on the wind and Brent’s consciousness reemerged as his own. The past faded into the present, leaving Brent standing there, looking dazed, rubbing the back of his neck.

“
That was intense.” He walked toward me shaking his head. “It’s very awkward playing Steve and making out with Cherie. I’m not sure if I should feel guilty or grateful.”

I shot him a nasty look but he didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed. “What?” He continued. “It’s not my fault that I now know way more about how our best friends kiss than I ever wanted to.”

“
Oh, shut up!” I said. I pushed down the feeling of jealousy I felt at the image of him kissing Cherie. “Thanks for the visual,” I added, wondering for a second how far they had gone and then deciding I didn’t want to know. “So you were Steve’s stand-in?”

“
No, I
was
Steve. I thought everything he was thinking, did everything he did. It was like I was him.”

“
Weird.”

“
I know. Why wasn’t I me?”

“
Maybe since you didn’t have a body when it happened, you had to play someone who did.” Dying again had drained me and I cradled my aching arm as I settled down wearily at the water’s edge. “What was that anyway?”

“
How you died,” Brent said dryly.

“
I guess I phrased that wrong,” I conceded with a wry smile. “Why did I have to go through that again?”

“
A hiccup in time, maybe?” Brent scuffed his feet on the cement. “Haven’t you heard of murdered ghosts haunting the places where they died?”

“
That was a rhetorical question meant purely for complaint.” I bit my lip hard. “Is my murder going to echo here for all eternity? Am I going to have to relive my drowning every night?”

Brent’s eyes wrinkled in concern. “I don’t know.”

Sadly, having listened to my grandma, I was afraid I did know. “Do you relive your death, too?”

“
No, but we each died under totally different circumstances. I got invaded by the body snatchers and you went swimming with the fishes.”

“
Nice analogy. The real difference, though, is that you’re not dead,” I said softly. “Your heart’s still beating.”

“
Well, I’m not exactly alive either, am I?” There was an electric frustration bubbling under Brent’s surface. “You have to get past this belief that I’m still alive.”

“
I know, Brent. I’m sorry. Dying again was just really hard. It rattled me.”

“
Makes sense.” I was surprised at his reply; I had been expecting another sarcastic remark. “So, how did dying go tonight?” He joked softly.

I snickered. “Oh, you know,” I played along, “the usual. I drowned.” Something that had perplexed me made its way out of my subconscious. “Something was different tonight, though. I mean, I wasn’t in the groves with you before I drowned. I also skipped the whole not being able to reach my body part. Why is that?”

“
I don’t know. Was anything else different?”

I shivered as I replayed the horrific events. “Well, instead of being with you, everything was black and I felt like an empty shell. It was like I was . . . nothing.”

Brent looked pensive as he ran his fingers above the pool, making small waves across the water. “Maybe your reenactment needed to keep you with your body the whole time.”

“
Why?” I placed my good hand over the water, willing it to move, smiling when it rippled slightly.

“
I don’t know. I’m just so glad that we were dragged here. I thought we were trapped.” We shuddered simultaneously at the thought of the mist. “How’s the stab wound?”

I winced, being reminded of the throbbing pain in my arm.
Burning
.
Agonizing
. I bit back my immediate responses and gritted my teeth. “Fine.”

“
Still trying to lie? Did you miss the ‘We’re connected’ seminar held earlier?” Brent asked, rubbing his own shoulder. “Even if I wasn’t having sympathy pain, I wouldn’t have believed you.” He rolled his shoulders again and cursed under his breath. “It sucks there can be this much pain in the afterlife.” He turned toward me reaching for my arm. “Let me see it.”

“
It’s fine.” I angled away from him, suddenly tense. “No need to fuss.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Good, then you won’t care if I take a look.”

“
It’s fine.” I shoved his hand away.

“
Yara.” His voice was firm with a touch of warning. “Just let me look at it.”

He gently took my elbow and eased me around. A long, low whistle pushed through his lips as his cool fingers touched the wound, examining it carefully. When I finally got the courage to peek at it, I felt nauseated. It was a gaping, jagged wound, black around the edges and crusted over by the blue liquid that had oozed from it.

Brent’s hands were now covered in the sticky blue substance, but he didn’t seem to care— he was concentrating on my injury, his eyes focused, his finger gently applying pressure. I could hear the words Brent repeated in his mind, like he was following a set of instructions, his soft fingers soothing the angry tear. Sweat formed on his face and his body trembled as my ragged skin fused back together, heating and molding like wax. Under Brent’s fingertips, the wound then cooled, taking the pain away with the warmth, until the only sign of the injury was a jagged black scar. Brent collapsed onto his back next to me, totally spent.

“
How did you do that?”

“
I . . . I wasn’t sure I could. I only read about it in Neal’s journals.” Brent breathed deeply. “I had to try. That injury was really serious. The mist wasn’t playing around.”

“
What does it want?” I hugged my knees to my chest.

Brent rolled onto his back and draped his arms over his eyes.

“
Besides you?” “That isn’t funny.” “It wasn’t meant to be.” His voice sounded hoarse and weak. “Do you mind if we get out of here? This really isn’t my favorite

place.”

“
Yeah, okay.” Brent looked wistfully at the door, as if trying to make it move closer so he wouldn’t have as far to go.

Chapter 11

The sun was rising and the air still chilly when we emerged outside. A few scattered clouds broke up the robin’s egg blue sky. Rays of sunshine made diamonds of the dew glistening in the grass and clinging to the leaves. The campus was quiet, most students still asleep.

“
Did you notice all the people in the mist?” I asked Brent as we neared my former dorm. I stopped at the fire escape, contemplating if I was ready to check in on Cherie.

“
Yeah.” Brent’s eyes were on me, waiting for me to decide if I was going up or not.