Rewind (Vanish Book Three) (12 page)

I went into the basement to
see if I could find any blankets or pillows to bring out with me. I
knew by the end of the night, no matter what, I would be out in
that tent with the boy that I loved. I was so tired of pretending
we were just getting to know each other; he had the dreams, and he
knew what went on between us. I knew it was only an excuse, but I
didn’t mind that much. I wanted to be his friend if there was no
hope for anything else.

“
Hey, what are you doing
down here?” Grace asked as she walked down the stairs.

“
Oh, Dante found a tent
outside, and I was looking for some blankets and
pillows.”

“
So you’re sleeping
outside?” she asked.

“
I think I probably will, if
that’s alright.”

“
Yes, of course that’s
alright,” she said as she went to walk upstairs.

“
Hey Grace?”

“
Yeah?”

“
After all this is over, I
really hope we are good friends.”

“
Me, too,” she smiled.
“There are a couple of sleeping bags over there.” She pointed to
the corner.

“
Thanks.”

“
I know things have been a
bit crazy lately, and we haven’t talked much, but I’ve been having
these dreams,” she shuddered. “I feel like I know you better than I
know anyone, and I know now just how hard you tried to save
me.”

“
You—you’ve been having
dreams?” I sat down on the stool next to me; she pulled over
another and sat by me.

“
Yes, I think you coming
back into the past has changed a lot for the better. I don’t think
I was in as much trouble now as I was before. And do you know why?
Because you came to look for me, the Alliance needed me the last
time as bait.”

“
So do you know what
happened the night that you…died?”

“
Yes. Should I start from
the beginning?” I nodded. “I was at your house. We sat in your
living room for a few hours and just talked about everything, and
at the same time nothing. I was your best friend, and I said
nothing.” She looked down. “I kept seeing the person who was
following me, outside the window. I saw them; I knew that it was
them, but until later that night, I had no idea who they were—what
they were.”

“
Grace, I am so sorry you
had to go through this.”

“
We went to sleep. Well, you
went to sleep, and I laid awake staring out the window. My eyelids
got heavy; I hadn’t seen any sign of them in a while. I closed my
eyes and when I opened them, someone was in the hallway, right
outside your room. I couldn’t be certain that this was the person
that had been following me; in fact, they looked rather… harmless.
She wore a white dress; she had long brown hair, and she told me
that if I followed her, everything would be okay.” White dress,
brown hair, she looked harmless—it was the woman who was sent to
kill me.

“
So she’s the one who killed
you?”

“
No,” she said simply. “I
followed her down the street, and into the woods. I couldn’t help
it; it was as if I had no choice in the matter. Anyway, someone
else was waiting—it was the nurse, the one from Meadowbrook. They
tied me up to a tree; I couldn’t move. The girl in the dress pulled
out a knife, and the nurse slapped her across the face. She was
screaming about how they couldn’t kill me that way. She said there
could be no wounds. The nurse grabbed the knife and stabbed the
girl over and over. Then she untied me and took me to a small river
that wasn’t too far away…”

“
So you were
drowned?”

“
Yes, and the girl in the
white dress took over my body.”

“
I miss you,” I whispered,
as a single tear streamed down my cheek.

“
We are going to be best
friends, that is one thing that won’t change,” she smiled. “Good
night,” she said as she walked up the stairs.

I grabbed the sleeping bags, a couple
of blankets, and two pillows. I heard footsteps coming down the
stairs. It was Allison.

“
Oh, do you know where Grace
is?” she asked.

“
She just went upstairs,” I
answered. She went to turn around and go back up, but I stopped
her, “hey Allison?”

“
Yeah?”

“
Can I talk to you for a
minute?”

“
Sure,” she said, sounding
uncertain.

“
Have you seen anything
lately, anything that might have something to do with the Alliance
or—“

“
Sometimes it’s hard to tell
where my visions take place. Sometimes I even see from another
person’s perspective…”

“
So you haven’t seen
anything that might have to do with the Alliance?”

“
It’s like my power stopped
working,” she sighed. “The past few days, whenever I close my eyes,
I can’t breathe, and sometimes when I close my eyes all I see is
water, it’s like I’m underwater….”

“
Just try and get a good
night’s sleep,” I smiled.

“
Alright, thanks
Scarlett.”

I picked up the blankets,
pillows and sleeping bags, and went outside to see Dante. It was
dark out already, but his fire lit up the backyard with an eerie,
orange glow.

He was sitting in a fold up chair, and
he had another lying on the ground. He didn’t see me coming; he
looked miserable. I set everything in the tent that he had already
assembled. Then I picked up the chair and sat next to
him.

“
Hey, were you expecting
someone?” I joked.

“
Yeah, you.”

“
Well, here I am. I’m sorry
it took so long I—”

“
What are we going to
do?”

“
I—I don’t know… I guess I’m
going to go in alone, see what’s going on, and find out where they
all are. Then you guys come in.”

“
Why are you going in
alone?” he asked.

“
Because I can go
invisible,” I laughed. “I think that’s what Cooper and Lily’s—well,
my—grandpa meant. He said I would have to go in alone. I don’t know
how he knew, but—“

“
No, I know, but… I could go
with you.” He held his hand out.

“
Yeah, I guess you could,
but you’d have to be careful,” I said as I grabbed his hand. We
both disappeared and with the fire glowing next to us, Dante had an
amazing orange outline. I went to let go of his hand, but he held
on tighter.

“
We should do something
amazing tonight, something we’ve never done before.”

“
Like what?” I
asked.

“
I don’t know. I’ve just
been thinking about tomorrow, and I think I’m having an adrenaline
rush,” he laughed.

“
Well, I have no idea what
you want to do, so when you know, get back to me.”

We sat there, staring into
the fire; occasionally looking up to the sky. The stars twinkled
above our heads.

“
I know,” he
blurted.

“
Okay, let’s hear
it.”

He shook his head and grabbed my hand,
and the familiar green and blue swirls surrounded us. When I opened
my eyes, we were standing on the highest rock on a lake, we were
about thirty or more feet above the water.

“
What, do you expect me to
jump?”

“
No. I used to come up here
all the time; I’ve never brought anyone up here though. It’s just a
nice place to think… or talk, if you’re not alone.”

“
So what do you want to talk
about?” I wondered.

“
Us,” he mumbled. “I know
you don’t want me to worry about tomorrow, but I do. I don’t want
anything to happen without you knowing that I care.”

I hugged him. “I care, too,”
I said.

“
I’ve had so many dreams,
and you were the main thing about these dreams that made them,
well, amazing. When you weren’t with me in my dreams, the sky
seemed like it was always grey, but when you were…. I could feel
the slightest breeze; the sky was always blue. Even if it was only
a dream, even if it was at night, they were the best days I’ve
had.”

“
They weren’t only dreams;
they were memories that a different part of you has lived through.
That part is a part of you now, I believe that. I’m just happy that
I—we have another chance,” I smiled up at him; he didn’t smile
back.

“
When Cooper’s grandpa said
that some of us will die… he was looking at me. It seemed almost
like he was warning me, like he was talking just to me,” he
admitted.

“
I’m sorry, but I can’t
believe that,” I whispered.

“
No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t
be talking about things like that. I’m sure I was imagining it.” He
said it to make me feel better, but I could tell by his tone of
voice, that he didn’t believe a word he said.

“
Everything is going to be
fine. We are going to be the ones to take down the Alliance and
then after that, we’re going back to being normal teenagers,” I
reassured him.

“
That sounds great, being a
normal teenager. Awkward conversations, even a feeling or memory
that can come rushing back by something as small as a familiar
smell. I know it hasn’t been long, but nothing has felt normal
these past few days.” He closed his eyes. A gust of wind blew in
our direction.

“
You used to wear that
cologne every day,” I sighed at the memory it brought back, and he
put his hand over mine.

“
That was a good dream; I
never got to finish it though.”

“
What are you talking
about?” I asked.

“
For some reason, I just
thought about the night… you said something about my
cologne.”

Why didn’t I think of it before? “So
you never saw what happened, not later that night or in the
morning?”

“
No, it was blurry; things
got clear when we were standing on the edge of the cliff,” he said
as he stared out into the lake. Then suddenly, he got
up.

“
Where are you
going?”

“
I was thinking about it,
and I kind of do want to jump. There aren’t any rocks down there;
we just have to jump far enough out.”

“
Dante,” I
whined.

“
Come on,” he held his hand
out. “We’ll do it together; I promise you won’t get
hurt.”

I stepped to the edge of the
rock. A memory came rushing back. It wasn’t the one where I was
standing on the edge of the cliff with the Alliance staring me
down, though this felt vaguely similar. It wasn’t because of the
cliff. It was because of what surrounded me.

Chapter 10: Life or
Death

They stood around us, bloody
and beaten. I’d seen them before, and they almost killed me. Dante
stared ahead into the lake. It stretched out so far, you couldn’t
see what was on the other side, all there was, was the moon and its
reflection.

He squeezed my hand tighter,
urging me to jump. I pulled his hand back, hoping that he would
look. I knew they were ghosts, but he’d seen ghosts before. My only
question was, why were they back? And this time, they weren’t only
in my dreams.

I thought to run, but there
was nowhere to go. I went to speak, but my voice caught in my
throat.

“
You know that you can’t
win,” one man said.

“
What do you want?” I asked,
thankful that my voice let me.

“
What we’ve wanted all
along. Help. When you get rid of the Alliance, you will set us
free, but I have very little hope that you’ll make it
through.”

“
What are you talking
about?”

“
You’ll understand
tomorrow.” The man came forward. It was as if Dante was in a
trance, either that, or he couldn’t see or hear them. The man
grabbed me by my throat and threw me off the rock.

It felt like I was falling
forever. I thought about tomorrow. How was I supposed to take on
the Alliance, when I couldn’t even take on a few ghosts? I still
had Dante’s hand in mine, but it didn’t seem as if he even knew we
were falling.

We were submerged in the
water. I could swim, but for some reason, I couldn’t reach the
surface. I opened my eyes, and they surrounded me. They moved
aside. They did it for a reason—to show me something: my lifeless
body. I closed my eyes; my lungs were aching for air. I knew I was
alive at this point, but why would I be seeing myself dead
underwater if it wasn’t coming?

When I opened my eyes, Dante
was lifeless next to my dead body, but it wasn’t Dante, I was still
holding his hand. There was something around our dead bodies, it
lit up for a moment, and then disappeared.

We must have only been
underwater for a matter of seconds, but I felt reality slipping
away. I didn’t know if a vision was coming on, or if I was just
losing consciousness. I felt Dante’s hand pulling me up, but my
foot was caught on something. His grasp loosened and then he was
gone altogether, and all I was left with was darkness.

There was no vision,
nothing. I was passing out, and I knew it. I couldn’t move; I
couldn’t save myself. I was slipping away. I felt a horrible pain
in my foot and moments later, I could feel the sturdiness of the
ground underneath me. I felt pressure on my chest, and Dante’s lips
touch mine; I felt air rushing into my flooded lungs.