Rewind (Vanish Book Three) (14 page)

“
You can kill someone before
you take their powers, you just can’t leave any wounds,” she
cackled and then turned her attention to the crowd. “I’m going to
do something today that has never been done before. I’m a trapped
soul, stuck in this body forever, for if this body dies, no one
knows what will happen to me. No one has ever dared to try this.
So, if I may ask, is anyone here a trapped soul as
well?”

“
I—I am,” one woman spoke
up.

“
Come up to the front
please,” her voice rang.

The woman came up and stood
at Debby’s side; she looked nervous. Debby reached her hand into
her pocket and pulled out a knife. She turned toward the woman and
drove it into her chest. There was no blood, and soon after there
was nothing remaining but dust. A ghost, looking quite different
from the woman, stood in front of me.

“
What the hell?” the crowd
roared.

Debby looked in the direction of the
ghost and smiled, and then she turned back toward me. I looked
behind her; Dante was standing there—alone. He must have gone to
tell everyone and then teleported back. I smiled. I had a sudden
feeling that everything would be okay, but with one final nudge, I
was submerged into the water. I didn’t sink as fast as I thought,
but by no means was the process a slow one. I had no choice but to
stand up and get my head above water, I took a deep breath, and
soon the entire cage had sunk to the bottom.

I tried to concentrate,
maybe I could use Dante’s power like I had before, but I couldn’t
concentrate. I was running out of air, and my lungs were starting
to ache. Seconds seemed like minutes, and I didn’t know what to do.
Dante must have been trying to do something; I hoped he would get
over this if I died. I hoped he would know that it wasn’t his
fault, and that he tried as hard as he could.

I wondered now, if the dream that I had
so long ago—the one where I was pushed off the cliff—was a
premonition of my death. I wondered if my subconscious was trying
to warn me, the ghosts tried to warn me last night. Allison—though
she didn’t know it—warned me last night as well.

Suddenly, a faint blue and
green light filled the cage. It wasn’t as bright as usual, and it
lasted no longer than a second—if that. He grabbed my hand and
closed his eyes. Again, a faint green and blue light lit up the
cage, and again, it went out no more than a second later. I looked
over at him as he opened his panic-stricken eyes—we were still
inside the cage.

Now I really started
panicking; we couldn’t get out. This must have been a special cage,
one that blocked our powers or something, or maybe it was just
impossible to use your powers underwater. I would never know, and
neither would he. I just watched the one person in this world that
I loved, kill himself. Now we would die together.

Then something strange
happened, I was outside of the cage. A moment later, Dante was at
my side. We were both safe. I went to go hug him; it simply
couldn’t wait until we swam up to the top, but he stopped me. He
turned me toward the cage. My lungs were no longer aching for air,
and now I knew why; nothing had escaped but our souls.

We swam to the top, Nurse Debby was
convincing the crowd that she only did what needed to be done, that
everything was in the best interest of everyone
involved.

We got out of the water a
little ways away from the crowd, if Debby saw us as ghosts, she
would know that it was over, and I wasn’t ready for that
yet.

I saw Cooper, Lily, and the
rest of them walking toward the edge of the lake, about thirty feet
away from everyone else.

“
Dante said they pushed her
into the water in a cage,” Lily said. “Look.” She pointed to the
chain attached to a tree that led down under the water.

“
We can’t waste any more
time,” Jackson said as he dove into the water, swimming in the
direction of the cage. Cooper ran after him and jumped in as
well.

No more than two minutes
later, they swam back. Jackson was carrying my body, and Cooper had
Dante’s.

They dragged us out and onto
the grass; thankfully, they were hidden by a cluster of bushes.
Cooper stood over both of us, putting a hand on each of our chests,
but nothing happened.

“
It’s not working,” Cooper
panicked. “They’re already dead.”

“
What are we going to do?” I
cried.

“
I don’t know, whatever
ghosts do, I guess,” Dante sighed.

“
No, this can’t be
happening. We need to do something,” I protested.

“
There’s nothing we can do
Scarlett. We’re dead. It’s over… I’m sorry I let you
down.”

I looked over toward the Alliance, and
in the bushes, I saw Annabelle.

“
What’s Annabelle doing
here?” I asked.

“
I stopped really fast on
the way back to tell her where we were. I shouldn’t have, but I
figured we would need everyone here, now it doesn’t really
matter.”

“
Of course it matters;
they’re still in danger,” I objected.

“
We still need to take down
the Alliance,” Grace said after a long moment of silence on their
end. “For Scarlett and Dante. I’ve been having some weird dreams
lately. They’re dreams of what Scarlett lived through. I really
feel like me and her were best friends and Dante, too.”

“
Yeah,” Cooper agreed. “I
had a dream the other night too; it was weird to say the least,” he
cringed. “But she’s right; we need to do this for them.”

“
Grace, you can paralyze
people, right?” Lily asked.

“
Yeah,” she
answered.

“
How many people at
once?”

“
I don’t know, let me try
something.” She peeked over the bushes, squinted her eyes and
everyone fell to the ground. “A lot of people,” she smiled a
crooked smile.

“
Okay, I’m going to
duplicate myself. I’ll grab all of their necklaces and put them
around their own necks. Jackson, I’m going to need you to watch my
back; your strength will come in handy.”

“
Will do,” he
answered.

“
Cooper, make sure if anyone
gets hurt that you’re right there, okay?” He nodded.

“
I can move things with my
mind,” Annabelle said as she came out of hiding. “I’m Annabelle,
and I was friends with Dante and Scarlett. I’ve had the same dreams
that you have, and I know they’re real.”

“
Okay, that could come to
use, stay alert, alright?” Lily said, and Annabelle
nodded.

“
Rachel,” she said, finally.
“You can burn people with a single touch, so like Jackson, I’ll
need you to be ready to help someone out if they need
it.”

“
Okay,” she
answered.

“
Is everyone ready?” Lily
asked.

“
Yes,” they all said
quietly. Everyone but Rose, who was sitting about ten feet away
rocking back and forth.

“
Allison, will you stay here
and keep Rose company?” Lily asked

Grace kept her gaze fixed on
the crowd, while they lay there motionless. Lily duplicated herself
five times and ran around taking everyone’s necklaces and putting
them around their necks. I walked over to my body and touched my
hand; I felt a spark and then my hand seemed to sink into itself. I
lay down on top of myself and felt a million little sparks, but
slowly, I began sinking in.

“
Dante, I think it’s
working, just do what I’m doing,” I urged.

“
Okay,” he said as he lay
down.

A few seconds later, I was
back. I opened my eyes, but before I had a chance to look around, I
stared choking. I could hear Dante next to me, coughing up water as
well. Allison and Rose ran over to us and when I could breathe
again, I crawled over to Dante.

“
Now there’s only one thing
that needs to be done. I need to make all of them
forget.”

I ran out with Dante by my
side; everyone looked over with their mouths open wide. I ran into
the crowd, there was no time to waste. I touched every person’s
forehead, making all of them forget. I didn’t know what they would
think when they got up, but I knew it would be nothing close to
what had actually went on.

By the time we made it
through the entire crowd, it was starting to get dark. We found a
box and put all of the necklaces inside. We went to leave, but
there was still something I needed to do.

I walked over to Debby, took
the knife out of her pocket and stuck it into her chest. After a
few moments, nothing was left. It wasn’t like the other times I
killed someone, no matter how evil they were, I always felt awful,
but this wasn’t the same. I had no sorrow in my heart as we walked
away from the beach, only joy and a few new friends. Life was
good.

Chapter 11: Three Months
Later

If I could ever wish that my life was a
certain way, it would be this. I wouldn’t have even known what
perfect could be a few months ago. A lot has happened since we took
down the Alliance. Their neighborhood was an awful place for such a
long time, but with a little imagination and help from some amazing
friends, it has become a wonderful place. Not a single person from
the Alliance remains there. They all went off and did whatever it
was that they dreamed before greed, and power took over.

I found my mother. Rose and
I are now happily living with her, and it’s as if we were never
separated in the first place. She tried to explain her complicated
reasons for giving us up, but it’s all in the past, and she was so
happy to have been reunited with us.

There was a beautiful house on the
shore of the lake, it may have been where Dante and I almost
died—or rather, did die for a few minutes— but there was no trace
of the evil that happened there, and I now called it
home.

Dante lived next door, a little ways
down the beach. Annabelle and her family moved into the
neighborhood a few blocks away.

Cooper and Lily took me to see
Elizabeth after everything was over and with a few heart-to-hearts,
she realized there is only one man in this world that she
loved—George. Even though their house was special, they both agreed
that they could use a change of scenery, and now they live right
across the street. We took some of the dirt from their old house
and spread it out around the neighborhood—just in case.

Grace convinced her mom to
move here, too. Her mom didn’t really care one way or the other
because she was never home anyway.

Jackson and Rachel both moved into
houses in the neighborhood as well, and so did Allison, who was now
with Cooper.

Word got around about the Alliance, and
people with powers were just dying to get a house in the
neighborhood, and a lot of them did. A few of the houses remain
empty, for guests or people who need a place to stay.

I had no idea with
everything that happened, that I could ever be this happy. There is
absolutely nothing about this life that I would change. I still
have such a vivid picture of when we set all of the prisoners free,
they cried tears of joy and hugged. We had people from around the
world going to neighborhoods in their area and setting everyone
free. It couldn’t have ended any better. All of that is over now,
and people can breathe again for the first time in a long
time.

I lay in bed, looking out my
window at the calm water. The sun was setting, and it would be dark
soon. Rose and I had the option of sharing a room, but decided
against it. We spent a lot of time together, but sometimes it was
nice to have your own space to go to.

I lay back, thinking about how
wonderful everything is now. I have the greatest mom in the world,
though she does have a lot of rules, she’s only being protective
and making up for the years she lost.

I heard a tap on the window
and then another. I got up to look outside; it was Dante. My heart
skipped a beat. I thought for a moment about just telling Mom that
I was leaving, then I realized I had some normal teenage daughter
rebellion to make up for myself. Even though it wasn’t really
rebellious, I had never snuck out before, and it seemed like
fun.

“
Hey, beautiful,” he said as
I climbed down.

“
Hey,” I smiled as I turned
toward him.

“
Every time I see you, I
swear you look even better than the last,” he whispered.

“
Well, that’s just not
possible remember?” I laughed.

Oh yeah, and one more thing,
I was told what seems like a long time ago, that when someone takes
over someone else’s body, they don’t change. They don’t age; they
just stay exactly the way they were—forever. Well, apparently, it
doesn’t really matter if it’s someone else’s body or your own the
same rules apply.

“
Well, that’s just opinion
and we have a long time to argue about that.”

“
Forever,” I
whispered.

“
And ever,” he continued, as
he put his arms around my waist.

###

Thank you for reading Rewind
(Vanish Book Three) I hope you enjoyed it!