The Rules for Disappearing (21 page)

This is wrong. This shouldn’t be happening.

My mind spins so fast, it makes me dizzy. Images start firing

through my brain, but I can’t sort them out. I squeeze my eyes closed to make it stop, but it doesn’t work. I hold my head in my hands as every horrible image from my nightmares now plays in vivid color.

Ethan drops down beside me. His mouth is moving but I can’t

understand the words, and the features of his face start to blur. The trees spin around me and I can taste bile in my throat. I look at the gun where he dropped it on the ground and then at Bandit. Will is trying to stop the flow of blood. This is wrong. Catherine and S—

Emma shout at each other but I can’t hear them either, and Ben is N—

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back on the phone. There’s a humming in my ears that drowns out everything else. I shove my fingers in my ears, trying to make the sound go away.

And then everything is black.

—S

—N

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RULES FOR DISAPPEARING

BY WITNESS PROTECTION PRISONER #18A7R04M:

Confine yourself to your living space as much as possible, especial y at night.

Remember, nothing good ever happens after midnight.

I’m
trapped in the room again. The voices are loud but distorted.

There’s blood everywhere. I look down. It’s coming from me.

I wake with a start. There’s a crowd over me, and Ethan helps me up to a sitting position.

I back away from everyone and ask, “What happened?” My

throat feels rough and scratchy.

Ethan’s brow scrunches up. “You started screaming and then

passed out. How do you feel?”

I’m looking at Ethan’s face but that’s not what I see. I’m back in that room from my nightmare. I’m behind something. A couch.

It’s leather. It’s so real, it’s like I’m actually there, right now. I reach my hand out to feel its buttery softness, but all I hit are dead leaves.

My jaw gets tight like I’m going to vomit. This isn’t real. This can’t be real.

S—

“Meg, are you okay?” He twists around and screams, “Dad, I

N—

need to get Meg out of here.”

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Now there are sounds. Screaming, loud, angry ones. My head

vibrates with the noise. I sink back down to the ground but Ethan picks me up and helps me into the Ranger I saw his Dad riding

in earlier. I curl up in the seat and every time my eyes close—I’m back in that room. I open them quickly, scared of being sucked into that dream. Mr. Landry is at my side. I look at his face but I see Mr. Price, Brandon’s dad, instead. And there’s blood pouring from his chest. I dig my palms into my eyes, hoping to erase the images.

“Take her home, son. We’ll see about Bandit. Will’s got the

bleeding stopped and they’re wrapping him up now.”

“You want me to come with you?” I hear Catherine ask.

“No, stay with Will. Help get Bandit back to the truck.”

I want to tell Ethan to stay, to take care of Bandit, but I have to get out of here.

We drive fast through the woods and Ethan keeps one arm

across me the entire time. Every dark shadow from the surrounding woods looks like they’re trying to close in around me and suck me in.

I drop my head against Ethan’s shoulder and my eyes drift

closed. Brandon’s face fills my mind but it’s not the tanned beautiful face I remember. His eyes stare past me in a lost sort of way and then there’s blood. Everywhere.

“No!” I scream and shake my head, hoping to erase the horrible things there.

Ethan slows the Ranger and pulls me to him. “Meg, are you

okay?”

—S

“Yes, I’m fine.” I’m so not fine. Not at all.

—N

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We make it back to his truck and he helps me into the passenger seat, handing me a bottle of water.

“I’m so sorry, Ethan. Is Bandit going to be alright?”

“Yes, he’ll be fine. Just a gash in the shoulder. They gave him a shot to help with the pain. I’ll take him to the vet first thing for a few stitches but other than that, he’ll be good as new. I probably won’t be able to pick you up in the morning.”

We leave the farm and I fight down the images forcing their

way through my head. I focus on the white center line of the road and try not to think about anything else.

“I’m worried about you. Are you okay?”

I take a deep drink of water then wipe my hand over the back of my mouth. “I can’t talk about it right now.”

I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to even think about it. The nightmare scrolls through my head and it takes every bit of determination I have to keep from falling apart.

“Are you taking me home?”

“I can’t decide if I need to take you home or the hospital.”

“Home. Please take me home,” I beg.

He’s quiet but keeps looking over at me.

“What about the hog,” I ask.

“Dead. It was either him or Bandit.” I can hear the heartbreak in his voice.

He really should have stayed with his dog rather than having

to deal with me. I pick at a dried flake of blood on my hand then I realize I’m covered in it. Once I start, I can’t stop. I rub my hands S—

together, hoping to get rid of every piece, but it’s not working.

N—

Ethan leans across the truck and puts his hand on top of

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mine, stopping me. “I can take you to shoot targets. Let you get comfortable with a gun. They’re not near as scary once you learn how to use one.”

My jaw gets tight. “No. It’s fine.”

“Have you ever been around guns before?”

The image of a hand with a gun fills my head but it’s not Ethan’s.

It’s a man’s hand. And I’m in that room. I shake my head, hard. Can’t think about the gun. Or the blood. Or the sound.

“Well, if you change your mind, let me know.”

“I won’t.”

We ride the rest of the way in silence. I stare at the dashboard, zoning in on it so I can’t think about anything else.

Ethan moves to get out once we pull in the parking lot but I

stop him. “I’m so sorry about Bandit. Please go check on him.” He starts to argue but I put a finger over his lips. “I’ll feel so much better if you do.”

I jump out of the truck before he has a chance to say anything then tiptoe into the house. It’s late, sometime around midnight, and all I want to do is get in bed and process what happened tonight and why I’m flooded with visions from my nightmares. I’m startled when I see Mom at the kitchen table, her head in her hands, with an empty gin bottle beside her.

“Mom?”

She looks up and her eyes are red and swollen. “You’re back.”

I sit down at the table. I need to ask her what’s happening to me, but she’s stinking drunk. Just when I need her the most. “I thought you stopped.”

—S

She shakes her head and looks back down. “What happened?

—N

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You’ve got blood all over you. Are you hurt?”

“I had some sort of panic attack. I think I’m going crazy.” I

drop my head on the table. I have to talk to someone even if it’s my hammered mother who won’t remember a single thing I say come

morning. “Something is wrong with me but I don’t know what it

is. I’ve been having nightmares for months but tonight I had them while I was awake. I’ve got things in my head I can’t get rid of.”

She turns toward me and almost falls out of her chair. “You’re not crazy.” She puts both of her hands on the side of my face and pulls me close to her. This is why I hate being around her when she’s like this. The smell of gin is overwhelming. “They said it’d happen like this.” She drops her hands back on the table then her eyes flutter close.

I nudge her shoulder. “Mom, what are you talking about?

Mom?”

She opens her eyes about halfway. “It’s not your fault. Don’t feel bad.” Her words are slurred, but I can make them out. I don’t understand them though.

“What’s not my fault? And who is “they” and what did they

say?”

She rolls her head to the side. “Can’t tell you. Dad will be mad at me.” She lets out a sharp laugh. “Ha! Dad’s always mad at me.”

I lean forward closer to her face. “Please tell me. I think something is really wrong with me.”

She props herself up on her elbows, eyes squinting like she’s

trying to focus on my face. “It’s not your fault, baby. You weren’t S—

supposed to be there.” Her head falls again.

N—

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“Mom, talk to me. Stay awake. Not supposed to be where?” I

get that tingly feeling I had in the woods and I break out in a sweat.

“Tell me, Mom. What’s not my fault?” I pull her head up and turn her face to me.

One eye cracks open and she spreads her arms wide. “This. All

this. You’re why we’re here. You’re the one they’re after.”

—S

—N

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RULES FOR DISAPPEARING

BY WITNESS PROTECTION PRISONER #18A7R04M:

Always stay one step ahead. Then when things go to shit you won’t be one step behind. And things always go to shit.

Mymother’s words ricochet around my brain. The room. The

blood. The gun. Pictures flash across my eyes and I squeeze them shut. My palms get a little sweaty and my mouth goes dry.

“Dad did something. We’re in this because of Dad, not me.” Not me, not me, not me.

She’s drunk. And out of her mind. But the words echo through

my brain and the mental images get a little sharper. That room with the stone walls and the giant dark furniture.

“No, baby girl. It’s you.” She falls backwards in the chair. I grab her shirt, pulling her back up.

“Don’t say that!” I shake her hard and her eyes open.

“You saw him. That’s why we’re here. But you forgot. You froze up and now you don’t remember.”

Mom starts crying as her head falls back down on the table. I

sit there stunned. Minutes go by while I watch her cry. My mind is S—

numb like someone threw an ice-cold bucket of water over my head.

N—

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know where I’m going but I can’t stay in that house.
It’s got to be
Dad, not me . . . Dad, not me . . .
plays in my head like a broken record.

The parking lot is deserted. As much as I hate to go there, I run to the laundry room. I have nowhere else to go. I fling open the door and flip every switch, flooding the space with light.

I plop down in a chair against the wall. I’m terrified to dig deep in the hazy memories, scared to death of what I’ll find there, but all I’ve wanted to know since this started was the truth, so I close my eyes and let my mind go.

A light flashes across the room. There’re two men. Arguing.

Everything is blurry around the edges. Their screams mix with the sounds of the hog and Bandit. I rush to the trash can and throw up.

At the laundry sink, I douse my face with water and rinse my

mouth. Dried blood still covers my hands. I rub my skin until it’s raw; the smell of the blood with the water makes me vomit again but nothing’s left in my stomach.

The blood’s all over my shirt, too. I have to get it off of me. I jerk it off, leaving me in a tank top. It’s cold in here but I can’t stand all that blood. I fall to the floor.

The two men. They’re still yelling but also shoving each other like they’re one step away from a full-out fight.

I focus on one of them. It’s Mr. Price, my dad’s boss. Brandon’s father. Concentrating on the details of the room, I know where it is.

The Prices’ house—I’ve been there a million times but not often in this room. It’s Mr. Price’s office.

The other man—he’s tall and big with short dark hair. He’s

got a thin scar that starts above his eyebrow, slices through his

—S

left eye making it sag, and continues down the side of his face. It’s

—N

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hard to look at him without flinching. They circle around each other like caged animals, yelling. Something about ledgers. “Give me the ledgers . . .” over and over. The nightmare with the books crashing around me fills my head. Books are everywhere. All over me. Every time I touch one, they multiply. I’m drowning.

I lie on the cold concrete floor, pressing every part of me to the ground, hoping to separate what really happened in that room from the nightmares that have plagued me for months. My breathing

steadies and the images become clearer, like someone adjusted the focus. The man with the scar lifts his hand and he’s holding a gun.

Mr. Price lunges for it and they both fall to the floor.

The noise in my head is like a freight train. It’s coming closer until it’s so loud I can’t hear anything else, no screaming, nothing.

And then the gun fires. The sound vibrates through my body and super-fast images of Mr. Price with blood gushing from his chest explode in front of me.

I drive my palms into my eyes, not sure I can take much more

of this.

Then I see Brandon.

My heart stops the moment he walks in the room. He’s just a

few feet from me but doesn’t see me behind the couch. I want to scream at him to run, hide . . . anything to keep him safe but before I get the chance to say or do anything—another shot stops me cold.