Chapter 1: That Night
The sky was crystal clear as I lay in the field behind the apartments. The breeze was gentle, but colder than I would have liked. Staring up at the bare trees, sadness swept over me. I longed for summer. I wanted to see this beautiful forest in all of its glory, and I would. We weren’t leaving; we couldn’t. Grace was our responsibility now, and she wouldn’t be safe anywhere else. She was frail, and weak. She hadn’t moved or eaten anything since we got here. It seemed like it had been an eternity since we’d returned, but in reality, it had only been two days. That made today a week since my release from the hospital.
I wanted to go see Dante, but these past two days, everything seemed more complicated than it should. I planned to forget everything once we found her. I wanted to push away all the sadness and confusion, but while I could pretend, Dante knew better. He wanted me to talk about it. He thought it would make me feel better, but there was nothing to say. Grace was hiding something, something about me. I had a feeling that it was much more than that, but I knew she would never let me in. She changed. It wasn’t only the six months of being chained to that wall. Something was off.
“What are you doing out here?” Dante asked as he snuck up from behind.
“Just getting some fresh air,” I smiled up at him. I couldn’t help but smile when I saw his face. It took all of the pain away, but only for one brief second at a time. I wanted to run away with him. Things would be so easy… but no, I couldn’t leave George and Elizabeth to deal with my problem. It was awful, but that was how I felt. Her excuse for not talking in the car was that she didn’t want to hurt me, but the few times she had spoken to me since had been nothing but hurtful.
“You should come inside,” Dante said, interrupting my thoughts.
He held out his hand to help me up, but I didn’t reach for it. He looked at me, trying to be understanding, but he didn’t understand. As far as he saw it, this was over, and that’s how I saw it at first, too, but now I wasn’t so sure.
“What are we going to do?” I mumbled.
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t live like this forever, we can’t leave. Period.”
“It won’t be forever,” he assured me.
“What’s going to change? What about Grace?”
“We’ll figure something out—“
“No matter what, we’ll have to babysit her. It would be one thing if she was the same Grace she used to be, but she’s not, not even close.”
“Come on. George and Elizabeth are expecting us, and it’s not going to be easy to persuade Grace.”
“Alright.” I grabbed his hand. He held it outstretched during our whole conversation, waiting for me to give in. When I was up, he wrapped his arms around me and kissed my forehead.
When we reached the apartments, tension filled the air. I saw a glimpse of Annabelle through the window; she was sitting on the bed. Her expression hadn’t changed since we’d arrived back at George and Elizabeth’s. She saw the success Cooper had with Grace’s belongings. She gave him a locket that had belonged to her mother, hoping he could help her find them, too. He saw nothing. I tried to persuade her that it was probably because it belonged to her for so long. She would have to find something that her mother had touched more recently. It felt wrong encouraging her like that, with all the help she’d given me, and now I could do nothing in return. I was afraid for her and her parents, if she did want to leave to continue her search, she would only have Cooper at her side. Lily was still weak from her near-death experience, and it had done a lot to her mental state. Everyone here was suffering with their own problems, and I couldn’t get my head clear enough to even try to help.
I walked over to Grace’s door and knocked. She didn’t say anything, so I took out the key and went right in. She still refused to talk about what had happened. It didn’t matter what I said, she rejected it. I needed to know what she was keeping inside. I couldn’t imagine it would hurt me as much as she thought. I knew—probably better than anyone—how it felt to be trapped inside your own head for six months. Some things seemed a whole lot worse until you could talk about it. Then once you did, it went away, and you couldn’t remember what the big problem was in the first place. Nevertheless, whatever she needed to tell me, I needed to know. It was killing me, thinking about the possibilities over and over in my head. Did it have something to do with Dante? Or did she know why the Alliance was after us? I doubted that, she said she didn’t even know who the Alliance was. Was it something that happened that night, something I didn’t remember? I felt like I was going to go crazy.
I had to drag Grace out of bed to get her to attend. There was no way we could let her stay here alone. I’d seen what could happen when someone had been through enough, and I wouldn’t let Grace hurt herself. Another worry was that she would run. Sure, Cooper would help us find her, but I couldn’t go through that all over again.
When everyone was ready to go, we walked over to their house. I hoped, for Elizabeth and George’s sake, that everyone would try to have a nice time. They led us into the dining room and told us to have a seat.
“So Grace…” Elizabeth began, “…how do you like it here? Would you like to do something tomorrow?” She was trying to be welcoming, and I loved her for it, but Grace didn’t care.
“No, Thanks,” she grumbled.
“Okay, well I think it would help you to… maybe get some fresh air or—”
“No, I need revenge, and that’s all I need.”
“Revenge against who Grace?” I pleaded. She just rolled her eyes and continued moving her food around her plate. I smiled at Elizabeth and shoved a forkful of food into my mouth. “Mmm, this is really good.” I complimented. Elizabeth smiled.
As we were sitting at the table in silence, two unexpected guests had arrived and stood at Annabelle’s side. I could tell I was the only one who could see them. I felt the urge to cry. It was clear that they were her parents, and they loved her dearly. It was obvious they were pained by the expression on her face. She hadn’t eaten, and I was afraid she would try to hurt herself again. I wasn’t sure if telling her or not telling her would be worse. They had their arms around her. She shivered, but other than that she didn’t seem to notice. I stared at them for a moment, and they looked back at me.
“You can see us?” I looked down, not wanting to say anything to indicate a ghost was near. “You can. I know you can.”
I felt bad ignoring them, so I looked up and nodded once.
“She needs to know.” The pain in their eyes was heartbreaking. I felt horrible for Annabelle, but it was clear that she was loved. “We’re fine. It’s so much better this way. It would have been almost impossible for her to rescue us, and that’s if she even could have found us. It was horrible there. We would have been stuck there forever, but now we’re free.”
I needed to talk to them, but I couldn’t at the table.
“Excuse me, I need to use the bathroom.” I looked at them trying to hint for them to follow. I hurried in and shut the door. “You know she tried to kill herself, right? I don’t want to do anything that would make her feel the need to do that again.”
“She needs to know. We want her to move on, to be happy,” Annabelle’s parents insisted.
“I’ll get her alone after dinner, when we go to the apartments. Come find us and I’ll tell her anything you want me to, okay?” They agreed. “Alright, I need to get back.”
I couldn’t eat. It was hard having to tell someone there was no hope, that their parents were dead. For all I knew, it could be the first in a long line of things like this. I couldn’t ignore my powers, what was the use of it if not to help people? But was this really helping? I didn’t know.
“Alright, there’s a reason we’ve asked you to come here. We have a surprise for you, since you’ll be staying longer than just a few days. George will take you,” Elizabeth said. Grace stood up; she seemed to be having a hard time.
“Did you hurt y
our leg?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she snapped.
George walked out the door and instead of going left toward the apartments, he went right.
“Where are we going?” Dante asked.
“Since you’re going to be staying more permanently this time, we thought we would let you use one of the houses,” he said, as if it was nothing.
“How many houses do you have?” Dante asked, impressed.
“Five. Some are farther into the woods, but we would rather you be close just in case,” George explained.
“I don’t know how to thank you George,” Dante said.
“Please don’t. You guys are great, and we would love for you to stay.”
“So, do you get a lot of people staying here?” Dante asked.
“Every now and then, but people have come here for far less serious reasons.”
“If there’s anything we can do to help out, let us know, okay?” Dante offered.
“Thank you,” he said as he walked up to the porch. The house was just as beautiful as theirs. “Here we are. If you need anything call, okay?”
“Okay,” Dante said as he shook his hand.
“Thank you George, we never could have done any of this without your family,” I commended.
“It was no problem,” he said as he put his hand on my shoulder.
After George left, I knew I needed to get Annabelle alone. I’d planned to talk to Grace first, but this could get messy. I didn’t know how much time it would take, or how long she would need a shoulder to cry on.
We walked into the house. The carpets were a beautiful blue, and the furniture was all burgundy except that which was made of wood.
“Hey,” I said to Annabelle. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Go ahead,” she sniffled.
“Let’s go find somewhere to talk,” I suggested, knowing she wouldn’t want this to take place in front of everyone.
“Alright,” she agreed.
We went upstairs, and I opened the first door on the right. It seemed suitable. I walked inside and sat on the bed.
“Sit.” I patted next to me and smiled. Her parents had followed us up here just as they followed her all night. “What do you want to say?” I asked her parents.
“You told me, you wanted to talk,” she said, confused. I just smiled and listened.
“Tell her we know how much she wanted to find us, and we know how hard she tried,” her mom said.
“Your parents know how much you wanted to find them. They know you really tried.”
Her mouth popped open, but she didn’t speak.
“She never could have found us, and even if she did they would have killed her, and then killed us anyway.”
“They say you couldn’t have found them, and if you did, their captors would have killed you and then killed them anyway.”
“We didn’t feel it. It was an escape from that awful place. Even though she won’t always know we’re here, we will be. Her happiness is all that matters to us.”
“They didn’t feel it, dying was better than being where they were. They will always be with you, even if you can’t see them. Your happiness is all that matters to them.”
“You’re lying; this can’t be true.” Tears streamed down her pink cheeks.
I looked over to her parents.
“When she was five…” her mother began with a smile on her face, “…she begged me to get her ears pierced, because all of her friends had them. I took her, reluctantly, of course. She got one side pierced and decided that was enough. I tried to reason with her, thinking she would get made fun of even more for only having one, but she wore that one earring with such pride.”
“When you were five, you begged to get your ears pierced. When your mom took you, you ended up only getting one side done.” She brought her hand up to her left ear.
“Mom, Dad?” she laughed, tears still streaming down her face. “I love you, and I miss you so much.”
“We love you, too, honey,” her mom said with joy.
“Tell her to please just be happy. I know we already said it, but the other day… was hard to see,” her father added.
“They love you too. They want you to be happy. They saw what happened the other day, and it wasn’t easy to watch.”
“I will. I promise,” she cried.
They smiled and disappeared.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, yeah,” she sighed. “I mean, I know you’ve seen things like this before, but just to know they’re still out there….”
A knock on the door interrupted her. I got up to answer it.
“Cooper?” I said, surprised. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to make sure she was okay.” He smiled at Annabelle.
“I’ll leave you two alone.”
I looked back at Annabelle to make sure it was okay, and she nodded.
I came back down the stairs. Dante was sitting in a wooden chair, looking very uncomfortable. Grace looked pretty much like she had all day, upset.
“Hey, what’s going on?” I wondered.
“I need to talk to you,” Dante said with urgency. He got up and led me out the backdoor. “Okay. I needed to tell you this before she did,” he said, looking worried.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Your mom’s power…” he began, “…is to make people forget.”
“So, she did make me forget, but why?”
“She made me forget, too. That’s why I don’t remember...” He ignored my question.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I still don’t know, but it could have been Skylar; he was there that night too.”
“How do you know that?”
“He followed me for a while before what happened. I saw him a few times. I saw him again one night when my family went out to dinner,” he answered.
“What? Why did he follow you?”
“It was a few towns over,” he continued, ignoring me again. “We had just visited my aunt. It was a dimly lit restaurant, but I knew he was the guy who’d been following me. I went to approach him. He was there with his parents, or so I thought, but I didn’t care. Until I got over to the table. That’s when I saw who I thought was his mom, but it was your mom. I noticed the resemblance when I first saw him, each time after that he looked more and more like me.”
“So how do you know he was there that night?” I begged, while tugging on his shirt collar.
“One of my brothers tried to talk to him thinking he was me, they told me the next morning.”
“Okay, well I need to go talk to Grace. I need to find out what she was talking about in the car.”
“Good luck,” he called after me.
“Come with me?” I turned around, afraid of what this revelation could be.
“Sure,” he smiled.
We sat on the couch across the room from where Grace sat. She was turned away from us staring out the window.
“Grace?”
“What?” She turned to look at me and then turned back around.
“I need to know what you were talking about in the car.” I waited for her to turn around, but she didn’t.
“You know, I kind of wish you didn’t find me.” Her voice was dull, lifeless.
“Why would you say that?” I demanded. “Just tell me what it is, get it over with, and then maybe you’ll feel better.” She sighed, but still faced the window. I gave her a moment to get her thoughts together, when she finally started talking, I had chills.
“I’ll start from the beginning,” she began, her voice still weak. “I just need to know that you’ll believe me, that you won’t hate me.”
“I will believe you, and I could never hate you.” Obviously.
“Okay, that evening your mom drove you over to my house. You had so much to carry. She said she wanted to see us in our dresses together.” I remembered this part, but not every detail. “She refused to leave until she go
t pictures. I thought it was odd. She never seemed to care about any of that before. She took her pictures and left without a good-bye. We headed over to Alexis’s and danced for a while, Dante looked so,” she let out a frustrated sigh. “Anyway, you left to go to the bathroom, and then Dante left. I don’t know where he went, but he came back a few seconds later, and he started kissing me,” she looked over with caution, then continued staring out the window. “I knew you liked him, but I couldn’t stop. I had a bit of a crush on him for a while, too, you know.”
“Okay, there’s no need to be mean,” I said, annoyed.
“Well it’s not my fault he liked me, and not you—” She turned the chair around and looked at us, seeing his arm around me. “Eh, I guess you’re a good replacement, but something that isn’t broken doesn’t need replacing, now does it?”
“What is your problem?” I demanded. “I just saved your life, and this is how you treat me?” she looked unfazed.
“From what I heard, it was because of you that I ended up there.”
“Just keep telling the story,” I said in a flat tone.
“Anyway, Dante led me into one of the bedrooms, you don’t need to know the rest about that,” she rolled her eyes. “You busted in as Dante was getting dressed, and you looked so upset. Dante jumped up and went out the sliding glass door. I followed you and tried to apologize, but you were so angry. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. So I went back into the room and followed him outside, he went into the woods. I thought I saw him, but it was dark, and someone came up behind me and hit me with something. When I woke up, someone was standing over me,” she stopped. “I can’t—” she started to complain again.
“You can’t what? Hurt me? You already have. I thought that part was over, but carry on,” I glared at her.
“I heard footsteps coming in our direction, and the person standing over me ran and hid. You walked over and—” Grace’s voice grew further and further away, until I couldn’t hear it at all. In fact, I couldn’t see anything either; I was being swept away into another vision of the past. This time I would get answers, answers, I wasn’t quite sure I was ready for.
I sat on the front porch of the house. I heard someone scream, Grace. I ran into the woods, dodging Branches, and roots that stuck up out of the ground. I heard her scream again, and I followed the sound, and soon I was standing over Grace. I got down on my knees.
“Grace? What happened to you?” my voice trembled.
“Watch out,” she screamed.
I got up faster than I thought possible. When I had a second to take in what was happening around me, I noticed a huge gash in my wrist. I couldn’t see their face, but it was definitely a woman. She whipped the knife through the air, cutting me again. I fell back onto the cold, wet ground. I started crawling away, when two men walked up. I was hidden behind a bush; I don’t think they even knew I was there.
“We will take care of this for you ma’am,” the men said, trying to sound like they were helping.
“No, I got it, thanks.” Her voice, sent chills down my spine, I couldn’t be sure who she was, not yet. Not until I saw her face.
“She’s worth a lot to us alive,” the man added.
“How much?” the woman asked, intrigued.
“We can talk numbers later, I can write down my address and number, if you have something to write on.”
“Alright,” she agreed with reluctance. “Will this work?”
“Yeah, that should work.”
After he was done, he went to hand it back to her. A large gust of wind blew before she could grab it. It blew out of the man’s hands, and went down what looked like some sort of small cliff.
“I’m sorry, do you have anything else?”
“Just write it on my arm,” she snapped.
I hoped, I wished, I prayed that voice didn’t belong to who it sounded like it did. I sat there in a daze for what seemed like forever, until Grace’s screams snapped me out of it.
“No,” Grace yelled as they dragged her away.
I was too afraid to move, not even to save my best friend. Her screams became muffled after a few moments, and soon disappeared altogether.
The woman picked up the shovel she had leaned up against a tree.
“You’ve really gotten yourself into some trouble this time,” the woman scolded.
She struck me in the face, knocking me over. I lay down on the ground, looking up in horror. As she bent down to look at me, the moon shined through a break in the trees, directly onto her face.
“Mom?” I gasped.
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