1
Florescent lights flickered above Quinn, casting an eerie green tint on the stark white of the hospital room. A large square window next to an open door revealed the deserted corridor outside, but it wouldn’t be deserted for long. Where she went, the demons followed. Already, they invaded the ever-widening cracks in her mental barrier. She could feel their insidious claws digging into her memories, searching out her pain.
A door slammed and echoed down the long hallway. Quinn held her breath. Footsteps, attached to a pair of Doc Martens with yellow stitching, grew closer and with them, the distinct smell of earth and sunshine.
She pushed back the scratchy blue blanket and wrapped her hand around the cold metal of her IV pole. Stiffness seized her muscles, bandages seized her skin, but she pulled herself up onto her unsteady bare feet. A bag of clear liquid swung above her head, pumping her body with the memory of fluids absorbed months ago.
“Aaron?”
A halo of light illuminated dark hair and a shallow dimpled cheek as he leaned against the doorframe. It didn’t matter how many times she’d dreamed this very moment, her heart still leapt. He was the light in her darkness, her safe haven.
Yet something was off.
Gray clouds rolled outward and choked the narrow corridor. Behind Aaron, a storm gathered, and with it, old remnants of fear twisted in Quinn’s gut.
“Hurry. They’re coming,” she said, grabbing his wrist to tug him forward. Once they were both inside, she slammed the door and engaged the lock.
Aaron’s green eyes danced in the moonlit rays that shone through the window overlooking the hospital garden, and she searched them in hopes of sparking a link to him, to give her a clue as to what happened to him after the storm. Of course, it wasn’t really him. No spark of life, of connection, bonded her to the image in this dream. Not like the one she’d had the night after she’d been pulled from the water.
Five weeks ago, as she lay half-conscious on the muddy banks of Bluebonnet Creek, she’d felt his fear, his panic like a rising tide, if only briefly, and then everything had gone dark. Now he was nothing but an echo she chased each time she closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry. So sorry,” Quinn whispered.
His shadow didn’t tell her it was okay because it wasn’t. Nothing would ever be okay again. Tears welled up when he drew her to him. She tried to remind herself this was nothing but a demon trick, but when his hand cupped her cheek, so real, she couldn’t help herself. As always, she let the ghost of his lips find hers. Lines between dream and reality blurred as she clung to him, hands in his hair, skin on fire, and she let herself loose control, to fall into the fantasy. This was almost worth the pain that would follow, worth the risk of trying to find him night after night. This memory of his face, of his lips on hers, this moment together—it was her bliss and her penance.
Goose bumps rose where Aaron’s fingers brushed her spine. She gasped as he undid the knots that held the thin cotton gown to her body and, in turn, ran her hands under his T-shirt and up his torso. Releasing her, he raised his arms and let her strip the shirt from his chest, throwing it to the floor in a wrinkled ball.
Quinn swallowed. Thick scars wound up his forearms. Tears rolled down her cheeks. This was the Aaron forever etched on her heart—beautiful, broken.
The long silver door handle turned slowly to the right, then rattled, angry, hungry. Let us in. A light knock grew to an angry banging. The demons’ desire to suckle at the darkness living within her constantly gnawed at her soul. She had enough guilt and regrets inside to feed an army of evil, and they could smell it.
Taking his right hand in her left, Quinn slowly traced the map of his past pain upward from his wrist to just below his elbow with a finger. Pain and guilt ripped through her gut. Despair choked her lungs, squeezed her heart.
A web of fog formed over the glass partition that separated her room from the hall. Gray smoke seeped through the cracks in the door, pushed through the fissures forming on the glass as the demons ate away the last of her tattered defensive barrier and breached her mind. Hungry little leeches waiting to magnify her misery and feed on her pain.
Look what you’ve done to him.
She listened to the cold whispers of their influence. They seized on her thoughts, her fears, and amplified them tenfold. They loved to torture her while she slept, and a sick part of her relished the darkness they brought. You can take whatever you want from me, she thought, as long as I get to see him.
Beneath her touch, Aaron’s old scars turned to rough scabs, as if fresh instead of healed only moments before. Something writhed beneath his puckered skin, and he scratched at the tainted lesions, green eyes wide. Thick, black water oozed from the edge of Aaron’s wounds. He shuddered, face twisting in pain.
“Tell me where he is!” Quinn lifted her chin and screamed at the air in defiance. “What did you do with him?”
Laughter of a thousand demons echoed through her mind. You think you have a greater purpose. You don’t. You’re not a savior. She pressed her hands against her ears, but nothing could keep them out, they were inside her head, they were in control now. You know exactly where he is because you put him there. Look at him, Quinn.
Tossing his head back, Aaron let out a guttural scream.
Pop, pop, pop.
His scars split at the seams. Brown, brackish water leaked from his open wounds, wept down his forearms, and off the ends of his fingers. The drips grew in size and speed and bounced against the cold floor, as did her tears. Pinpricks of inky liquid pushed through every pore. Quinn gagged at the smell, all rotting flesh and soured silt as the rivulets ate through him to dissolve the soft tissue from his muscles and bones.
Your fault.
“Your fault,” he parroted in the demon’s voice. The words gurgled from his mouth, rough and accusing. She deserved it, every hurtful word.
Aaron’s intense eyes fixed on hers. Tears formed in their corners, turning his irises muddy brown, and then to a black so deep she could see her reflection.
“I loved you,” he croaked and reached for her, rotting fingers grasping at her gown, mire oozing down his chin. Sludge burst from his mouth and from where his eyes used to be, soaking her hair, drenching her gown in foul filth as he liquefied in front of her.
Quinn knelt in front of the dark puddle in the middle of the floor. Aaron was gone. Nothing but a stain on her heart remained. Despair crushed the air from her lungs, and a pit of hopelessness opened inside like a gaping wound that would never heal.
“Aaron!”
Quinn threw back her head and screamed so loud the walls quaked in the wake of her anguish, and the foundation rocked beneath her anger.
2
From his palms to the soles of his feet, Aaron’s skin burned as if dipped in molten lava. Face down, he moaned in agony. His consciousness floated in a sea of boiling blood, fever liquefying him from the inside out. Soon he would be nothing but a puddle, a dark red stain for someone to mop up. Would they use one of those spongy things with the blue head that you squeezed between two rollers to clean him up? Or would they go for the white, ropy kind that looked like an alien octopus? A laugh bubbled in his brain but never made it to his lips. Would they use water to wash him away?
Water?
His thoughts frowned. Water seemed important. He had to get out of the water, make it back to shore.