Possession (23 page)

He was watching me closely, and I wanted to tell
him what I was thinking. I wanted to hear him tell me that it was a stupid,
silly idea I had gotten in my head about
Weatherton
possessing him. But how could I tell him any of it without revealing his past?
Dean had no memory of what happened. His mother’s biggest fear was that he
would find out he’d killed those girls. If he wasn’t the killer, if this was
really Dean standing before me, how would he take the news that he was a
murderer? I know how I’d felt about taking a young girl’s life. I had done it
with good reason; helping her cross from a life of agony to an afterlife of
peace. I’d taken away her pain, but that didn’t matter. I still cringed at the memory…still
had nightmares about it.

The girl had been a stranger to me, but Dean had
hurt people he cared about. It wasn’t his fault—he wasn’t aware or
responsible for what he’d done. But I knew he’d still blame himself. To have
something evil inside you, running your body, doing things you could never
imagine in your worst nightmares… How would anyone react to such news?

“Okay, there’s something wrong. I can tell by your
expression. What’s going on?” His stepped forward, and his hand reached out to
touch my cheek. It was something that Luke would do. His reaction startled me
so much that I took another step back.

“There’s nothing wrong.”

“Why are you acting so weird?” he demanded.

“I’m not. I’m just tired, and I’m worried about
Mildred.”

He took a step toward me again. I couldn’t help
taking another step back.

His eyes narrowed. “It’s the kiss, isn’t it? Look,
it was a mistake. We talked about it. I thought we were past it.”

His thoughts
are all of you.
Wendy’s voice echoed in my mind.

“You know I’m in love with Luke.” When he didn’t
respond I spoke up again. “You know Luke is the guy I plan to spend my life
with.”

“I know you’re in love with a spirit. Someone who
needs to find his way to the light.”

Anger flared inside me. “Luke is back with me, and
he’s going to stay by my side.”

It was his turn to get angry. “Your lover boy is a
spirit holding on to his existence by a thin thread. I'm getting stronger every
day. What happens when I go through the second ritual again?”

His words shocked me. “You won't do it. You can’t
risk it. You lost yourself the first time you tried.”

“I'm not afraid to try again.”

And I could tell by his expression that he wasn’t.
“You can’t do it. If you go through the second ritual now, you’ll force Luke
out.” My voice trembled a bit. “I know you want to complete the rituals, but to
do it now… You know that would exile him to the in between. You hate him that much?
You despise
me
that much?”

The anger left, and he said in a soft voice, “You
know I don't despise you. I admit it: I have feelings for you. I know it’s not
what you want to hear.”

I stepped back and shook my head. “You don’t have
feelings for me. You don’t know me.”

“You’ve been in here with me in this place for a
while. I’ve been listening to you, and I’ve been getting to know you.”

“You’ve been
spying
on me and Luke,” I cried out.

His eyes narrowed. “Not by choice. I didn’t put
myself in this situation.”

“I told you, we didn’t know you were still in
there. I thought you were an empty vessel. How many times do I have to tell you
I’m sorry?”

“I don’t want you to feel sorry… I want…” He
opened his hands and reached out toward me. “I want you.” He grabbed my arm. “I
know you feel something for me.”

I pulled away. “I don’t! I’m in love with Luke.”

“You aren’t being realistic. How long do you think
you can keep him here?”

My hands were trembling now. I took another step
back. “You can’t have me. I’m his.”

“And when he’s gone? Colina, you are gambling your
heart on a spirit. On something that you can’t really hold in your hands. Luke,
the guy you fell in love with—
he’s
dead
.”

My head jerked back as if he had struck me. “I
brought him back. He’s here with me. I won’t lose him again.”

We stood glaring at each other. Without warning, the
door opened. It was Wendy.

“Sorry, you took so long I thought I’d better come
check to make sure everything’s okay.” She looked from Dean to me. “Everything
okay?”

“No, it’s not.” Dean said, clenching his hands.

I turned my back to him and asked her, “Did you
get what you needed?”

She patted her shirt. “I sure did. I’ve got it
right here. If you’re ready to go, there’s one more place we have to stop.”

“I’ll be there in a minute.”

She looked at us both again and then closed the
door.

I turned back to Dean. “We’ll leave tomorrow
night.” And before he had a chance to say anything, I started toward the door.

“I’ll be ready. Colina, the killer is still
wandering the halls. He’s still looking for a victim. Watch your back.”

“I always do,” I said as I walked out the door.

How could Dean be the killer?
I didn’t sense any violence in him. Every chance he got, he did nothing but
help me. I knew he cared about me; he openly worried about my safety. It was
hard to believe he was possessed by the killer, but an evil spirit
did
fool his whole guild before… Was I
being fooled now?

If it was Dean, could he have been the one who put
the heart in my room? I’d woken up in his arms. Was it possible he’d snuck out
and then come back? I was a sound sleeper. The nightmares of my family were
happening less frequently. It was possible.
Anything
is possible.

“The last item we need to get is going to be a
tricky one.” Wendy was standing next to me.

I forced myself to focus on what she was saying.
“How do we get it?”

“Someone in here has a Ouija board.”

Finally, a bit of good news. “Terrific.”

“But they stashed it. Hid it in the old vacant
part of the hospital.”

The last place I want to go. “How are we going to
justify being in there if we get caught?”

She didn’t answer, just merely looked off into the
distance. After another moment, she spoke, her voice a low whisper. “When you
leave this place, will you take me with you?”

I stopped and faced her. “If you want to go, you
can come with us. But if we don’t make it, I’m not sure what the consequences
will be.”

“I’ve been through worse.” She said it
matter-of-factly, but I heard the sadness in her voice.

By her own admission, she’d spent years in
asylums.
Years
. I could already feel
this horrible place gnawing at the edges of my mind. How does a person keep
their remaining sanity in a place like this? I looked down at the scars peeking
out from beneath her sleeves.
Maybe they don’t.
Maybe no one makes it out of a place like this whole.
If Wendy wanted to go,
I would bring her with us.

I looked around the hallway.
There was such an evil vibe in this building.
I knew
it was my imagination, but at times I swore I could almost feel the walls
moving slightly in and out, as if they were alive and breathing. No one should
be trapped in
here.

And what about Mildred? Where
is she?
Wherever she is, we have
to find her
.
I made a promise to take
her with me, and I planned to keep it. “The crystal necklace will help us find
Mildred?”

“It will when I use it with the map I got.” Wendy
pulled up a portion of her shirt, and I could see a piece of paper tucked
against her stomach. “It’s a layout of the whole building.” She dropped her
shirt again. “We should make a beeline for the Ouija board, but if we don’t
make it back in time for dinner, they’ll notice us missing. We’ll have to wait
and go tonight when the staff is asleep or otherwise occupied. What should we
do until then?”

I wasn’t happy about waiting, but I didn’t see that
we had a choice. “Fancy a game of checkers?” I headed toward the common room.

* * *

Dinner was uneventful. Afterward, we headed back to our room
and waited for the witching hour.

Feeling antsy and unsettled, I found myself pacing
back and forth across the room. I desperately wanted out of this place, to be
free again.
I want my life back
. The thought
stopped me cold.
What life? I have no
family to go back to, no home. The love of my life is trapped inside someone I
now suspect may be a killer.

Uncertainty riddled the path ahead. Deep down, I
was terrified of what was going to happen next.

I was so lost in my own thoughts that when Wendy
tapped me on the shoulder, I physically jumped.

“It’s time,” she said.

We headed down the empty halls. We stopped at each
corner, scouting each hallway like I always had with Mildred. I carefully
unlocked each door as we went, trying to make as little noise as possible. The
coast was clear, and if our luck held, we would make it to Luke’s room without
anyone spotting us.

Luke. I couldn’t wait to feel his arms around me.
I wanted desperately to tell him everything I now feared about Dean, but I knew
Dean could hear my words. If Dean was the killer and he knew we were on to him,
it would put all our lives in danger. For the moment, I had to keep my fears to
myself.

“Things seemed tense between you and Dean earlier.”
When I didn’t say anything, Wendy went on. “You don’t return his feelings?”

“I’m in love with Luke.”

We walked along an empty hallway and paused at the
corner. I peeked around it. Still no one in sight. There were so many things I
wanted to know about Wendy. She kept bringing up my love life, so it only seemed
fair I gave her back a little of her own. “How about you? Is there anyone in
your life?”

She raised an eyebrow.

I felt like an idiot. “I guess an asylum isn’t the
greatest place to find dates.”

This time she actually gave me a wide smile. It
was a nice smile, and for a moment I got a picture of what she might have been
like if she had been brought up in a normal, loving family. But then the smile
disappeared and her shoulders hunched over.

Wendy seemed incapable of being happy. Whatever
issues she had seemed all-consuming. I wondered just how badly the world had
beaten her up. Terrible things had happened to me, and yet I still found
moments of happiness with Luke.

She looked so uncomfortable that I took pity on
her and changed the subject. “Have you spent much time in the vacant part of
the hospital?”

Before she could answer, a male voice rang out.
“What do we have here?”

The sound of the voice sent chills down my back. The
last person I wanted to see—Larry. I took a deep breath, squared my
shoulders, and faced him. He wore the same white uniform as the rest of the
orderlies, but it was stretched tightly across his huge gut. Stains, both old
and new, spotted his paunch where it stuck forward, and combined with his dark
stringy hair and cruel eyes, he was the perfect disgusting example of
everything that was wrong with this place.

His eyes narrowed, and he gave us a wicked grin.
“Well, well, what are you two pretty ladies doing out of your rooms at this
time of night?”

Every fiber in my being was screaming at me to
run, but I forced myself to stand my ground.

Wendy started edging toward the nearest door.

When neither one of us answered, Larry laughed. “
Tsk, tsk
…you know you shouldn’t be out.”
He took a step toward us.

“Don’t touch us,” I said between clenched teeth.
My hands had curled into fists.

“Is that right? And who’s going to stop me?” he said,
moving closer.

I could feel a wave of violence course through me—it
warmed my blood and slid across my skin. Before, when he had attacked me, I hadn’t
been able to defend myself. I was no longer anyone’s victim.

I am a death
dealer.

“Look, we don’t want any trouble,” Wendy said
softly. She sounded scared.

“‘Course you don’t. Because when you cause
trouble, you know what happens to you.” He gave me a wide smile as he
sidestepped his way over to Wendy. He reached out and slid his finger down the soft
white skin of her arm. “I could go get my friend. Maybe we could show you two a
good time.”

Wendy flinched as though she’d been struck and
flung herself away from him.

“Leave us alone.” I felt hot all over, like I had
a fever. The last time I’d felt this way, I’d summoned a magical fire forged
from the dark, twisted violence the awakening had opened up inside me. I’d used
the fire against
Macaven’s
banshees and they had
turned to ash. What would happen if I used that same flame against a living
person? It would be so easy to summon the flames. So easy to force out the fire
and burn that grin off his face.
I won’t
kill another person!
my conscience screamed inside my head.

“Bit of a snooty one, aren’t you? But very cute.”
He looked me up and down. “Maybe you should sweeten up. I bet we could have a
lot of fun, the two of us.”

My body was trembling with the effort of trying to
control my rage. I could feel a wave of heat surge up inside me. I closed my
eyes and used every bit of willpower I had to force it back. It was no use—flames
flickered across my skin. Everything inside me screamed to let the monster
loose—to bring death and destruction down on this pitiful excuse of a
man.

I opened my eyes, and as I did a scream of rage
rang out—
my
scream of rage. I
was yelling like a banshee, my hands raised high in the air, and orange and
yellow flames danced between my fingers. All I had to do was wave my hands and
the fire would explode.

And then I was moving—my body flew through
the air, flung by a huge shoulder that came out of nowhere, until my head abruptly
smashed against the wall. It was like being rammed by a bull.

Stunned and dazed, I opened my eyes. Hector was
standing over me, his huge bulk taking up all of the free space in the vicinity.
I hadn’t seen him come into the hallway. He’d rushed me like a football player
and thrown me into the air. My anger was gone. Now only pain and confusion rang
through my head.

Larry leaned over and pulled me up against the
wall. “Someone had to knock some sense into you. Now sweeten up, honey, and give
me a little sugar.”

My body was screaming to get loose. I tried
desperately to think, but pain muddled my thoughts. My head throbbed, and I
couldn’t quite focus my eyes.

Larry’s hand ran up and down my side. He grabbed
my hair and pulled it roughly, forcing my head back. Before I could do
anything, his mouth came crashing down onto mine. I gagged as his tongue forced
itself into my mouth. His kiss was wet and sloppy. He tasted like cigarettes
and alcohol.

I struggled against him, trying to break free. Finally,
he let me go. I cried out as I was shoved forward. My body hit the ground and
my head bounced with a loud
thud
against the floor.

Stars flashed across my eyes. I looked up, trying
to focus on Larry. He was standing there, his right hand wrapped around his
left forearm. Red streaks of blood were sliding down his arm.

His whole focus was now on Wendy. “You’ve got
sharp nails, little girl.”

Wendy stood a few feet from him, her hand raised
as if to strike again.

Larry made a move toward her, and she let out a
snarl and lunged forward. But before she could touch him, his hand came up, and
he slapped her hard across the face. Her head whipped back with such force that
I wondered if he’d struck her dead. She crumpled to the floor. The angry red
imprint of Larry’s hand was visible against her pale skin.

She lie there, motionless.

Larry turned back to me, and I started to crawl away.
My heart was pounding with fear, my head reeling with pain. Larry was quicker
than he looked, and he grabbed my arm before I could get any distance between
us. He twisted it hard and forced me back on my feet.

“Now, where was I?”

He shoved me against the wall again and spun me
around, pressing against my front. His hand reached up, and rough fingers
brushed across my lips and ran down my neck. His other hand came up and he
wrapped them both around my throat. His fingers tightened and then began to
squeeze. I started clawing at his fingers desperately.
Am I about to die from strangulation for a second time?
But his
fingers only tightened for a brief moment before his hands began to move. One
came to rest on the naked skin just above the collar of my shirt. The other
slid down to the waist of my pants.

I tried to kick and twist, but he just laughed and
pushed me harder against the wall. The full length and weight of his body was
up against mine. “Come on. You know you’ll enjoy it. Don’t struggle, just relax
and let it happen.” His lips crashed down against mine as his hands began to
grope me.

A male voice shouted, “Let her go!”

Larry kept a hold on me, but turned his head.

I followed his gaze. Dean stood in the hallway.
Anger filled his face. Those gray eyes vibrated with violence.
Dark eyes? That’s not Dean, not anymore. It’s
Luke!
At the sight of him, my heart thumped hard in my chest.

Luke’s hands clenched into fists at his side. “I
said let her go.”

Larry released me, moving to face Luke. “Or what?”

My head turned toward Hector. He hadn’t said a
word since he’d sent me flying across the room. He just stood there, silently
watching us.

A soft moan sounded to my right. Wendy was still lying
on the ground, but her eyes were open. She was alive.

I scrambled over to her. “Are you okay?”

She didn’t answer me. Instead, her eyes were
enormous, watching the two men squaring off against each other.

“Look, boy. I
don’t
want to hurt
you
,” Larry said. He was
no longer smiling.

“If you touch her again, I’ll kill you,” Luke
growled.

“Your girl and I were just having a conversation.”
Larry put his hands up in surrender. “You don’t want to start any trouble with
me. Not if you know what’s good for you.” Larry turned and puckered his lips at
me, making kissing noises. “Besides, I don’t see any harm in you sharing such a
sweet piece of—”

Larry never finished his sentence. Luke lunged.
Larry’s fist came up, but before it could connect, Luke grabbed him and forced
him to the ground.

Larry struggled to get up. Luke’s fist came down
hard against Larry’s face. Luke hit him, once and then twice. Pure rage filled
his eyes. Larry’s head whipped from side to side as Luke’s fists kept pounding
into his head.

And then Hector made his move, grabbing for Luke
from behind. Hector was a big man, and he outweighed Dean’s body by at least
forty pounds. Hector’s beefy arms wrapped around Luke in the bear hug he used
to control patients.