She doesn’t know. Fuck, why is this so hard? “What’s your name?” I ask.
“Kat.”
“Kat? Okay. What’s the last thing you remember?”
“I don’t know, my mind is blank. Shit, tell me this is a dream.” She stares at her hands, and then turns her wrists over. “Did you do this?” She holds up her arms and deep bruises circle her wrists.
“No. The first time I saw you was when you came into the room.”
Kat shakes her head as if trying to dislodge a thought. “Party.” She snaps her head up. “I was at a party. Did you spike my drink? Have you..?”
When she pales and checks her clothes, my stomach turns over. “I haven’t touched you!”
“Then what the fuck is going on?” she shouts.
I don’t have time for this shit. “Kat. You’re dead. A Shade - ghost. You’ve passed through from where you were stuck and back to the world because there’s something you have to do before your soul can be at peace.”
The huge-eyed response from Kat is accompanied by her laughing. When I don’t laugh, she stops abruptly. “Right, sure...”
“You have no memory of the Void?”
“The what?”
Obviously not.
“Do you want to get out of this room?” I ask
She tips her head. “Is that the stupid fucking question of the century?”
“Where did you live?”
“Where do I live? Manchester.”
“At least we’re in the right city then,” I say. “When you remember what happened to you, then you’ll know why you’re stuck, I imagine.”
“So, can I get out of this place?”
Beneath the tough-girl make-up and piercings, she’s lost. She needs someone to help her understand what’s happening; however, I need to get to Rose. When I come back, she’ll be trapped in the house. I’ll talk to her then.
“Listen, Kat. This is going to sound really weird, but you can get energy from me to leave this room.”
“Oh, no. No. Don’t touch me...” She pulls herself up and backs into a corner.
“Shit!” I drag my hands into my hair. “Wait there.”
I slip out of the room before she gets a chance to see what I’m doing. I need a mirror. I don’t have one, and the one in the bathroom is bolted to the wall. I jump two steps at a time to Rose’s room. Ignoring the pang of fear and loneliness I get from searching her things, I find a mirror propped on top of the drawers with her hairbrush beside it. Grabbing the mirror, I head back to Kat.
I step inside and she stumbles back, rubbing her knuckles. “Nobody can hear you,” I tell her, and immediately wish I hadn’t because every word I say makes me sound more and more like a creepy guy who abducts women. “Look”
When I thrust the mirror at her, she looks at me as if I’m insane. The small mirror wouldn’t make an effective weapon, and I can tell this is what she’s weighing up.
“Look in the mirror.”
Kat’s eyes widen as she gazes at the mirror, and then she turns it over before looking back to me. “What the fuck is going on here?”
“You’re fucking dead!” I yell. The visit to Rose’s room has upped my fear over what’s going to happen to her, and this stupid girl, who doesn’t know she’s dead, is pissing me off.
“I’m not!” she yells back “You’re a psycho!”
“I need to find someone, to get over to where you came from.” I inhale, aware of how the next words are going to sound. “Kat, when you look at me, do you feel anything?”
“Like punching you?”
“That would be a start. Maybe if you touched me.” She inhales loudly. “Not like that! Shit! I have the energy inside me to make you able to stay here and do whatever you need to be at peace. Take it from me.”
All this time, I’ve kept my distance when I could’ve just attacked her in the hope she retaliates. But she’s a small, frightened girl, for fuck’s sake. Like Rose.
Rose.
Fuck it. I grab Kat’s hand. She screams at me and drags herself backwards, pulling her arm taught. I grip on and she digs her long nails into my hands. I wince but can’t let go.
“This won’t hurt you, it’ll hurt me.” Again with the creepy dude words. I slam her palm onto my chest and ready myself. “Don’t stop until I disappear,” I say through gritted teeth.
Holding onto her hand is hard when the pain grips my chest. The tearing feeling of the life ripped from within engulfs me, and I lose sight of where I am. I’m shocked by he suddenness of the room morphing to black and white, and by the strength of the Shade. The anguish of losing Rose, the fear of what’s to come are wiped away by the overwhelming sadness and defeat as my body loses the energy I need to stay alive. The Shade’s desire to become whole overrides Kat’s fear and confusion because as the black and white world greets me, and my grip on her hand loosens, she doesn’t let me go.
Chapter 28