I brace myself for Eric’s reaction to my movement, but he remains focused on Alek. Alek struggles to sit and pushes hair from his eyes. Fighting the trembling weakness in my limbs, I turn away and pull at the nearest door. I’m greeted with the usual empty room. I charge along the corridor, pulling open door after door as the man laughs.
“Rose! Don’t!” Alek’s desperate voice follows, but he doesn’t. Maybe he can’t, I don’t know.
Stumbling along, I count doors again, as if that will make any difference. My lucky number. Twenty-two. I halt at the twenty-second door.
Stumbling footsteps behind urge my decision. I glance around and see Alek heading toward me. Yanking the handle on the left hand door, I step through.
The door clicks closed behind and I plunge into darkness and rain. The earthy smell of the world is mingled with another, one that careers my thoughts back in time. Burnt rubber and oil. Headlights beam into my eyes as a car approaches, but the driver doesn’t slow down, as if he can’t see me. I stumble to one side, onto the verge, and sink into the long grass. Nearby, wooden crosses and flowers are arranged beneath a tree, tattered and dying. A memorial to Jamie.
I catch sight of something else, a figure nearby lying still. As I edge closer, I already know who it is. A girl with long, blonde hair stained by blood is sprawled on the edge of the road, blood spreading into a dark puddle of water. Me.
Unable to hold on any longer, I vomit, the action and sour taste proving this isn’t a coma. I’m here and alive. Or am I alive? The drizzling rain coats my hair and clothes, and I hug my arms around my knees struggling to catch up with this new nightmare. A tall figure crosses the road, his blonde hair illuminated as he steps beneath the streetlight.
Finn.
He approaches and sits next to me. “Hey, Rose.”
“What’s going on?” I ask him, incredulous at his behaving like we’re here for a casual chat.
“This is the last place you were alive, which is why you’re back here.”
“How am I here and...” I point to the figure, swallowing down bile. “Over there?”
“You’re on the border of life and death again; nobody else will be able to see you.”
“Is this the real world?” I ask hoarsely “Or the Void?
“I can’t get into the Void, Rose.”
“Am I still dead?”
Finn stares ahead. “Not quite.”
I groan and drag my fingers through my hair, pulling so the pain reminds me I’m not dreaming. “You sent me to that place…the edge of the Void, didn’t you?”
“Accidentally, I panicked when the Dark at the party was trying to use you to create something wrong for the world. I’m sorry, I never meant to end your life.” He pauses. “Even though that was my reason for being in your world.”
“You did end me then you sent me to that nightmarish place, so why are you still here?” I ask tersely.
Finn shifts to look at me, the rain glistening in his hair under the nearby streetlamp. The distance in his eyes is like I see in Alek’s sometimes, as if there’s something about me neither of them trusts. Or they don’t trust themselves around me.
“You succeeded, though? You took back your energy, and I’m heading to the Void, as was always meant to happen.”
He tips his head. “But you’re not. You’re back. If you had the choice, where would you go?”
“Back in time to here, where life was supposed to end for me.” There’s no evidence of the accident anymore, but as I stare at the road, I can picture everything: images of Jamie’s broken body that haunt me and twisted car wreckage strewn across the bitumen.
“Time travel is a little out of my capability,” says Finn with a small laugh. “Do you mean you wish you’d died?”
I shiver. “The Dark would’ve taken me, wouldn’t they?” He nods. “What did I do that was so wrong? Why was I going to Hell?”
“Nobody judges where you go, Rose. There was nothing wrong with you. You didn’t do anything wrong. Remember, I told you - the Dark just take advantage of situations.”
“You saved me from the Dark and made me Between, so I’ll always be stuck now. I’m not sure that’s any better.”
Finn rubs his legs and is quiet for a moment. “I wasn’t aware that would be the result of my actions the night you had the accident, but I couldn’t let them take you. I saw you fighting the Dark and the good inside you was trying to overcome the oblivion he was pushing you toward.” A car passes in the road, sloshing through the growing puddles. I think Finn has stopped talking, but he continues. “You broke my heart, Rose, a heart I didn’t think I had. At that moment, in the midst of the accident, nothing mattered more than helping you live. Until that night, taking people’s souls, watching them die, was my life; every time I took one, I felt nothing. Each time someone realised what was happening and the fear overcame them - nothing. I soothed them, making their passage easier, but that’s no different to a nurse administering a drug. Then you...”