Bailey just gets to Sabrina as she falls, legs buckling, head tilting back. He’s there to keep her from hitting the concrete, catching her soft weight in his arms. He sinks with her to the ground. When he looks into the faceted depths of her blue eyes, he sees pain, and fear; a terrible gush of blood from her mouth as she tries to say his name.
“Oh, God. Sabrina, please.”
She’s too young. Pleasepleaseplease.
He takes his phone from his pocket and dials 911 as Jax brings the SUV to a screeching halt beside them, leaves it in the street to run to them. Horns start blaring at the blockage; drivers roll down their windows to yell.
“What happened?” Jax’s voice is a shriek of despair. “Oh, my God, where is he?”
When he looks up from Sabrina’s terrified gaze, the ghost is gone again.
fifty
My father is an old man now, wizened and thin with a white beard and drawn cheeks. His eyes have a hollow look; it’s not sadness exactly. It’s too much seeing.
“I made mistakes, Robin. Too many. I was wrong about so much.”
We sit on an outcropping of rock, bare feet dangling over the rushing creek. I can’t breathe, my chest heavy, the air too thin. I want to tell him but I have no voice.
It’s an old conversation, one I can’t have right now. There’s something I need to do. I’m just not sure what it is. Panic flutters in my chest.
“You should have killed me when you had the chance.”
“I tried,” I rasp. “My aim was bad.”
“You choked.”
“It was too late. They were gone.”
“Don’t fuck it up again.”
“Too late.”
“No,” he says, taking my hand. His gaze is urgent to the point of being desperate. “Not quite yet.”
I wheeze, hear my own breath in my throat.
“Little bird,” he says, reaching for my hands and squeezing hard. “Get up and run.”
When I open my eyes, there is nothing, just gray. The air around me is tight; my breath ragged. I push out into the murk and feel plastic. Panic is a wave that washes up and I start thrashing, using all my strength, my lungs growing tighter. I’m a dervish, kicking and scratching, not enough air to even scream.
Ohgodohgod. It all comes back.
No. No. I don’t want to go. Not now, not like this. The world. My life. Jax. Dear Birdie. You built a life. A good one. Come back to it.
There. A point of light. I calm myself enough to poke a finger toward it and feel the teeth of a zipper. It takes all my strength, all my focus to push, push until the zipper starts to move. Blessed air rushes in, then more. Light. Stars. The tops of trees swaying in bright moonlight, just like the tree house.
I burst out of my cocoon with a wail, drawing gorgeous air into my lungs. I scramble out of the body bag I’m in, and feel the dirt beneath my palms.
You.
You left me for dead. I put my hands to my throat; it’s bruised and painful. I remember your hands squeezing, your eyes staring into mine, as I thrashed and struggled for breath. You an impossibly heavy weight on top of me.
We could have had everything, you whispered, as the light drained from the world. White stars danced in front of my vision. I stopped trying to pry your fingers from my neck. Your grip was a vise, your eyes blank with the pleasure my pain and fear gave you. But you threw it all away.
Robin is crouched beside me.
He’s gone, she whispers. He’s left. This is your chance.
She’s crying, shaking.
The day will come when you won’t need her anymore, Dr. Cooper said. And on that day, you’ll let her go. She won’t go away; she’ll just become a part of you on the inside.
Lungs aching, I crawl to her and move a wild strand of hair out of her eyes.
I’m sorry, she says. I don’t know what to do.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. She is only air and light. “I do.”
There’s a rustle of leaves, a mournful call in the night; the moon moves out from behind the clouds. And I’m alone in the darkness of the woods. A homecoming of sorts. An awakening. I was always alone out here. And it’s okay, even right.
The bag I was in gapes like a mouth and I sit shaking, still wearing that thin black shift, feeling my body, which is savaged and broken, every movement marked with pain, but whole and alive.
Beside me are three makeshift graves, each marked with a simple wooden cross, each carved with a name—Mia, Melissa, Bonnie.
I sit weeping for them.
I offered them the gift of freedom, you said. And no one wanted it. I thought you were different. I thought you were the one.