Dream Dancer (Ghosts Beyond the Grove Book 2) (9 page)

12.  Burning for You

    
Lying there practically crippled from my migraine, I wanted nothing more than to be alone.  There was nothing more anyone could do to take away the pain—at this point, all I could do was ride it out.  So when I felt someone bathed in cinnamon sit down on the bed behind me, I wanted to scream.  She was the last person I wanted to see—now or ever.

     I did everything I could to pretend that I was asleep hoping that she would show compassion and leave me alone.  Who was I trying to kid?  That bitch had zero compassion for me.  She enjoyed making me suffer.  And that’s exactly what she was doing to me now.

     She’d never allowed me to touch her before—nor had she touched me.  Until tonight.  At first, her touch was light—a mere grazing of her fingertips against my temple.  And I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.  If I hadn’t been in so much pain, I would have rolled over and pulled her towards me.  But slowly with each stroke, I began to notice a burning sensation in the very spot she was caressing.

     It was only slightly uncomfortable at first yet gradually became unbearable.  I wanted her to stop but in some ways I didn’t.  I loved her.  I hated her.  I wanted her.  I wanted her to leave me alone for the rest of eternity.  I wanted to get away from her.  I wanted her to never leave my side.  But what I wanted most was for the pain and confusion to end. 

     My head felt like it was being shot with lightning bolts over and over again.  Not only my body but my soul itself was being fried as though I were in the electric chair.  I kept silent until my skull felt like it was going to crack wide open.  Then I howled and screamed like a man being butchered alive.  That’s when she leaned in close to my ear and issued an ominous warning.

     “You shouldn’t have done that,” she purred in a saccharine-sweet tone.  “The only place where we can be together is in your dreams.  You said you would meet me there but you lied.  You need to make good on your word—unless you like pain, that is.”

     This time she drove her finger into the base of my skull where it met with my spine.  Instead of the bolts ramming into my brain alone, now they were shooting through every nerve in my body.  It was so intense that I could practically feel every synapse crackle and burst as the electricity passed through.  Just before I passed out, I made a decision.  Death couldn’t be any worse than what I was experiencing right now.  If dying was the only way to end the suffering, death was exactly what I needed to find.

13.   Wishing for a Whitewash

         I wasn’t sure which one I wanted to respond to first—the dinging of my phone which undoubtedly bore an email from Roxanne or the voice of Clay speaking to me softly in the dead of night. 

     “Clay!  Where have you
been
?  Never mind.  Don’t answer that yet.  I have a new email that I need to read first.  But don’t you even
think
about leaving in the meantime.”

     Excitedly, I opened my inbox to find that I was right.  The new email was from Roxanne and “more info” was written into the subject line.  It was definitely starting to feel more like a “go forth” than a “be still” kind of night. 

     But once I read it through to the end, I realized that all I had now was another loose end.  She’d found another box of mementos shortly after I left Arizona and discovered another albeit small piece to my puzzle.  That piece came in the form of a name.  Josette’s forgotten surname to be exact.  Josette Delacroix. 

     While this news seemed great on the surface, the next line of her email was enough to sink my battleship.  Roxanne had already tried to track Josette down yet had found no trace of her.  Josette Delacroix had seemingly vanished.  And a little piece of my hope disappeared along with this news. 

     Anxious to re-lift my spirits, I apologized to Clay for being abrupt with him earlier and encouraged him to tell me what happened the night he went to see Zach at the hospital.

     “Yeah, about that—I’m sorry I overreacted to what he said to me.  I should have known that you wouldn’t have lied to me like that.  But he knew which buttons to push with me—the ones that would hurt me the most.  I needed some time to sort out the truth.”

     “What exactly did he say I lied to you about?  I never lied to you about anything—scout’s honor.”

     Clay leaned back in my desk chair and propped his dusty work boots on the foot of my bed.  He’s lucky he was a ghost and those shoes were coated in ghost dust.  Otherwise, someone would have to start planning his funeral.  Again.  I paid good money for that comforter.  Not to mention the fact that weird people hung out in the building’s laundry room—I didn’t go down there unless I absolutely had to.

     “Zach convinced me that there was a chance that Jeremy was my son’s father—and that you’d known that all along.”

     “What?  Why would he say that?  Or better yet, why would you believe that?  Even if you didn’t trust me, you trust Sophie don’t you?”

     “I know—it sounds kind of crazy now even to me but you weren’t there.  You didn’t see how convincing he was.  So he said one other thing to me that I hope isn’t true either.  If I ask you a question, do you swear to tell me the truth?  Scout’s honor?”

     “Scout’s honor,” I replied with conviction.  “No matter what you ask, I’ll be completely honest.”

     “Okay—here goes.  Are you now or have you ever cheated on Zach with Lucas or anyone else?”

     “Of course not!  Why would he tell you that I did?”

     “I don’t know, Ruby.  But he’s definitely messed up.  He acts like he loves you wholeheartedly yet it’s almost like he blames you for what’s happening to him.  It’s like he’s being haunted by his love for you.”

     Haunted by his love for me.  That was the most nonsensical phrase I’d ever heard but it shoved my brain into overdrive.  Claiming to see me in places I’d never been, wearing clothing I didn’t own.  Was my new conclusion possible?

     “OMG!  Clay!  I’m not positive but I think I may have found the answer!  I need to Google a few things first though.  Switch me places so I can sit at the desk.”

     “Okay,” he said with a mischievous smirk, “but this better not be another attempt to get me into your bed, you wicked woman you.  How many times do I have to remind you that I’m happily taken?”

     “Wicked?  You want wicked, I’ll show you wicked!” I said as I lobbed my pillow straight through his spectral behind.

     “Ha ha! That tickled!  Do it again!”

     “Fine.  I’ll do it again.  But only after you get out of that chair and onto the bed.  I need to Google something ASAP.”

     “Yes, Dom,” he replied, hanging his head like a disobedient servant would.  So I tossed another pillow
and
a wadded up sheet of notebook paper into him when his back was turned.

     “Hey!  That hurt!  My guts are covered in paper cuts now!” he groaned, clutching his stomach in pain.

     I felt really bad for doing it and was about to apologize when he began to laugh.  “Faker!” I yelled as I crumpled up another piece of paper and zoomed it straight at his head.

     Laughing, Clay settled into my bed while I searched for evidence that my new theory was correct.  I typed one word into the search box then waited impatiently for the results.

     “Doppelganger” yielded over two million results but I resolved to doggedly investigate every one of them if I had to.  Fate be damned!  I was closer than ever to a solution and I certainly wasn’t going to be still now.

     But with every click, I became disheartened.  The sites I was pulling up were all concerned with people finding their living yet unrelated twins.  My twin, apparently, was dead.  After flinging out a few choice expletives, Clay finally asked me what I was searching for.

     “Doppelgangers,” I answered while clicking on yet another possible lead.

     “What?  You’re looking at porn sites?  How is that going to help Zach?”  He paused briefly before adding, “But chicks looking at porn is
really
hot.  Mind if I watch you watching them, even if it doesn’t make any sense?”

     It took me a minute to understand where his perverted sixteen year old brain was going with this conversation.  But once I got it, he got a
serious
eye roll and another paper cut—this time to the groin. 

     “OMG!  Is that the only thing teenage boys think about?  For real!  I said doppelganger—as in ghost double.  I’m looking for information regarding ghosts that look exactly like living people.”

     “Oh.  Yeah right.  That makes perfect sense now.  Sort of.  Sorry.  Carry on then.” 

     Clay’s look of disappointment temporarily disappointed
me
.  But as the next website loaded, an odd thought occurred to me.  No matter how old, mature,
grounded
I became; Clay was going to stay the same forever.  He would always be young, wild, and at least imaginatively free.  He would never grow old with me; never age even the slightest bit.  There would come a day when I looked at him not as a contemporary but as a child.  And I wept internally for that day—not for him, but for me. 

     Clay would never know the true meaning of growing up.  He would never have to face true adulthood—bills, responsibilities, work, familial worries.  He was “living” the dream, so to speak.  At some point, our lives were going to become drastically different.  Would we still be able to remain friends?  When I was saddled with a real job, an overload of housework, a mortgage to worry about—would he and I still share any common ground?  Those days were so far in the future that my eighteen year old brain shouldn’t have been pondering them in the first place.  But I was cursed from birth with serious mental advancement and there was no way to lift that curse.  So I buried it like I did everything else that I couldn’t deal with—with an ironic laugh, wry smile, and a further explanation of what I meant.

     “Everyone on earth is supposed to have an unrelated twin—someone who looks
exactly
like them.  But what if
my
body double is dead and haunting Zach?  There could be points where he is able to see and hear both of us at the same time.  That would be enough to drive anyone insane if you ask me.”

     I could practically see Clay’s brain go from thoughts of porn to being focused on the paranormal.  “Yes!” he shouted in agreement.  “So while he is thinking that you are doing bad things to him, it’s actually your doodleganger that’s to blame!  That has to be the answer!”

     I laughed quietly to myself, not just because of his hilarious mispronunciation, but because he reminded me so much of Rachel.  Physically they didn’t resemble each other at all.  But I was sure that if I could see the visual embodiment of their personalities, I would in fact be looking at a perfectly matched pair of doodlegangers.

     “I’m positive that I’m on the right track this time—now all I have to do is figure out what to do about it.  I’m not finding anything useful on any of these websites and Rita picked the worst possible time to be out of town.  I know the last time you checked in on Zach it didn’t go so well, but would you mind peeking in on him again?  Don’t try to talk to him this time—don’t even let him see you if you can help it.  I just need to know how he’s doing.”

     “Yeah, I know how to keep a low profile when I need to.  I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

     While he was gone, I read Roxanne’s email one more time.  I had to find Josette somehow, some way—even if I had to resort to hiring a private investigator to do it for me.  She had clues to my mystery and I would stop at nothing to get them.

     Clay returned with a solemn look on his face and I knew I was about to get more bad news.  So I asked him to give it to me straight—sugar coating the issue wasn’t going to do anyone any good.  But after hearing what he had to say, I would have given anything to go back and ask him to break it to me gently.  There was something to be said for whitewashing the bitter truth at times. 

     How much more of this could Zach and I withstand? 

14.  Blazing a New Path

     “I want to die.  Please let me die.” I whispered repeatedly to myself, to her, to anyone who would listen.  The pain was unbearable—both mentally and physically.  As the medical staff held me down and gave me yet another shot, I prayed that they had miscalculated the dosage and that I would die in my sleep. 

     Until recently, I’d never given much thought to how I would want to spend the last few moments of my life.  My current level of misery changed that, however.  With no uncertainty, I knew that I wanted to die in my sleep.  I didn’t want to be the hero who went out in a blaze of glory.  All I wanted was to close my eyes and never open them again.  More than anything, I wanted that time to be now.  But to accomplish that, I was going to have to take a new approach to my situation.

     My eyelids fluttered for a mere moment before I found myself sliding into a dream.  Ruby and I were sitting in a movie theater sharing popcorn and laughing like we used to do.  She was her old self again—not the sadistic siren she’d become over the last few months.  So for the first time in what felt like an eternity, I had a good dream.  Confusing, yet good.

     But as soon as the previews were over and the main feature began to play, something went wrong with the film.  The soundtrack was in super slow motion so that I couldn’t make out a single word.  On the flip side, the images on the screen were in fast forward—a mere blur that was indecipherable.  Yet when I turned toward Ruby to comment on it, she seemed thoroughly mesmerized by what she was seeing.

     She was laughing and crying at the same time.  I’d never told her this before, but that was when she was the most beautiful to me.  It was when I felt that I was seeing past the exterior and peering in on the beauty inside of her.  I kissed her on the cheek, savoring the salt of her tears like they were a fine wine.  It didn’t matter to me if I couldn’t enjoy that movie.  As long as she was happy, so was I.

     That dream made me so happy that waking up to see where I really was made me depressed beyond imagination.  I wanted that dream to be real.  And it
could
be real.  I was either going to make it real or I was going to end my life once and for all.  All I needed to do was get out of here.  That’s when I started hatching my plan to escape.  It was going to take time, patience, and self-control in abundance.

     I was also going to need an accomplice.  That part I didn’t even have to think about.  I already had the perfect partner in crime in mind.  Let the games begin.