Trine
We park in front of a cluster of pink flamingos, and as soon as Luke kills the ignition, he furrows his brow.
“Something’s wrong,” I say, dread making it hard for me to think about anything but what’s happening inside the house. I try to blink it away, but the feeling only gets stronger. Even as I look around, I tell myself to calm down.
Nothing seems wrong. Everything’s fine out here, the weather is nice, the sun is up in the sky. We were having a pleasant conversation until he parked. He paled, and now he looks like he’s going to throw up.
“Are you sure?” Luke asks.
I nod, my mouth dry.
“Stay here,” he says.
He gets out of the car quickly. I don’t want to stay here while he’s dealing with this, whatever this is, and he’s making me worried. I step out of the car, and while he looks back at me when he’s walking toward the front door, he doesn’t stop me.
He just shakes his head as he puts his hand on the knot of the front door. “Just stay behind me, please,” he says, his voice barely audible. He’s pushing the door open, his eyes narrow as he stares into my eyes. “Please.”
I nod. I’m going to do as he tells me to do, even if it feels weird to, because I don’t know what’s happening, and he seems to have a better idea. “Wait,” he says before he walks further into the house. “Hold your hand out.”
I do as he tells me, and I hold my hand out and wait. He takes a rosary off his wrist, saying something under his breath. I think it’s a prayer. Then he gives it to me and wraps his fingers around mine as I grip it. “Listen,” he says. “Whatever happens, you keep that on you. Got it?”
“What do you mean, whatever happens?”
He opens his mouth to answer, and he’s interrupted by a scream. He shakes his head. There is no time to explain–I don’t think he wants to, and I don’t want to wait for him to.
This is important. Whatever feeling Luke had, I also have it. It’s dread. It’s making my stomach tighten and I feel a little nauseous, too.
“If you pray, now’s a good time,” Luke says, craning his head back to look at me. We walk into the recessed hallway, and I clasp my hand over my nose and mouth. It smelled bad here before, but now there’s a weird, sickly sweet scent of decaying flesh. Everything in me screams not to keep walking, but I do, following Luke down the hall and clutching the rosary until we come to Tom’s open bedroom door.
My eyes water as I look up, trying to take in the scene in front of me.
Misha stands on the bed, a skateboard—I think that’s a skateboard, it’s hard to tell—upright in his hands, his eyes wide. Rei stands by the bed, his back turned to us. And then there’s Tom.
Tom isn’t touching the bed. He’s levitating a few inches above it, his head tilted back, the tendons on his neck visible. His hands are curled in on themselves, and his skin is an unnatural shade of purple.
I hear Luke swear under his breath. He rushes in, and then he’s throwing holy water at Tom, and Tom is screaming at him in a language I can’t understand. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before.
There is, of course, nothing I can do.
I can only stand there and wait for something to happen, as I watch Tom look like he’s slowly withering away.
He looks so frail, like he’s about to snap at any moment. I can’t think of how scary this is because it’s mostly just concerning—yes, he might be in the air, but this boy is in mortal peril.
We need to save him.
We need to do something right now to stop him from dying.
He seems to know exactly what I’m thinking because his body turns slightly as he sets his gaze on me, his upper lip curling in an angry snarl.
Even though he looks extremely vulnerable, this gesture is aggressive. My hand immediately goes to my neck, to where he tried to hurt me. He’s looking right at me and then he stops looking, because his irises roll to the back of his head and his eyes go completely white. I can see the little blood vessels bursting in them.
This seems like it has to take a considerable amount of effort. He looks like he’s in pain.
There are choking sounds coming from the back of his throat, and I can hear the guys saying something, but all I can focus on is Tom.
I take a step toward him, but someone’s arm—Misha’s, I think—is stopping me, a barrier appearing in front of me as I try my best to move past him and toward the kid.
But even if there wasn’t a barrier in place, I wouldn’t be able to move.