The little tag lying limp off the side of the Styrofoam cup on Mom’s tray next to me is not the same as the one that smelled like blueberries and went down like freedom.
Even the consoling shoulder pats I got from my aunt stung like all the blood rushing to an awakening limb instead of the fluttering peace I feel when it’s Tristen that touches me.
My eyes start to burn.
If he comes back … I’m going to hug him until he asks me to stop.
This time, I’ll listen. I won’t disappear into my head and let the demon control me. I can fight it. For him, I think I can fight it.
I hope.
The flecked pattern on the floor blurs.
I don’t know what I’ll do if he doesn’t.
I’ve never … missed someone other than the person my mother used to be. When all the things started happening and she changed, I missed her. Who she’d been before then. I used to beg her, for what I can’t remember, but I did. I used to wish on candles even though they were on the TV instead of in front of me, that she’d wake up and be back to normal.
That she’d love me like she used to. Before I told her what happened in the shower when she was asleep or at work.
I remember exactly what I’d told her so vividly that they’ll put it on my tombstone.
Too bad she’ll be too dead to see it. To believe it … protect me from it like a mother should.
To do something about it.
“Emmett?”
My spine snaps straight, my gaze crashing with my aunt’s from across the room.
“Yeah?” I ask and it cracks from lack of use.
“I want … I want to release her. To send her home. No one would want this.” She gestures around the room, her voice thick. “There’s a chance, it’s tiny, so I don’t want to hope … but there’s a new medicine that I think could help her. She won’t be able to do it herself, not unless it starts working.”
The tightness in my jaw gets even tighter.
“So, you want me to take care of her.”
Bobbie nods. “I just can’t do it here. We need to get her home.”
What choice do I have? Keep her, and myself here, until one of us ends up in the basement where they keep the rest of the dead people?
I hate her.
Hate her for ruining everything, but especially for what she ruined in me.
But the utterly hopeful tears building in my aunt’s eyes twinges something inside me until I’m nearly nauseous.
Tristen would try, wouldn’t he?
“O-okay.”
The breath that leaves her is audible. “Okay.Okay. The boys are still on, so I’m going to call Tristen for transport.”
My chest lights up before I stamp it down quickly.
I don’t even register the knock until that sliver of light gets wider than what my aunt left, then blacks out completely.
“My ears were burning.”
