Suddenly, I’m standing at the edge of the parking lot in front of Lucky’s Diner. What am I doing here? Was I supposed to pick up Silver?
A dim, flickering light comes from a single pole. The frail beams only claw their way out a short distance beforehitting a wall of blackness. The diner’s barely visible in the gloom and everything about it feels wrong. Light and life should glow in the windows. It should be full of laughter, conversation and warmth. Instead, the building squats there dark and silent, the windows only black mirrors that reflect nothing.
My skin prickles, and I turn in a circle to look around me. Is Silver here? Is she in danger? Is that what I’m doing here? Every thought feels like a herculean effort, like I’m pulling them through syrup, and they keep slipping out of my grasp.
My foot moves forward to take a step but I’m not the one controlling it, and gravel crunches loudly under my boots. The sound is distorted, as if warped by water.
My heart starts to pound, and I try to turn around to go to the diner. Silver must be in there. My body doesn’t listen to my commands and points me toward the edge of the parking lot where something waits. I can’t see it yet, but the hair stands up on my nape.
One step is followed by another, and another, slow but steady, and completely out of my control. Every instinct I have screams at me to stop, but my legs move anyway, slogging through air that feels like mud.
A car comes into view. It’s parked by the edge of the lot, half hidden in shadows. Fear has gripped me from the moment I couldn’t control my body, but it isn’t until I get close enough to recognize the car that my knees nearly buckle.
No.
My breath catches sharp and painful in my ribs. The carlooks just like it did in the pictures. The same rusted bumpers and shitty paint job full of scratches. Joss’s car.
I’m desperate to stop moving toward it, to have a second to think when it feels like I’m grabbing at thoughts that pop like soap bubbles, but my feet carry me over to it. A metallic smell hits me first, one I’m far too familiar with, and I try to close my eyes. The pictures were enough. I don’t want to see the car soaked in her blood again.
Closing my eyes doesn’t work. I can still see. My hand closes around the door handle but it won’t open. My stomach twists as I bend down to peer through the window. It’s just blood, and you’ve seen blood before, I try to tell myself. Keep your shit together.
A scream rips across the parking lot, a horrifying sound that raises goosebumps on my skin. It takes me a moment to realize it came from me.
Isla sits naked in the backseat, her body turned slightly toward me. Her eyes are closed and her hair is plastered to her face and shoulders, dark with blood. It covers her, smeared across her chest, stomach, and thighs. It pools beneath her and the seat looks swollen with it.
As I shout her name, her skin begins to turn gray, and dark patches of decomposition bloom. She’s dead. Of course she’s dead. You know she’s dead, I remind myself, the confusion sneaking in again. But here she is, right in front of me. I can bury her and finally lay her to rest. For her and for me.
I reach for the door handle and discover my movements are my own again. It’s still locked, and I go to each door, allthe way around the car, but none can be opened. I’ll find something to smash the windows.
Movement in the floorboard catches my eye, and at first, I think it’s my imagination, some trick of the light mixed with my panic. But no, blood has filled the floorboards and is reaching the edge of her seat. It rises up, thick and dark, and spreads out over the whole interior.
I look around for something to smash the windows, but there’s only empty darkness. When I look back at Isla, her eyes suddenly pop open. “Lee.”
The terror is indescribable, but when her eyes lock on mine, alive and aware, all reason flees. “Isla!” My fists bounce off the windows almost comically, like they’re made of rubber. The blood rises faster, filling the car. It’s already lapping at her waist.
She puts her hand against the window. “I loved you.”
A sob tears out of my chest as I yank on the door and slam my fist uselessly against the window again. The climbing blood reaches her chest, and her body rocks slightly, floating. “Unlock the door!” I roar, slapping the glass. “Isla! Unlock the door. I can’t.”
She remains still, only her mouth moving. “I loved you, and you got me killed.”
“No,” I yell, my throat burning from the effort. “Please. Unlock the door.”
I can’t. I can’t do this. Can’t save her. Can’t stand here and watch her drown again.
Her mouth stretches into an insane grin, then her shout fills my head. “I didn’t drown!”
No, of course she didn’t. I know that.
Her words are followed by a deafening maniacal laugh as the blood reaches her throat. My heart hammers so hard it feels like it could tear itself free, and right now, I’d welcome it. Anything but this.
“I loved you!” she screams, her demented laughter following. “I died for loving you, and you love her!”
Silver’s face flashes through my head. Her smile, the way she looks at me when she thinks I’m not paying attention, the connection that’s grown so strong between us.
Isla’s laughter cuts off as if someone hit stop on a recording, and she looks me in the eye. The pure hate I see in her expression makes me recoil as she asks in a flat tone, “Are you happy?”
The blood rises over her lips, filling her mouth but she only stares calmly at me. She asks again as the blood covers her nostrils. “Are you happy?” The words are wavery, filtered through the liquid, and they repeat in my head as something pulls me away from the car.
