Dark Secrets [COMPLETED]

Chapter 19: Vindicated

I ran down the dark, cramped tunnel as fast as my legs would carry me. I didn't dare stop or turn around, for fear of what—or rather, who—would be pursuing me.

Something was wrong with Bobby. Deeply wrong. He'd always been an aloof man—that was part of the dark charisma that drew me to him, truthfully—but something in him was different now. The things I had seen in that chamber—what I now knew his motivations had been for his own daughter, Meredith—showed me that the subdued man I'd fallen in love with was gone.

All that remained was a madman. A bloodthirsty beast intent on adding me to his collection of carcasses.

Hands grabbed me by my shoulders and slammed me against the wall. The shock knocked my screams out of me, and I couldn't speak. I fell onto my back and saw the gleaming eyes of my killer. He raised the knife's blade above me.

At that moment, my voice came back to me, and I screamed.

~

I awoke with a start. Blinking away the nightmare, I remembered that I was in Dad's living room, sleeping on the couch, which he'd informed me after dinner was a pull-out. I let out a heavy sigh and flopped back down on my pillow. It was like Kendrick House had left a mark on me that followed me wherever I went. Would the visions ever end?

I couldn't go back to sleep yet, even though I was still tired. Instead, I got up and went to the bathroom. It was a tiny space between Dad's room and the front closet. I washed my hands and dabbed some cold water on my face. I closed my eyes and sighed.

When I opened them again, there was a woman standing behind me in the mirror. I let out a loud gasp and spun around, but there was nobody there. I looked back at the mirror, and she returned.

She glowed silvery-blue like Meredith, and her eyes were blank and hollow. She had shoulder-length brown hair that was in a flip. The dark lipstick she wore was smudged across her face, and her body from the chest and up was covered in weeping lacerations—stab wounds. Her neck was partially sliced, and spectral blood dripped from it like a leaky faucet.

My whisper was loud in the silence. "Virginia?"

She nodded. "It's happening again," she said. "You must return."

Then she vanished.

~

I woke up to the smell of eggs and bacon. I sat up in bed and looked over to see Dad standing in the kitchen, keeping a watchful eye over the frying pan on the stove.

"Good morning! I'm making scrambled eggs. Do you want some?"

I nodded. "Sure. I'm gonna go shower first." I took out some clothes and toiletries from my suitcase and went to the bathroom. When I was finished showering and getting dressed, the food was done. Dad put the eggs and bacon onto two plates and set them on the little round kitchen table. We sat down across from each other and ate.

It had been over a week since I'd come to stay with Dad. I'd made a practice of sleeping on the pull-out couch as my new bed, and folding it back into the sitting area it was supposed to be after I'd woken up for the day.

"How was your sleep?" Dad asked.

"It was fine," I replied after I swallowed my bite of eggs. "I only woke up once to go to the bathroom, but it was normal otherwise."

It had also been over a week since my vision of Virginia, and I was trying not to think about it. In fact, I'd taken to pretending it never happened—that ghosts weren't real and witnessing someone's untimely end in my dreams wasn't a sign that the hauntings at Kendrick House were plaguing me wherever I went.