CHAPTER 10
GUILTY
Without thinking about it, I pull her inside and shut the door.
"What're you doing here?" I manage to choke out though my throat feels constricted.
She still gawks at me in perplexity.
"I-I don't know," she stutters. "I was told to come here, but I didn't know..."
I shake my head, refusing to believe her words; I must be hallucinating right now, I know I must be.
"No, no. You're dead, I saw them carry you're dead body into the ambulance. I saw them..." I trail off, flinching at the memory of seeing her on the cot and not being able to do anything about it.
Kayden shakes her head.
"I'm not dead, Laine. I'm here. I'm not dead. I'm...I'm here," she repeats in sluggish, rhythmic recurrences.
"Impossible," I say with tears in my eyes. "That's impossible. You are dead. You are dead! You are not alive! I saw them hauling your dead body! God, I must be going crazy! How much more do I need to suffer?"
She disagrees with a quick shake of her head, but it also looks as if she's trying to clear her thoughts.
"I remember seeing you," she says with certainty and my forehead wrinkles.
"How can you see me? You are dead! You were not alive at the time I showed up!"
Kayden shakes her head again.
"Why am I here?" she questions quietly, I think mostly to herself. "Why was I brought to your house?"
She looks up and gazes into my eyes and that's when something vitally important hits me.
"Your eyes are violet," I whisper, too low for ordinary ears to hear, but she nods her head in agreement.
I hear a car door close and I hiss.
"That's my mom," I whisper in horror. Whether this is all a fabrication of my imagination, which I'm certain it is, or an unimaginable reality, I won't be able to concentrate with this figment of Kayden lurking beside me. "Go to my room," I tell her. "It's the last door on the left on the second floor. I'll be up as soon as I can. Go! Hurry!"
She rushes up the stairs with inhuman speed and I sprint into the living room, snatch a book from the bookshelf, and jump on the couch. Lorraine enters the house, shivering and squealing with exaggerated animation and she hangs up her coat.
"Hi, Elaina," Lorraine calls.
I turn over my shoulder.
"Hi," I call back and my voice sounds weird, even to me.
"What're you doing here, sitting in the dark?" Lorraine asks from the archway of the living room.
"I was just reading," I say slowly, realizing how idiotic I must sound since it is obviously too dark in the living room to be reading.
"Are you alright, Laine?" Lorraine asks, slightly dubious. "You don't sound like yourself."
I laugh in an off-hand tone.
YOU ARE READING
The Cycle
HorrorEverything in sixteen-year-old Laine Caverly's life isn't as dreadful as it seems. She's fatally ill, incredibly sociably awkward, and her parents question her status as a teenager. Still, she's normal. But once Laine's best friend is found dead in...
