Misguided Ghosts

Chapter Fifty-Four

Fifty-Four – Liam

Everything around me was blurred and distorted, jumping in and out of focus, zooming in and out. Sounds were muffled and yet they rang in my ears.

I felt the coolness of a phone against my ear and my hand, but what I could hear was a voice that shouldn’t sound like it came from whoever’s head I was in. I was too tall for the snatches of the childish voice that I heard. As the cool of the phone slipped from my hand and back into its cradle, the pale hand certainly didn’t match the voice.

Then my gaze turned to a photo that whoever it was had been holding. It was a photo that, if I was there, would turn my insides to ice.

Tay smiled cheekily as she looked over her shoulder, back at the camera.

“I need some help in here!” Ed’s voice tore through my mind.

Nurses swarmed into the room and instantly grabbed my limbs, pinning me down while I thrashed against the restraints they tried to put on me.  I had to get out of bed, get to wherever it was that I had seen so that I could protect Tay. Even though I didn’t really know Tay, she was Emilie, the girl that I had looked after, or tried to, for so long after Ed Tanner had died. She had been so lost without him, and I wasn’t prepared to let Emilie lose her Ed, or Ed Milligan to lose his Tay. They were meant to be together, and there was no doubt about it.

“Ed!” I screamed. “Don’t let Tay answer the phone!”

“What?!”

“Don’t let her answer the phone!”

In Ed’s arms, Clara began to cry, hiding as best as she could in her older brother’s embrace. I saw his arms tighten around her and I stopped thrashing. He was more concerned for his sister than he was for me. Taking advantage of my stillness, the nurses finished tightening the restraints, preventing me from moving.

“Please!” I said, my voice cracking in desperation as the restraints were finalised, preventing any form of movement. “You have to listen to me! It’s Caleb! He’s going to do something bad!”

“That’s why we’ve done this,” A nurse said gently. “We don’t want you to hurt yourself, sweetie,”

“Please stay,” I whispered. “Don’t leave, Ed,”

He licked his lips nervously. “But I have to stop her from answering the phone,”

Ed

Clara clung to me tightly as I hurried out to my car, doing my best not to jostle her. My heart pounded in my chest as I strapped her securely into her seat. Her eyes met mine and she frowned, as if she could sense that something was wrong. But before I could do anything, I had to get her back to my parents, away from being harmed. The only person who should be in any form of danger was going to be me, because I knew that everything that had happened was my fault. I was the reason that Tay had made that stupid agreement with Caleb, where she was somehow controlled by him. Liam was in a ‘safe house’ because of us, and I was done with living with guilt. It had been eating away at me for so long, even if I hadn’t realised it, and I needed to rid myself of it.   

I drove as carefully as I could while keeping one eye on Clara, making sure that nothing had happened to her, while the other eye was trained on the road. I had to do something, and I couldn’t do it while looking after a baby.

I pulled into the driveway just as my parents did, and there was no way they could hide the shock on their faces.

“Ed!” My mother exclaimed. “We were going to come over to you,”