Plain: Book 2

Want

With every ounce of strength in my body, and ignoring every scream of my still sore muscles, I grabbed fistfuls of his shirt and hauled him into the tub. Water flooded the bathroom and snapped the bathroom door the rest of the way close.

And the thing about hospital bathroom doors? They're big and seal around the corners. Thus, we were plunged into pitch blackness.

We nearly drowned each other in my attempt to get all of him in the tub and his to get his head above the water. Though on the large side, the tub was still only meant for one person, leaving me squashed to the bottom by full grown man. I had to poke my chin up as high as it would go to breathe.

"Damn it, Mai—"

"I swear I'm not possessed, but she was standing right behind you—"

A knocking, rattling shook through the walls. Beyond the bathroom door I could hear other doors closing and shutting. There was a sharp clang that popped my ears, followed by the hiss of rushing water.

Naru pressed down onto me, keeping his hand to my face. I could feel a sprinkling of water on my face and coughed as some went down my nose.

The rattling went on, growling, moaning, sending waves of water up my nose.

Then all fell into an awful quiet. No sounds of the rest of the team. No banging. Just the fizz of spraying water and my own breathing echoed back to me from the water in my ears.

My head was starting to feel a little funny. Really light.

"Talk to her,"

His voice came from above the water. I squirmed to get my head up to hear him properly, but he wasn't budging an inch. Don't worry, it has occurred to me just how hot and steamy this whole situation would be if it wasn't freaking terrifying.

"And what? Ask her to stop?"

"If that's what you think will work."

I opened my mouth to do just that, but having your head half-drowned in a bath with your mouth full of blood and raw, acidic terror still curdling up in your stomach, my throat collapsed. It replayed over and over in my mind that she had possessed me despite John's, Ayako's, and Takigawa's combined efforts. No spirits should be able to do that. None accept...

Mediums.

"The nine-cuts worked to protect Masako because this ghost was probably taught them in her own life," breathed Naru, his breath filling up my precious space of air. "Or rather, a relation to Masako's juji. She respects those. She fears those. She keeps coming to you because—"

"Because I'm a medium." I finished for him.

"And possibly the only one she can reach," his breath was getting shorter. "But that's not it. She was a patient at this hospital for mental reasons—any mental reasons would screw up with that—"

"And this is suppose to help us how? She's standing right next to us, I can feel her."

And I could. I could almost even see her long, white fingers scuttling over the edge of the bathtub like one of the many spiders. Her hair was what made it so hard to breathe, as she brushed it across my face over and over like a mother's hand. She wanted to touch us so badly. I knew.

Naru said nothing. His heart pounded almost as quickly as mine against my stomach. His hands clenched my sides.

But he was right. Talking to her was the only way out at this point. No one was coming to open the door, and the moment either of us stepped out, she'd have her hands on us. I didn't want to know what happened when she tried to mess with Naru. Perhaps she was getting impatient.

"Let me up a bit."

He did his best too, but I only managed to get my ears above the water. That was okay. That's all I needed. With a deep breath, I stared into the darkness, straining to see what I instinctively knew was there.

"I...whoever you are, standing there, I can't help you if you...possess me."

Hair brushed my face again. The blood in my mouth became vivid and bitter, and I gagged. I heard nothing, felt nothing, only getting the sense that that long hair wafted waves into my face and the ever longing to reach me, to dig into me, to pull me out, make me mortal, make me raw and visceral and a rainbow of organs.

Light. Why'd my head feel so light?

"What do you want?" I asked, speaking at random now. "Please, let us go. We're just trying to help."

I could feel her pressing in even harder. My eyes rolled into the back of my head and I couldn't stop them. I couldn't breathe right. Naru was so heavy, and she...she took up the space with her want...

Small. Small. A whimper now. Just a wall. No breasts. No hips....

A pressure seemed to lift—and the presence of the spirit vanished.

Like a switch, sound came barreling in. Takigawa was banging on the bathroom door.

"Naru! Mai! Answer us!"

John and Ayako's voice joined them just before a gruff "stand aside" from Lin sent the poor door flying into the sink with a shatter of mirror and a flood of light.

They all came in just as I took my first chance to see the compromising position I had put myself in. In attempts to protect my legs from Naru's knees (or more importantly, from Naru's knees busting out my own), I had spread them out. Braced between them, barely fitting the space allotted to him by my own mass and the tub, was Naru, flushed up against me, face mere inches from my face, and arms tucked beneath him with his hands to my waist.

The bathwater still sloshed over the edges.

They all stared. John went deathly pale.

"R-R-really..." he started, but was overwhelmed by catcalls from Takigawa and Ayako.

"I'm sorry for interrupting—"

"Really, Naru, have you no sense of romance?"

"And here I thought all that banging was a ghost—"

Even Lin looked highly embarrassed. He started ushering everyone out.

"No—wait!" I cried. "This isn't what it looks like. There really was a ghost!"

They hesitated, though poor John just about wilted in relief. As though to second that, Naru straightened with all the grace of a man who had simply gotten down to observe one of his prize plants and had finished.

"Lin, has Yasu gotten back with the narrowed list?"

The tall Chinese man nodded, and Naru carefully maneuvered himself from between my legs and the bath. The water level shrunk to a third its original depth, and he stood, all dripping, composed man, his black clothes sticking to him like a second skin.

At about that time, I realized the water was pink, and that my wrist hurt something awful. I moved to sit up and crawl after Naru, but the world started to spin and my hand connected to the bleeding wrist didn't seem to want to work right. I ignored it and used the other, determined to end this mortifying nightmare.

"How's Masako?"

"Fine. She seems worried about Mai, though, she's just over there, actually," said Ayako.

"Good. Have her teach her juji formula to Mai."

Takigawa frowned his displeasure. "What? The warding magic I taught her not enough?"

"Obviously."

My feet tingled with pins and needles as though they had fallen asleep as they spread onto the tiles, readying to lift me. I clutched one hand to the tub, and the other to my chest. I could see the outline of my bra through my pink shirt, which was slowly growing darker with the blood spreading out.

Dizzy...how did my wrist get hurt anyways? And so much blood. Why hadn't I...

"Naru, catch me."

I didn't wait to see if he heard me. The walls had tipped like a blender, swooping the floor beneath me, shoving me down, down, down.

I don't want to exist.