Haunted Rayne

3 | Scars of Confinement

Officer Emma Scott had been one of the first responders on the night of August 7th, 2017. Even now, she still required therapy for all the horror she witnessed on that dreary, autumn night. This only heightened her husband's confusion over her attachment to the troubled girl. Emma knew he hated how often she visited the teenager in the mental hospital, especially around the holidays; it never failed to start a fight. But she couldn't explain it to him. He would never understand.

No husband, no therapist, no priest . . . could ever understand.

It was more than simply stumbling upon the gruesome scene that night—more than prying the young girl's hands from the body she'd overkilled. It was so much more.

"Rayne!" Emma had shouted. "Rayne, stop it! She's gone! She's gone!"

She lifted the girl's blood-splattered face to look her in the eye. Hot tears slipped down the officer's cheeks, but Rayne's eyes were barren—void of emotion and shimmering green. The sight magnified her horror.

Rayne Foster's eyes had always been brown.

"Why, Rayne?" the officer cried. "Why would you do this? Why?"

That night, they booked the girl in the cruiser, and Emma's partner, Jacob Mueller, couldn't hush up about the crime scene. The policewoman, wearing a streak of someone else's blood on her left cheek, tried to tune him out as they rode to the station.

"She's always been a little hooligan, but this? God, how do we tell Jamie?" her partner said, referring to the girl's mother.

Emma had not known how to process the information either.

She wiped her face then, only to realize the bloodied smear was there. When she saw her scarlet-stained fingertips, she stroked her cheek more vehemently, trying to transfer the smudge to her pant leg. She couldn't stop. She rubbed her face then her pants. Face then pants, face then pants, face then—

"You know," her partner began, "I've never seen you cry at a scene before. Do you know them well?"

Emma surrendered, placing her hands on the steering wheel. She didn't answer. In fact, in the moments that followed, Emma soon discovered there would be so much in this life that she would never be able to discuss with anyone again.

On the way to the station, she had decided to lift the rear view mirror and steal a glance at the girl. Rayne was on the left-hand side, clad in fraying denim pants and a gray hoodie. Crimson splatter stained her clothes. The vision could have been unforgettable on its own, however, it was not the memory of Rayne that haunted the officer.

It was the memory of the person sitting beside her.

He was young, perhaps a teenager; his bangs streaked sideways as if sketched with dark ink. Clothed in a black jumpsuit and sporting a steep scar on his cheek, the boy pressed his lips to the girl's ear. Whispering. And he should not have been there.

It all happened so fast; as if sensing the officer's eyes upon him, he turned his ghostly gaze toward her, and Emma slammed the brakes.

"Whoa, what the hell!" Jacob shouted, lurching forward.

Emma ignored him and whirled around to observe the scene, but the boy was already gone. Sitting alone now, the bloodied girl simply stared ahead with little life left in those green-glazed eyes. Her lips moved but no sound left them.

"Someone's back there," Emma finally explained, panting. Her eyes scanned the backseat, the floors, but there was nothing. When she spun back around to look in the rear view again, she screamed.

Eyes. Glowing, icy blue eyes filled the whole of the mirrored rectangle. Fear fell through the officer, crystallizing her veins like frost on a window.