GAISCE (At Our Best, Book 3, Part 2 in Baile Series)

Chapter 11 Close Your Eyes/Turn Off the Light

Isla

Somewhere deep inside me I knew I had been trapped inside my own mind for days. I couldn't put together the exact minutes or even hours I had spent in my mind, as my mind had been broken a long time ago. Each moment I spent in agony, my body being assaulted, by beatings that I knew weren't real, but felt as if they were. My mind registered them as real, each beating reinforced with the release of endorphins the feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness. But it wasn't just the physical blows, it was the verbal abuse that struck me the hardest. She told me that Riley's beatings were my own fault, Eliza's coma was my fault and that because of my birth I had endangered the lives of everybody I had ever known. Including myself.

'Your memories have shown me you like to sing.' Empusa breathed in my ear. 'Close your eyes.' She sang softly, still possessing Charlotte's voice. 'Close your eyes.' Her voice compelled me to do so. 'Close your eyes.'

I opened my eyes at the feeling of standing upright to find myself in the hallway of my old high school in Uisneach.

'You take a drag, I take a sip.' Empusa appeared in Charlotte's body, singing while she leaning against a locker. 'I want your legendary kiss.' She blew a kiss my way. 'You know I got designer taste, and your design's too good to waste.' In an instant Empusa wore a simple black dress, myself wearing the same. 'When the beast comes out at night.' The lights above flickered and a dozen pairs of yellow and red eyes momentarily flashed in the hallway. 'Yeah, it always wants a bite.' Empusa bared her teeth and the lights flickered, April, Alick, Callum and Riley appearing and dancing to the techno music flooding from the speakers near the ceiling, their bodies laced with bite marks. 'And I try, try to resist.' My body was pulled left and right, the Seelie Queen pulling on my right arm and the Unseelie Queen pulling on my left. 'But then the devil always wins, yeah.' Empusa beckoned me to her and I danced flawlessly, in sync with the Demoness. 'Time, time, time, time to close your eyes.' As we danced down the hallway she closed the eyes of each of my friends and family, their bodies falling back into the lockers.

'Close your eyes.' I sang against my will, taking part in sentencing them all to death.

'Time, time, time, time to say goodnight.' Her voice grew louder, along with the music.

'Say goodnight.' I belted, turning around with Empusa as the lights flickered continually.

'I feel it coming on.' Empusa danced with me as the lockers shifted to coffins, opening and allowing my friends and family to stagger out and dance as the undead. 'You've got nowhere to run, there's no way you'll make it out alive.' Empusa shoved me forward and the undead surrounded me, tossing me into a coffin. 'Oh, when it's after dark.' The coffin lid opened and I fell out. 'I'm gonna eat your heart.' Empusa tore my heart out from my chest, the pain feeling all too real. 'Don't try to fight it, just close your eyes.' The undead danced in sweeping movements before falling back into coffins in the pits of an ancient mausoleum.

'Close your eyes.' Empusa and I sang in haunting harmony as we ascended the stairs leading out of the mausoleum. 'Close your eyes, close your eyes, close your eyes, close your eyes, close your eyes.' We slammed the door shut behind us and I caught sight of the plaque attached to the stone mausoleum, which read: Here lie the causalities of the infamous Cursed Child.

'Go on and say, say your last words.' Empusa took my hands in hers as we stood on a cliff overlooking a roiling ocean. I recognised it as the Isle of Skye. 'Sometimes the best things kinda hurt. 'Cause this is real, it's unrehearsed.'

I found myself holding a gun while I sung and danced.

'My final touch, your fatal curse, yeah.' I pulled the trigger, shooting Anna in the middle of her head.